Click here to go back to part 1 of this tutorial
The texture is the most important part of the planet, it’s basically what makes the planet look like a planet instead of just a blue ball. So what every planet needs is a planet texture, there are many ways to create a planet texture, but I prefer putting together bits and pieces from several photos until I have a result I like.
I’m going to show you how such a planet texture can be made, by using textures from CGTextures and Image*After.
First of all I need to find some good textures, a good texture looks like it could be a satellite photo of the ground, so a photo of a dog might not be that good, but a photo of snow, rock, sand, concrete walls and rust can be good.
Another thing to keep in mind is that when you create a planet texture you should always use textures that are at least twice the size of your planet, this is because some of the work we do on the textures will make them loose quality, and therefore we need to scale them down afterwards to make them look good again. So in this case where the planet is 600×600, I had to use textures that were at least 1200×1200 in size.
After a quick look around the web I found four textures that I liked.
The following three textures are from Image*After, a website that has both free stock photos and free textures.
Click here to go to Image*After and get that image.
Click here to go to Image*After and get that image.
Click here to go to Image*After and get that image.
This one is from CGTextures, the world’s largest free texture site, I found it in the Soil -> Rough category, they have some pretty amazing textures over at CGTextures, many of which are good for planet creation.
(I used the medium size, 1600×1200)
Click here to go to CGTextures’ main page.
Open all of the textures in Gimp.
Each texture has to be desaturated. Colors->Desaturate.
Also, choose one of the textures as the base texture, this will be the texture that is underneath all the bits and pieces from the other textures. I chose that third texture from Image*After, the one named “b5grounds057”.
The texture will also be our main image, the one we will do all the work on.
Now we need to crop the image so the height and length become the same.
The image is 2048×1536, so let’s make it 1536×1536, grab the Rectangle Select tool and create a selection that measures 1536 length-wise. (and at least 1536 height-wise).
Now click on Image->Crop to Selection. That should give us a square image.
Create a new layer, I named mine “earth rough”.
Now select the Clone tool, set the brush to Circle Fuzzy (19), and the Scale to 10.
Select that image from CGTextures named SoliRough0056_M.
We’re going to set the clone source of the cloning, so hold in Ctrl and click a little left of the center of the image to use that area of the image as a clone source.
Let go of Ctrl if you’re still holding it, now find our base texture again, and select the layer called “earth rough”.
Now let’s paint on that layer, simply hold in your mouse button and move around until you have something like in the image below. Don’t worry if yours isn’t exactly like that, it doesn’t have to be exact.
Now repeat that whole cloning and painting process a couple times.
Set the clone source in different places on the soilrough0056_M image to get some variation. Be aware that the clone source moves around when you paint, so you don’t want to set the clone source too near the edges of the soilrough0056_M image, because then we could accidentally clone the edges, and that won’t look good.
Try to cover most of the image this way, leaving only a few spots here and there where our base texture can shine through. Don’t be afraid to paint over what you already painted, it really doesn’t matter. Try to avoid creating large dark areas or large bright areas.
Basically build up your texture by cloning and painting a lot:
(don’t worry if you can’t get your image to look exactly like mine, it doesn’t have to).
Then clone and paint some more until it looks like this:
Here is the same image with all the other layers invisible and with a black background so you can see more clearly what I did:
Create a new layer, I named mine “cracks”.
Find the image named b17kinkyfriend049, this image is so large that I scaled it down so it matches the size of our other textures better.
To scale just go to Image->Scale image.
I set the size to 1357×1200.
This time we want to copy specific pieces from the image, so we shouldn’t use the Clone tool, but rather the Free Select tool.
So grab the Free Select tool, enable Feather edges and set it to 25.
Then create a selection like shown in the image below:
Now copy that selection, and paste it inside the “cracks” layer. (press Ctrl-C to copy, select our main image and then select the “cracks” layer, press Ctrl-V to paste)
Use the Move tool to position it where it looks good, remember to anchor it afterwards (just click on the anchor in the layer dialog):
Now repeat that process a couple times, copy and paste different areas of the texture to the “cracks” layer.
Here is what my image looks like after some copying and pasting:
Here is the same image with all the other layers invisible and with a black background so you can see more clearly what I did:
Same thing over again, create a new layer and name it “concrete wall”.
