Star sphere

[Marcel2586]

Star sphere

This object exist of 231800 polygons and 206600 points
The stars have individual sizes to have variations in star sizes.
It is scaled to a radius of 400 meters.

Warning This is not modeled after the real sky. So you will not find the big dipper Warning

To use use it, Import it as obj.
In Reality texture editor go to the tab Modifiers.
Click on the checkbox Light emission and give the Light emission texture a light gray color (R240, G240, B240).
Scale the stars just out of your scene, so there are no stars in front of objects but behind the objects.
This can be used for night scenes or space scenes.

Download here!
http://www.realitypluginart.com/Download/Stars.zip

In Luxrender you can use Glare to get some lens effects.

Glare
Amount: 0.005
Threshold: 0.095
Blades: 3
Radius: 0.005

Happy rendering.

Ps.
This is public domain, use it as you see fit.

[pciccone]

Fantastic, ingenious prop, Marcel. Thank you for your generosity.

[Marcel2586]

Thank you mister Ciccone. And no problem at all, love to see other people use it with there own creations.
But i have a question, to get different light intensity with the stars, could a band texture type help in the emitter?
Or do you have another trick in your sleeve.

[Kimberly58]

Thank you so much, Marcel! I an anxious to this out!!

[Marcel2586]

Thank you Kimberly.

[sigstan]

This object exist of 231800 polygons and 206600 points
The stars have individual sizes to have variations in star sizes.
It is scaled to a radius of 400 meters.

Thanks, Marcel.

As usual really interesting stuff!

But it seems to be a lot of geometry and light sources and I'm wondering if an IBL would not be a better choice for implementation of a star sky? Not sure how to go about that, but maybe Lee has some ideas.

[fuzzy70]

I will have a look into creating a Star Field IBL, you can always use a meshlight with a longer snoot to simulate moon light with it.

Regards

Lee

[Marcel2586]

That sounds great Fuzzy.
And thanks Sigstan, it really renders fast, the evening scene was rendered in 10 minutes without acceleration.
I used a sunlight and turned the sun and sky to about 0.005

[sigstan]

That sounds great Fuzzy.
And thanks Sigstan, it really renders fast, the evening scene was rendered in 10 minutes without acceleration.
I used a sunlight and turned the sun and sky to about 0.005

That is indeed faster than I would have thought. Possibly much of the geometry is being ignored by Luxrender being outside of the camera view and not having any side effects like reflections.

In general it is best to achieve effects with a minimum of geometry. In that respect IBL makes good sense for a starfield, because IBL is "lighting" and performance impact would be minimal. Using IBL would however prevent sun/sky from being used, so main lighting would have to be mesh lights or similar.

For the moon and planets I think geometry is better, since it provides a level of detail and realism that would be hard to achieve using textures.

[sigstan]

That sounds great Fuzzy.
And thanks Sigstan, it really renders fast, the evening scene was rendered in 10 minutes without acceleration.
I used a sunlight and turned the sun and sky to about 0.005

That is indeed faster than I would have thought. Possibly much of the geometry is being ignored by Luxrender being outside of the camera view and not having any side effects like reflections.

In general it is best to achieve effects with a minimum of geometry. In that respect IBL makes good sense for a starfield, because IBL is "lighting" and performance impact would be minimal. Using IBL would however prevent sun/sky from being used, so main lighting would have to be mesh lights or similar.

For the moon and planets I think geometry is better, since it provides a level of detail and realism that would be hard to achieve using textures at least when the moon/planet is close to the camera. At a great distance it would probably matter less.