Help lighting a planet/moon in the sky

nabob21

Hello,

I am trying to create a sci-fi scene on an alien world where there is a planet in the sky. I can create the scene simply enough when it is daylight but I would like to light the scene at night with the planet lit in a similar fashion as we see with the moon (full, crescent etc.) Does anyone have any tips on how I might light the planet to get that effect? I am using a starfield HDRI with no sun in it for the night scene.

Thanks to anyone who replies.

nabob21

codex34_f5f1fb6f55

You can get the moon and some planets as a transparent png for such things, you could apply it to a plane and put it where you need.

For lighting I would stick it in the emmisive slot and make it glow but not light the scene, then use a spotlight in front of it to illuminate the scene.

You could make the emmisive add light to the scene on it's own, but you get lots of fireflies using LDR images light things.

You could also get planet models, there are lots of spherical planet textures out there, and daz has a built in planet tool (sphere primitive).

nabob21

Thanks for the suggestions codex34. I will give them a try.

nabob21