Find the image named b2walls034, and copy the parts you like over to the “concrete wall” layer. You can use the Free Select tool or the Clone tool or both, whatever you prefer.
I used the Free Select tool for some parts and the Clone tool for other parts, this is what I ended up with:
Here is the same image with all the other layers invisible so you can see more clearly what I did:
The hardest part is over, now we need to get our texture on the planet.
First, right-click on one of the layers in the Layer Dialog and choose Merge Visible Layers.
Now go to Filters->Light and Shadow->Apply Lens
Select the “Make surroundings transparent” option.
That should give us this result:
You might notice that the texture looks a bit stretched in some places, we’re going to fix this by scaling down the texture. (this is the reason we work in so high resolution).
To scale the image, find Image->Scale Image.
Set the Width and Height to the same as the planet we made in part1, 600×600.
After the texture has been scaled down, press Ctrl-C to copy it.
Now find the planet we worked on in part 1, and create a layer named “texture” right above the “planet base” layer. Now press Ctrl-V and click on the anchor to paste our texture into that layer.
We’re going to add some depth to the texture, so set the layer mode of the “texture” layer to Overlay, and then duplicate that layer.
Select the duplicate layer and rename it to “emboss”.
We’re going to emboss that layer, so find Filters->Distort->Emboss.
Set the Azimuth to 135, and the Depth to 2.
(Azimuth is basically the angle of the light in case you were wondering.)
Now you can control the depth of the planet by adjusting the opacity of that layer.
I want a very subtle effect so I set the opacity of the layer to 25.
Duplicate the “texture” layer, and set the layer mode of the duplicate to grain extract.
We’re going to increase the contrast of that layer a little bit. So find Colors->Brightness and Contrast.
Set the contrast to 15.
Note that when you create your own planets you need to experiment with layer modes and contrast, this is very important since different textures need different layer modes to look good. The layer mode and contrast adjustments we just made will not necessarily work for all kinds of textures.
Let’s add some clouds to this planet.
Duplicate the “texture” layer, rename the duplicate to “clouds”, and move it right underneath the “planet atmosphere” layers.
Set the layer mode to Screen.
Now adjust the brightness and contrast on that layer. Colors->Brightness and Contrast.
First adjust the contrast until the clouds look like clouds, and then control the amount of clouds you want by reducing the brightness.
In this case I set contrast to 90 and brightness to -90.
Now rotate our “clouds” layer 90 degrees. Layer->Transform->Rotate 90 Clockwise.
(or rotate it even more if you want to, always experiment and pick what looks best).
That’s it, our planet is finished:
Head over to part 3 to learn some planet making tips, and a quick look at how to create some other planets.
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Mr Gimpmaster
August 4th, 2010
Awesome tutorial. did EXACTLY what i needed. 10 other “best planet tuts” and not one of the noobs knew how to use the layer masks trick. great insight, and well written. VERY nicely done.
yay
August 4th, 2010
Thanks Gimpmaster, I’m glad you like it
Mr Gimpmaster
August 4th, 2010
[IMG]http://i35.tinypic.com/2h5jhjc.jpg[/IMG]
heres a copy and paste link:
http://i35.tinypic.com/2h5jhjc.jpg
I used a picture of water in place of the default texture. All I did was apply a lens warp to it and then used colorize to adjust it to blue. For the contents I simply found a picture of a mountain and use the free select tool to crop out various areas ad paste them right into the planet drawing and moved them around. This procedure was done just like the texture step, only I put it right into the main planet file. Once I had that accomplished I colorized it to greenish then duplicated the layer and scaled the duplicated layer up by 120% and colorized it to yellowish and moved it behind the main cotenant layer to give it a shore line appearance. Note, if you have more than 1 continent, its best to work with them individually for this purpose. The polar cap at the South Pole was simply a free select of some snowy mountains done just like the continents. U just have to remember to alpha select your base planet layer and invert your selection and delete the parts of the continents that go beyond the planet. I’m still not satisfied with the clouds. Finding a good blend is a bit tough due to the fact that most clouds will make the planet look more hazy than realistic.
Mr Gimpmaster
August 4th, 2010
any tips or ideas on creating a sun? i was thinking something along the lines of using the planet script and just tossing the shadow layer and then maybe painting a layer with the sparks brush and blurring it a bit and overlaying that onto the planet outline. that’s about the only thing i can think of off the top of my head.
