Drawing a planet

[Chadtech]

Im working on a space ship game (http://www.chadtech.us/elm-prac-7 , controls are the keys e, s, c, u, k, n, and space). I drew up this planet just to have a video game asset to play around with. I dont think I am close to being finished with the drawing, but I am not sure how to proceed. Right now its just two colors representing landmasses and oceans. I figure I need to start drawing clouds and surface features, but it sounds pretty daunting. Any advice on how to proceed?



an in-game shot

[Chadtech]

Here is my natural inclination of how to add surface features. Im pretty sure this isnt going to work tho.

[eishiya]

If you're going to have terrain detail at all, you should think about the atmosphere first. No atmosphere is transparent. Earth's atmosphere is thin and transparent enough that you can see terrain through it, but a lot of detail is lost, and there are clouds to complicate matters. On Venus, it's always cloudy and though there is a rocky surface, you can't see it from space.

The atmosphere will reduce the amount of detail you can see to the major, large features. Deserts, wooded areas, snowy areas, etc will all show up, mostly melding softly into each other, even though in reality the transitions are closer to being stippled, the alternations don't show up at that scale. Dithering is appropriate to use since it's also basically stippling that looks like a smooth transition. Vertical features are usually too small relative to the size of the planet to be visible, so it's all about large-scale horizontal features. Even Mars's Valles Marineris has very little discernible depth when seen from space.

Think about the scale. How big does a feature have to be to be 1px wide? You drew beaches on some of the shores, but if that's an earth-line planet, then that means 1px of beach is over 100miles wide!

By the way, your game looks very dark. I have to squint to make out the details. Even the lander is hard to make out. Space, because there's no atmosphere getting in the way, can actually be quite bright, especially near planets that are close enough to stars to have what looks like liquid water.

[Chadtech]

Thanks eishiya.

I turned up the contrast on all my assets



I think that was for the best.

I understanding what you mean by one pixel being 100 miles. It doesnt seem possible to draw earth like features on a square 100 mile resolution. So am I drawing biomes, rather than surface features? In that case, do I just need a huge color palette and just sorta splotch them onto the surface?

[eishiya]

Higher contrast looks nice!

Yeah, biomes rather than features is a good way to think about it. You don't necessarily need a huge palette, though. For Earth you could easily get away with a couple of greens for different woodlands, and a few warm browns for sandy and rocky deserts and steppes, and a couple of cool browns for snowy mountainous areas. True-colour space photos (e.g. Earth as seen from the ISS) are really your best bet to see what you need! Water can generally be quite a solid dark blue (the shallow parts that would be a light blue tend to be small enough to be invisible at this scale), though eventually you'll probably want sunglint and/or an atmosphere, which will require some lighter blues.

[Chadtech]

Cool I like that better. More colors, and less contrast between them.

EDIT: another update

[Chadtech]

Im starting to feel like I can draw clouds.

[Chadtech]

Its coming along. This is taking forever tho.

[MysteryMeat]

well you're doin pretty good man, keep at it

[Chadtech]

Here is where I am at.



Not sure about that river. I think its all cloud drawing from here on out.

[heyguy]

That's looking exceptionally nice in my opinion. Keep up the great work! I like the river! Can you see it from space like that though? Looks like you've got a lot to go.

Are you planning on adding some city lights in the dark side of the Earth?

[MysteryMeat]

surprised this hasn't been featured yet, it's a pretty good progress thread.

[Chadtech]

Cool I think I am done-ish.



Heres what it looks like in game. I darkened the atmosphere on the dark side of the planet from the image above.



EDIT / REPLY

Oh sorry guys, I didnt see your replies.

Re the river I was working off this image of the Amazon:  https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9c/ff/1b/9cff1b6aa6a3bfc3ee74fa7e40cc0bc2.jpg . So maybe its realistic that you could see it from space, but maybe not from the altitude of my drawings perspective. In the game the river isnt visible unfortunately. The planet image gets shrunk and rotated, which washes out the contrast.

[Chadtech]

Kinda related to making the planet, I made some progress on the game its a part of.

[MysteryMeat]

lookin good. I'd add some scanlines to it to give it that classic "this is a computer display" look, or alternatively some blueshift if you want to diverge from that a bit.
Judging from the fontchoice there though seems like you're going for the Alien-style retrofuture look, which in my opinion is the best and only look one should strive for

[Chadtech]

Thansk MysteryMeat.

Scanlines! Thats a good idea. Maybe Ill throw an image over the whole screen thats just an alternation between gray and transparent horizontal lines.

The font is just my personal font I use for everything. I agree tho, the Alien look is the only correct one.

btw the game in its current state, is available at : http://www.chadtech.us/elm-prac-9 (its an HTML game).

Its been interesting dealing with blur and distortion. Usually I insist on aliased un-smoothed pixel art (right, how could you not?). I normally have to manually turn off HTMLs anti aliasing, but I left it on for the font since I think it adds to the old-computer feel (you can tell the font is pixelated by design, but its bleeding through like its a CRT screen).

Separately from the font, almost all the image assets are either stretched or rotated, which blurs them. That really wasnt my intention, and Im surprised by how nice this affect has been. Its exactly what I thought would have been unideal.

[Bluestar55]

I see you added clouds but also think, does the planet have a moon or moons, and it might need a small sign of citys if it is already colonized