Based on junk that I've been thinking about, I decided to try to come up with some cheap way to put planets into the sky.

I came up with a pretty super easy way to do it with splats.  No other software required but C either (coolness!).

I'll build a tutorial and post a scene to the free stuff.

-Kix

Great, theres a video at Youtube using image as backdrops. Splats are a great thing since it point to camera always, but we cant see the preview for it.

Follow me at euQfiz Digital

 Nice!

Well, maybe I'm a little out of date here using the term "splat".  I'm simply using a single square poly with a texture mapped to it.  I'm calling it a "splat".  When I post the tutorial, it will all be straight forward.

-Kix

Great! Looking forward to it

Very effective use of "splats". Looks great.

Well Carrara have splat as primitive objects.

Follow me at euQfiz Digital

so it's like an APS background layer behind the sky, excepting the sky itself has no transparency
after exporting the tiff from carrara, hence one couldn't use those planet images in APS.

This is actually very simple.  It's just a single square poly.  The texture for the poly is an image in the glow channel, the transparency set to 100% (no light interactions when fully transparent).  Then hang it in the sky.

Here's a screen capture of the scene.  You can see my "splats" as dark gray squares.

-Kix

I built the tutorial today.  I also uploaded two source files into the free stuff to support the tutorial.  As soon as they are approved, I'll post that they're available.

-Kix

Thank you Kixum!

You can go and get the files in the freestuff section (that's been approved).  I'm still waiting for the approval on the tutorial.

There are two files.  One for generating the image for the "splat".  The other is just a scene where the splat is hung in the sky.

-Kix

And now the tutorial is approved in the tutorial section.

Go and hang the moons and planets to your hearts desire!

-Kix