Mr Gimpmaster
August 4th, 2010
http://i38.tinypic.com/dr8t1x.jpg
Here is my go at a sun. I set planet color to yellow and made sure to check add planet glow. Once created I deleted the planet atmosphere and shadow layers and deleted the layer mask on the planet glow layer. The I painted a layer with the sparks brush and blurred it a bit. Then I just duplicated the planet glow layer 2 times and the sparks layer 2 times and topped it off with an image of fire as an overlay with a scaled down opacity. Would love your feed back on it.
cheatsguy777
August 13th, 2010
Thanks for this great tutorial. I used the tutorial and tested some tecniques with multiple stars and shadows. I have been pretty sucessful so far! thanks for the great tutorial!
Phil
August 14th, 2010
This is an awesome tutorial. I am now making realistic space shots of planets. I had a friend who liked a red planet I made but asked that I add some surface lava cracks to the shaded part of the planet. What worked out really well for me, was to download some crack brushes and then scale them down to the right size and randomly paint the lower part with a center point to give the volcano effect. Then I use the IWARP filter and made it look like the cracks were following the surface of the planet. With a little tweaking and some duplicate layers set to overlay and burn it worked out great. Now my cool red planet looks like it might just break apart in a few years.
John Foster
August 16th, 2010
I will have to do this tutorial ten times to really get it. I did it 4 times before I got it right.I think you did a good job its just I am learning a lot at once.Thanks for the time you put in .
Muhammad Anas
August 22nd, 2010
Very nice tutorial … a bit complex for a beginner like me though…
I think I will have to come back to this tutorial for some steps for first few times I try to make some customized planets, however their was no ambiguity in your written tut. I followed each and every step very carefully and was able to create almost exactly the same thing as you have shown!!!!!
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!
My Outcome of the Ultimate GIMP Planet Tutorial
August 22nd, 2010
[...] few minutes ago, I was doing the Ultimate GIMP Planet Tutorial on mygimptutorial.com. It was a bit complex and time consuming for me because I am a very new and [...]
Dave
August 24th, 2010
Thanks for this great tutorial, now to make a realistic background to match the planets
Planets I have thanks to this tutorial:
http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/8688/myfirstplanet.jpg
http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/7996/planet2a.jpg
Luna
August 29th, 2010
GIMP never made any sense to me, until now
This is a great tutorial, thanks.
drewski58
September 2nd, 2010
Really, really great tutorial! I had a bit of trouble in the first part when trying to copy into the layer mask, but that’s because I hadn’t ever really learned the whole “anchor layer” aspect that well. Now I’m churning out planets in minutes… Thanks guys, this is a tremendous gift and is really appreciated!
-drewski58
drewski58
September 2nd, 2010
Oh, one more thing… Has anyone found any decent GIMP tutorials for making realistic (not stylized) galaxies? I’ve seen some for Photoshop but still haven’t tracked down a good one for GIMP.
http://mail.colonial.net/~hkaiter/astronomyimagesB/spiral-galaxy.jpg
Seems like something like this could be done with GIMP tricks, Any help here would be greatly appreciated…
David M.S.
September 17th, 2010
Awesome Tutorial. I never really used Gimp before. Here are two planets I made with this.
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/2590/myplanet003.png
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/7963/myplanet001.png
Apos
September 20th, 2010
Pretty nice tutorial, with a little practice, I managed to get this:
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/7190/2560×1600.png
Patryk
September 23rd, 2010
Great tutorial, i made three planets:
1st http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/7716/planeta.jpg
2nd http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/1526/planetaniebieskaatm.png
3rd (and best in my opinion) http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/4958/planetatlo3.png
jim
September 26th, 2010
Thank you so much for the tutorial. Very much appreciated!!!! I made this image http://montana82.deviantart.com/#/d2zhx1z
Pedro
September 30th, 2010
Wonderfull, this is exactly what I needed to get me more results from Gimp.
Tx a million. This tutorial rocks.
Rogue
October 26th, 2010
I have a quick question, What version of gimp did you use in this tutorial?
demon-absol
October 29th, 2010
okay im totally lost on step six could some one tell me step six more clearly cause its not working for me thank you
Mayvie
October 30th, 2010
This is an amazing tutorial, you can learn soo much from just reading it, I know I have! xD Script won’t work for me for whatever reason, but I’ll make it up as I go along. :L:L
Flamin Flareos
November 7th, 2010
Dude this was a great tutorial. Got lost a bit from later version but still made final master piece which looks great TY.
