Approaching Saturn. by fireangel
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No AI - This artwork was created entirely by hand or with traditional digital tools.
Description
This is just a test before I get ready to render an animation of this little ship using its instruments to gather data from Saturn. Years ago I thought it would be a good idea to build a model of Saturn in Blender, complete with rings specially UV-Mapped to take a long thin texture, perhaps just one pixel high, and wrap it around the entire ring system. Well I got that to work. The data on the rings that I wanted was hard to come by, but eventually I found some on a NASA web site. This required a lot of processing, except for the colour data which was easily found. I used a NASA map for Saturn, then some of their data to make a transparency map, a reflectivity map and a colour map for the rings.
I will make this available as an .obj file eventually, with texture maps for both the rings and Saturn itself. At the moment I am still working on improving the accuracy.

Comments (5)
Really excellent work on this, my friend! NASA has so much cool stuff... I really need to spend a couple days re-exploring - it's been too long.
NASA gives away a lot, including 3D models of many of their spacecraft and experimental vehicles. It is well worth checking the current state of their give-aways at least once a year or every six months if you do a lot of space renders.
The rings look so good! I love the transparency of the inner ring.
Good test, beautiful image
Oh.My.
Nicely done. Very cool composition!