Planet Textures: A Simple Tutorial using GIMP

[DunaManiac]

To all new budding planet modders, and perhaps older ones, this is a tutorial on how to create a decent looking texture for a rocky planet.

Requirements: GIMP

GIMP is a free plugin you can download that is my platform of choice for texturing, and it's what I will be using in this tutorial:

Firstly, after you've opened up GIMP, click File > New, and create a new page. The Dimensions are VERY IMPORTANT if you want the texture to work. Use a 2*1 texture, which comes in 1024-512, 2048-1024, and 4096-2048 sizes, you can continue going up if you want, but I would recommend 2048-1024 textures for rocky planets and 4096-2048 for gas giants. In this tutorial, I will be demonstrating a smaller rocky planet.

Next, choose a color to fill the page with after you have created it. This will be your theme color. It can be pretty much anything, but I would recommend staying away from purple/pink colors due to it being unrealistic, but it's your texture!

In this tutorial I'm using a blue theme color, but the method works for a lot of other colors.

Switch the brush to Acrylic 01 and cover most of the texture in variations of the base color. Don't sweat if it's not seamless, we'll worry about that later.

Now, using the smudge tool, blend all the various patches together. If you were to export that into a texture for your planet, it would work, but would probably have a horrible looking seam as you are about to see.

Go to Layer > Transform > Offset and click.

In the X field, put in half the length, or the width of your image, in this case it being 1024.

This is what the texture would look like if you wrapped it around a sphere, note the obvious seam cutting through the image. How do we remedy this?

Using the smudge tool, blend the two sides of the texture together until the seam is no longer visible.

Repeat Layer > Transformation > Offset once more by putting the width of the image in the X field, and you will go right back to where it was before.

Now, go to the Filter's tab, click distorts and click of the Polar Coordinates.

This is what the planet would look like from the north pole. Look at all that polar distortion!

Use the smudge tool once more, and blend the poles to your satisfaction.

Now, click on Polar Coordinates once more, to turn back to it's original format, then use Polar Coordinates once more, but disable (or enable) Map from top. This is now the opposite pole.

Use the smudge tool again to your liking on the top pole to rid the texture of the polar distortions.

Congratulations, you now have a texture!

Now, before you save the image, click on the Filters Tab, go to Map, and open the Map Object tab. Change Map To: to Sphere, disable the wireframe, enable transparent background and enable Updating Live.

If you go to the orientation tab, and change the y axis, you can look at a mini preview of your planet!

Now, you can leave the texture as it is, or you can add surface features, such as craters, canyons, and mountains. Remember to export, not save the image, and make sure to save it as a .png and .dds file (either one works), and place it in the folder of choice.

Other resources that might help creating planets:

The Kopernicus Wiki: A pretty good documentation of the basics of Kopernicus

@OhioBob's Atmosphere Calculator: If you want to create an atmosphere

@Poodmund's Planet Texturing Guide Repository: For more fancy tips and tricks on making planet textures.

In game examples: (From my Mod, Japris Stellar Neighborhood)

Spoiler

Texture (Bold):

In Game:

Texture (Dindin):

In the Game (Dindin):

Texture (Retuo):

In Game (Retuo):

 

[Souptime]

What about height and biome maps? or configs!

[DunaManiac]

15 minutes ago, Souptime said:

What about height and biome maps? or configs!

For heightmaps, I would recommend Wilbur. It's free and I use it for most of my projects nowadays.

For biomemaps, just paint it in several different colors depending on the terrain/height/color of the region.

This will teach you all you need to know about Kopernicus modding: https://kopernicus.github.io/wiki/

[Neil Kermstrong]

amazing, I literally just thought about making a planet and was wondering how to make the textures.

 

funny thing is that textures always look ugly on paper but in-game they can actually look amazing

[Kerminator K-100]

On 10/14/2020 at 11:12 AM, DunaManiac said:

For heightmaps, I would recommend Wilbur. It's free and I use it for most of my projects nowadays.

 

But how would you use the Wilbur height maps in KSP?

Do you just load your texture in Wilbur then mess around with everything, then get that as a map and put that in the config?

[DunaManiac]

1 minute ago, Kerminator1000 said:

Do you just load your texture in Wilbur then mess around with everything, then get that as a map and put that in the config?