Alana
November 9th, 2010
This is a wonderful tutorial! In the beta version of Gimp, it’s starting to give me problems, but nothing that affects the outcome of the picture.
Here’s my attempt at a sun:
http://abluescarab.deviantart.com/art/Sun-185558255
I’ll say how I did it on that page.
And I made two other planets:
http://abluescarab.deviantart.com/art/Blue-Planet-185455373
http://abluescarab.deviantart.com/art/Red-Planet-185552615
The tut was a big help — thanks a lot.
Redgmystr
November 11th, 2010
Thank you so much! I’m doing a solar system in GIMP 2.6 for a school project and this helped me SO much. Thank you again
Evelie
November 20th, 2010
This is a wonderful tutorial. I learned more about how to operate Gimp from this tutorial than anything else I’ve read. It’s beautifully written for even beginners like myself to operate properly and make stunning images.
Thank you so very much for this. I’m really looking forward to experimenting with the settings and making my own planets ^_^
cal
November 22nd, 2010
Fantastic tutorial, thank you!
First background draft:
http://weedytumble.deviantart.com/art/Fleet-draft01-187100519
Now for the rest of the solar system/space ships/debris… (I always did think a little on the large side!)
And so the update begins | Jeffrey's World
December 21st, 2010
[...] shout-out to http://mygimptutorial.com/the-ultimate-gimp-planet-tutorial for showing me how to do those. They look incredible 22 mins [...]
Jeffrey
December 21st, 2010
This was a phenomenal tutorial and exactly what I needed. I’m working on a redesign of my web site, http://jeffreysworld.net and wanted a specific scene involving planets for the logo image (to fit the “my world” theme). The logo I created is live on the site, and can also be viewed without the logo elements at http://jharlan.deviantart.com/art/Planets-190341725
Stormy
December 22nd, 2010
on step 5 you tell us to “Select the “shadow mask” layer, and press Ctrl-C to copy it, then select the layer mask and press Ctrl-V to paste the layer into the layer mask, and then click on the anchor. ” can you please explain how to do this because I’m completely confused on how to do this.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-12-25 | Jeffrey's World
December 25th, 2010
[...] shout-out to http://mygimptutorial.com/the-ultimate-gimp-planet-tutorial for showing me how to do those. They look incredible [...]
Me
January 6th, 2011
Mr. Gimpmaster is right. I was looking trough Photoshop tutorials, planets images and this is the best.
P.S. are your operation system and GIMP legal?
ONI-Defense
January 7th, 2011
This is an amazing tutorial, although for some it may seem confusing, I found the steps to have great detail and helped me with making two planets. Thank you for making this tutorial and the planet render script. I hope many more find this tutorial and check this site out for many other tutorials.
I made these two planets
http://oni-defense.deviantart.com/#/d36kni3
http://oni-defense.deviantart.com/#/d36ldgt
Paul
January 7th, 2011
Great tutorial, Thanks.
IfNotTrueThenFalse
January 17th, 2011
Really awesome tutorial. I was just looking tutorial, howto create planet with gimp and found this. Really nice work!
Nathan
January 30th, 2011
Nice work, it really was a great tutorial. It also gave me something to do for a while. Here are some of the planets I made:
http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/9194/planet4.jpg
http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/5332/planet3w.jpg
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/2987/planet2.jpg
Erste Gehversuche in GIMP
January 31st, 2011
[...] der Suche nach weiteren Anleitungen zur Erstellung von Planeten bin ich dann endlich auf dieses Tutorial gestoßen. Das Ergebnis war zufriedenstellend und ich bin – ausnahmsweise einmal – [...]
BarelyTrainedChimp
February 10th, 2011
Excellent tut’. Well made and is actually pretty darn spectacular.
Got me back into using GIMP.
Kudos!
tutorials can be useful « A Conversation With Myself
February 14th, 2011
[...] for long distance shots. Artistic me: Now, though, there’s a new trick, and he found it here: http://mygimptutorial.com/the-ultimate-gimp-planet-tutorial Normal me: It worked pretty well for him, as evidenced by this image, his first piece of pure Space [...]
