Nebulae in Progress

Do you mind posting the filter so we can have a look at it? We might be able to help you, or at least all benefit from it.

Betis: I feel its good enough so I just uploaded the filter onto the library. Check it out after a while

Currently its got issues with seamlessness because of the blueish gradient I applied. But otherwise everything works fairly well. The other problem is that its a bit slow, and I certainly think some components can be reduced. (Although I find necessity in certain elements because they do something specific.)

Very nice, Skybase.

That's sweet, nice coloring there tigerAspect

An update. Much better now, I switched over to a variant on the technique CorvusCroax used on his example, it gives much better defined colors. I'd have liked to not use a High Pass on the Cells noise, but it's the only way I know of to get rid of those annoying flat-white areas.
Oh yeah, has anyone else discovered that you can isolate the edges of a Pyramids noise by using High Pass and a Tone Curve? That's how I'm doing the "flare" stars. Anyways, pic:

Sure, no problem.
The only issue (highlighted in red) is where 2 pyramids are squooshed together, the "Lines" are cut off.

thanks, tiger. got it going just fine.

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tigerAspect wrote: Oh yeah, has anyone else discovered that you can isolate the edges of a Pyramids noise by using High Pass and a Tone Curve? That's how I'm doing the "flare" stars. Anyways, pic:

OK, that's a brilliant solution! Nice work!

I wonder if you couldn't use a tone curve on the remaining black bits, to give your big stars more of a subtle glow... (In the high pass step, have the black end go up to, say, 20%, gray goes to nothing, and then white is as you have it.)

Another Update:
It's undergone 3 major revisions since the last update, the latest being a change to the color selection, I moved to a Difference Mask approach to getting the 2 color gradients mixing based on a Lighten blend, I'll probably post it as a snippet unless this technique has already been done to death.

Pros: Insane cusomizability, good sense of depth.
Cons: Large number of controls, or there will be when it's done.
Layer splitting with a Tone Curve doesn't handle tone modifications to the base noise profile very well.
Slow as all get out.

Seriously, it's pretty darn slow right now, around 6 minutes to render on my dual-core 3Ghz Mac. Actually, is that terrible? Are there guidelines anywhere?

Also, I'm welcoming suggestions for improvements.

Wow!!! That last one is spectacular!!!

Hey Tiger Aspect,

Were you going to submit that or post it? I'd love to see it in action.

-CCX

You know... sometimes just doing simple things can have effective, natural results.

Hey, thanks. Here's a preview of the final(?) version:

This is more a generic space generator than a NebuGen, but I got back into space stuff. Give some feedback!

Galaxy Explorer.ffxml

Hm... well so far as much as this forum post goes, I think I want to make a couple statements about making such filters.

First off I think some of the filters have way too many stars. Even if the number of stars are controllable, I still feel there is some unnatural balance regarding the composition. Casually, I wouldn't care, but ascetically speaking, it's distracting and makes the filter hard to use.

Colors are important too! Everytime I hit the next variation button I quite expect a similar yet different composition of color. It's nice when you know what your colors will come out to be. Otherwise harmony of these colors is important. Not that I'm saying "stick strictly to the color scheme" but it's better to come up with a color palette first or least later as the filter gets built. For example, nebulas have a specific color range which makes them look beautiful (even if they were photographed with colorization filters. They still tend to have a harmonious range of colors.)

I'm assuming most people are aware of such things. It's just that I felt I needed to put it out somewhere before another crazy (over-kill) filter pops somewhere.

That was some heavy criticism, but things just had to be said.

Hey now, yer making my sad little *asteroid* filter look, well, sad ha-ha

jffe

betis, very cool! love the planet. you going to publish that one?

Very good image! You even got realistic clouds. Could you post a close-up of the planet?

Alright Sjeiti, there's the closeup... ish.

I think I was messing with the clouds too much and messed them up though...

I'll post the filter in-case you guys want to help.

Full Picture (768x768)

Galaxy Explorer.ffxml

Quite possibly so...

Yes thanks guys for your support, I didn't think I would get such generous compliments from such veteran forgers!

I'll fix the clouds, add Planet controls, and do some other generic development stuff.

See ya in a few hours

Actually I'm not sure which direction to take this, More towards space, or more planet-oriented. Opinions?

Very true, but what if an EP arises from a combined one?

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Very true, but what if an EP arises from a combined one?

my experience says that EP's dont come to wildly variable filters. i shld know, some of mine vary so much in effect that even i dont know how to use them keep it narrow and focused seems to be the right path for EP's.

moons for the planets might be a nice touch.