More Models + Program shot

Another quick update today, I finished all the 3Ds Max models and here are some screenshots of the renders. Remember and click to expand the images.

The Sun

Mercury

Venus

Mars

Jupiter

Saturn

Uranus

Neptune

And finally, a shot of the program, from the perspective of Jupiter looking towards the Sun. You can see the inner four planets - Mars (top right), Earth and Venus (above the Sun) and Mercury (small dot below the Sun). I've also decided to use a different star image in my skybox, as the last one seemed a little busy and hurt the eyes - I think this one looks better.

Full technical update still to come at the end of the week.

Planet Textures

Whilst researching orbits this week, I also stumbled across some great websites which contain free to use textures of all the planets, and in some cases a few moons also. These resources will be incredibly useful for the planets aesthetics when it comes to modelling the planets in 3Ds Max. I've published this as a seperate blog so it's easier to find when the time comes for me to do the modelling.

http://planetpixelemporium.com/ - texture maps for all the planets and some moons, 1k versions for free. Also contains some tutorials.

http://www.mmedia.is/~bjj/planetary_maps.html - lots of texture maps, plus detailed information about each map.

http://maps.jpl.nasa.gov/ - database of texture maps, including some of high quality available for free.