Euan Smith
February 15th, 2011
How would you put one of the planet images into a larger background, to make a kind of solar system w/ more planets etc ??????
hanciong
February 22nd, 2011
hai, could you do tutorial about how to make a ring? Like saturn’s ring
. Thanx in advance
FrostPheonix
March 1st, 2011
this is an awesome tutorial! I managed to make something that looked like Earth, but it doesn’t look that good as the blue planet:
http://skullguardian.webs.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=118561646
and here is the one I made while doing your tut:
http://skullguardian.webs.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=118476676
Your tutorial is awesome!
Kitty
March 9th, 2011
I loooooooove this tutorial. It’s helped me so much, not just by showing me how to make a planet, but each step in itself is a learning experience. Heeey I don’t suppose you know how to make rings do you? Like Saturn’s rings?
nosherpiers
March 16th, 2011
best tut i’ve found yet.
Raj
March 23rd, 2011
Amazing Tutorial. I am a GIMP noob and this was the perfect introduction! Thank you!!
Matt
March 30th, 2011
Great tutorial, thanks for sharing.
Tom
April 22nd, 2011
Brillian tutorial – one of the best I’ve ever seen
Sam
May 26th, 2011
This is awesome.
Firezar
May 28th, 2011
Best planet-tutorial ever! Just… perfect
Cosmin
June 5th, 2011
nice ttorial … here are some of my results
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/861/blueplanet2.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/41/redcracked.jpg/
J-Lo
June 9th, 2011
Thank you for the tutorial, I follow it all the time!
IconoKlasm
June 22nd, 2011
Very detailed tutorial. Keep up the good work
http://iconoklasm.deviantart.com/#/d3joski
http://iconoklasm.deviantart.com/#/d3jorm5
http://iconoklasm.deviantart.com/#/d3jorxj
http://iconoklasm.deviantart.com/#/d3joszv
anifoke
July 4th, 2011
woww…I like this tut. thank’s
Regan
July 12th, 2011
Great tutorial, thanks a lot.
Alex
July 16th, 2011
Wow this was one of the best tutorials I’ve ever been through, great job. Keep em’ coming. I especially enjoyed the attention to detail and the following through on instructions.
Heres my result: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/221/planet22desktop.jpg/
Click to zoom for full effect.
reynum
July 22nd, 2011
Thanks a lot for this tutoriel ;-D
Kyle
July 30th, 2011
Ive tried everything but I cant seem to get Gimp to accept your .scm file?
yay
July 31st, 2011
Kyle what version of Gimp are you running?
Kyle
July 31st, 2011
Im using 2.6
yay
July 31st, 2011
And what operating system? I’ve noticed in Windows 7 the path to the script folder is actually: C:\Users\yourusername\.gimp-2.6\scripts
Kyle
August 1st, 2011
Windows Vista and IE 9
yay
August 3rd, 2011
Kyle: Try using a different browser when downloading the script, sometimes IE messes up and automatically changes the filetype of scm files.
Also, have you tried other scripts from other websites and confirmed that they work? That way we’ll know if it’s a problem with all scripts or just this one.
Also try updating your Gimp to the latest version, I believe it’s 2.6.10.
I don’t have access to Vista unfortunately, so I can’t test it on Vista.
Erwin
August 13th, 2011
Amazing tutorial, thanks so much. Never knew I could get something like the image I have in front of me now out of the GIMP.
Exonvsdeath
August 18th, 2011
Hi guys
I was trying to add rings to a planet but failed so badly at it. Did anyone got it right to do this. my email is exonvsdeath@hotmail.com if anyone can help me that would be nice. Thanks
JoeTurtle
September 22nd, 2011
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/405/planet2finished.png/
I had finished that yesterday, and I think it looks pretty cool. xD This tutorials rocks.
Kate
September 28th, 2011
I LOVE PLANETS
BunkyBear
October 12th, 2011
You should charge people for this. Its too good for free. You should make a Gimp book or something.
Thanks Yay
ElPouchkine
October 16th, 2011
Awesome tutorial!! Nicely written, and also, very easy to understand for “frenchies” like me, or other foreign people. Thank you very much!
Bye =)
Rafael
October 23rd, 2011
Thanks a lot for the tutorial, helped me a lot^^