Solar System Wallpaper!

[smartboyathome]

Yay! *Another* new wallpaper! I guess I like making them! :lolflag:
Tell me what you think!

http://smartboy.salocinlinux.org/db/Wallpapers/solarsystem-thumb.png (http://smartboy.salocinlinux.org/db/Wallpapers/solarsystem.png)

EDIT: Just looked at it at full size and need to correct something. Will correct this post with new version soon.

EDIT2: New version up.

[kdarkentity]

Are you making these entirely from scratch? and what are you using to do it?

[smartboyathome]

Yep, I am making these entirely from scratch using GIMP.

[Ripfox]

Pretty nice...

[avik]

Really nice. It's not my style (I don't look at my desktop very much, so there's no need for me to use a great wallpaper like yours), but it's a great piece of art.

[smartboyathome]

Thank you both. :)

[kdarkentity]

How long did it take you to make this one?

[smartboyathome]

A couple hours.

[Muscar]

Awesome, no way I could thought that would have been made in gimp

[smartboyathome]

Thank you. I did it by compiling some tutorials, a plugin, and some know-how.

[gubemton]

http://www.shareapic.net/preview2/004837678.jpg (http://www.shareapic.net/content.php?id=4837678&owner=Wolfmight)http://www.shareapic.net/preview2/004837682.jpg (http://www.shareapic.net/content.php?id=4837682&owner=Wolfmight)http://www.shareapic.net/preview2/004836483.jpg (http://www.shareapic.net/content.php?id=4836483&owner=Wolfmight)http://www.shareapic.net/preview2/004836986.jpg (http://www.shareapic.net/content.php?id=4836986&owner=Wolfmight)

Check these out :guitar:

[adityakavoor]

smartboyathome is Really Smart :)

[smartboyathome]

smartboyathome is Really Smart :)

Why thank you. :)

[Samhain13]

Nice work. :)

[adityakavoor]

Why thank you. :)

I liked your work.
Just wondering how such a thing could be GIMPed in 2 hrs :confused:

[Samhain13]

Can I take a guess? Three circular masks, a flare, and a speckled brush-- all on a black background. A couple of hours would be enough for our friend. :D

[smartboyathome]

I liked your work.
Just wondering how such a thing could be GIMPed in 2 hrs :confused:

I just did the star tutorial stated above (which actually went pretty quick for me), and did the sun/planets really quickly as well.

Can I take a guess? Three circular masks, a flare, and a speckled brush-- all on a black background. A couple of hours would be enough for our friend. :D

See the tutorials posted above.

EDIT: Need to post tutorials again.

[adityakavoor]

Can you link me to the tutorial ?

[smartboyathome]

Sure, go here (http://home.tele2.fr/auroreblender/gimp/planet_en.html) for how to make planets (an alternate tutorial can be found here (http://www.gimptalk.com/forum/topic/Quick-Gimp-Planet-Creation-Tutorial-v2-20283-1.html)). Go here (http://www.gimpusers.com/tutorials/starfield-tutorial.html) for how to make starfields.

[Samhain13]

Immitation is the best compliment, they say. Here's my compliment then. :D
Though it's missing one planet and a bit of texture.

[adityakavoor]

good one too. - Samhain13

[smartboyathome]

Immitation is the best compliment, they say. Here's my compliment then. :D
Though it's missing one planet and a bit of texture.

Nice job! I like the atmosphere that seems to flow around the planets. :)

[Samhain13]

Nice job! I like the atmosphere that seems to flow around the planets. :)

Checked out the tutorials too, the person who wrote them seem to have taken an easier route. Now composing another images based on those methods. By the way, thanks for posting the links. They make for good exercise! :D

[edit]
Followed the tutorials, and here's what I have. Great guides you have there, thanks again for sharing.

[smartboyathome]

Checked out the tutorials too, the person who wrote them seem to have taken an easier route. Now composing another images based on those methods. By the way, thanks for posting the links. They make for good exercise! :D

[edit]
Followed the tutorials, and here's what I have. Great guides you have there, thanks again for sharing.

Cool! Where did you get the textures?

[Samhain13]

I have a picture of gravel. Selected a perfect square section, crop to selection and applied Filters > Animation > Spinning Globe. Tick "Work On Copy". This gave me a new image with multiple layers all cut out as circles with the texture stretched to make a sphere. From there, you can choose the nicest texture to use for your planet/s.

The Animation filter, I believe, comes with the GIMP Animation Package (gimp-gap), in case you don't have it yet.

[smartboyathome]

Try to apply a lens to that instead of using the animation package. I find that it creates less layers, and in my opinion makes it look better.