Ironically I don't really use this method anymore, I've changed a lot of the planets who used this kind of texture.

Essentially, currently I use 10+ layers of noise in Wilbur to accomplish a reasonably good looking texture. I've created some really good planets based only off noise.

[Kerminator K-100]

1 hour ago, DunaManiac said:

Essentially, currently I use 10+ layers of noise in Wilbur to accomplish a reasonably good looking texture. I've created some really good planets based only off noise.

So wait... can you walk me through your method? I'm really confused how you get the height map to line up with the terrain.

[DunaManiac]

1 hour ago, Kerminator1000 said:

So wait... can you walk me through your method? I'm really confused how you get the height map to line up with the terrain.

The Height Map is the terrain... I'm confused. Do you mean how to make the texture seamless?

[Kerminator K-100]

39 minutes ago, DunaManiac said:

The Height Map is the terrain... I'm confused. Do you mean how to make the texture seamless?

I mean the height map to line up with the textures that you make. Like if I draw a texture based off this tutorial and want it to line up with the height map that I produced earlier, how should I do this?

[DunaManiac]

10 minutes ago, Kerminator1000 said:

I mean the height map to line up with the textures that you make. Like if I draw a texture based off this tutorial and want it to line up with the height map that I produced earlier, how should I do this?

Ah, I see now. You can just grayscale the texture.

[Jeb_da_kerbal]

tried the same process with a different image editor for one of my gas giants, it turned out pretty nice and it was easy to create the texture.

[Jeb_da_kerbal]

Quote

On 10/14/2020 at 8:05 PM, Neil Kermstrong said:

amazing, I literally just thought about making a planet and was wondering how to make the textures.

 

funny thing is that textures always look ugly on paper but in-game they can actually look amazing

 

I agree, but some textures look pretty nice when there just a image file, but most do look weird when flat, like my planet texture, it looks strange flat, but on a planet it looks ok

EDIT: This is no longer the planet texture because it was not lined up right

Edited October 29, 2020 by Jeb_da_kerbal

[DunaManiac]

On 10/28/2020 at 12:15 PM, Jeb_da_kerbal said:

I agree, but some textures look pretty nice when there just a image file, but most do look weird when flat, like my planet texture, it looks strange flat, but on a planet it looks ok

EDIT: This is no longer the planet texture because it was not lined up right

By the way, the optimal file dimensions is 2x1 textures, such as 2048 by 1024, 4096 by 2048 etc. The image you are currently using does not follow that unless I'm mistaken.

[Jeb_da_kerbal]

5 hours ago, DunaManiac said:

By the way, the optimal file dimensions is 2x1 textures, such as 2048 by 1024, 4096 by 2048 etc. The image you are currently using does not follow that unless I'm mistaken.

yea, as i said, its not the texture anymore, this is 

 

[Souptime]

Hey duna, you think you could do a tutorial on rings and/or stars? and i cant seem to find that wilbur thing you're talking about

[Maple Kerman]

@SouptimeWilbur can be found here: http://www.fracterra.com/wilbur.html

[Souptime]

Thanks!

D'oh! its saying something about needing an openGL driver, can i use gimp for height and biome maps?

Edited November 8, 2020 by Souptime

[DunaManiac]

4 minutes ago, Souptime said:

D'oh! its saying something about needing an openGL driver, can i use gimp for height and biome maps?

You can, but it might not be good.

[Maple Kerman]

5 minutes ago, Souptime said:

can i use gimp for height and biome maps?

Do you mean, does GIMP support height and biome maps? Or can it make height and biome maps?
GIMP supports pretty much any file format you'd use, so it's fine.
As for making them, the only thing GIMP really has in terms of heightmapping is the "render noise" feature.
For biomemapping, you'd just derive it from your texture or whatever.

Edited November 8, 2020 by Maple Kerman

[Souptime]

Like can i MAKE height and biome maps and use them in KSP

[Maple Kerman]

@SouptimeI mean, if you put in enough time and effort, of course you can. GIMP can do pretty much anything as long as you're willing to work hard.

[An Amongus Sussy Player]

@Souptime So its really simple to make heightmaps in GIMP the best way is shown here :

https://imgur.com/gallery/gnTsBcY

Edited June 11, 2021 by Weak Player

[Vanamonde]

Thread closed by OP's request.