[Samhain13]

I did try the lens, but found it hard to control. And I appreciated having multiple choices of texture that came from a single image source. That way, if I decided to make the planets look different, I would have been able to use those textures. :)

[nikoPSK]

w00t, thanks start man! :popcorn:

[whiteraven]

Lots of fine work shown in the previous posts!

Here's another concept where the starfield more closely resembles the night sky viewed with the naked eye rather than the "enhanced telescope" style. The starfield is made using only 3 layers, background, small stars and the larger "twinkling" stars. Only three filters are needed, Noise(Scatter HSV), Threshold, and Levels. The planet was rendered in a few seconds using the Sphere Designer plugin. The backliight Ubuntu is another multi-layer technique.

Probably not the most eye catching image, but demonstrates another way to approach different style starfields using techniques applicable to other image types.

[smartboyathome]

Nice job, whiteraven! I like it! It is now my wallpaper! :D

[whiteraven]

Thank you, though I thought it would be too simple straight out of the box. Would you like the XCF so you can enhance it or play around? I also have the XCF for the backlight too. It contains instructions in the form of layer naming.

[smartboyathome]

Sure! I will probably just switch around the ubuntu and its backlight.

[whiteraven]

Here ya go:

-> Starfield XCF (http://www.twoheartsranch.com/tmp/ubuntu_backlight.xcf)

-> Backlight tut XCF attached:

[smartboyathome]

Thanks, I will look at them. I may even make an animated enlightenment wallpaper for it. :)

EDIT: Can't open svg, I think it is corrupt.

EDIT2: NVM, opera's acting up again :-\

[whiteraven]

EDIT: Can't open svg, I think it is corrupt.

EDIT2: NVM, opera's acting up again :-\

Not sure I completely understand, but both downloads work fine for me - Firefox 2.0.0.11

[smartboyathome]

Well, Opera has been renaming the attachments on Ubuntu forums lately with different extentions. That is what happened here (renamed it as tar.svg instead of tar.gz).

[nikoPSK]

Here ya go:

-> Starfield XCF (http://www.twoheartsranch.com/tmp/ubuntu_backlight.xcf)

-> Backlight tut XCF attached:

very nice. (It might already be posted but...) could you point me to the link to the tut?

thanks,
nikoPSK

[whiteraven]

@nikoPSK: there are no tuts in the strict sense of the word. The starfield XCF file was made using the filters mentioned a post #29 - black background, small stars with the Scatter HSV filter in a second layer, larger stars made with the Threshold and Levels filters in the third layer. Both the second and third layers are set to Lighten Only. Twinkles added to the larger stars layer using the diagonal star brush. That's all there is to it. Experiment with the filter settings to change the density of the starfield.

The backlight tutorial is the XCF file itself. Look at the layer names and you will see what I mean - something I've had for quite a while, and don't remember where I got the file.

Hope this helps you! Let me know...

[smartboyathome]

By the way, whiteraven, here is my mod of your wallpaper (to me it looks like a 3D crystal :)).

[whiteraven]

Nice! Like the light source is reversed, never thought of doing it like that. Might want to reverse the planet too since the light appears to illuminate the top letters. Dunno, maybe my perspective is a bit off?

Also, here is a link to a simple, but effective way to make clouds, for stellar or sky scenes. If for stellar use, omit the gradient, color the clouds if you wish, and set the layer to Lighten only
-> WinGimp sky tut (http://www.wingimp.org/tutorial/sky/sky.html)

[smartboyathome]

I thought it made it look like the light is being bounced off of the words and onto the planet. I will reverse it for anyone else who wants it. :)

[nikoPSK]

@nikoPSK: there are no tuts in the strict sense of the word. The starfield XCF file was made using the filters mentioned a post #29 - black background, small stars with the Scatter HSV filter in a second layer, larger stars made with the Threshold and Levels filters in the third layer. Both the second and third layers are set to Lighten Only. Twinkles added to the larger stars layer using the diagonal star brush. That's all there is to it. Experiment with the filter settings to change the density of the starfield.

The backlight tutorial is the XCF file itself. Look at the layer names and you will see what I mean - something I've had for quite a while, and don't remember where I got the file.

Hope this helps you! Let me know...

helps very much man! Thanks, I'm too lazy now to make it but when I do i'll inform you! :p

[omega_user]

Oh, if anyone wants to see a few cool wallpapers, a member here Jan Quark showed me fractalart.se (http://fractalart.se), which has some pretty cool ones

[nikoPSK]

Oh, if anyone wants to see a few cool wallpapers, a member here Jan Quark showed me fractalart.se (http://fractalart.se), which has some pretty cool ones

thanks for the link. Going to browse around. Ill post up a link here when I find one I like and put it on the desktops thread. :popcorn: