By the way, I only just looked at the view count for this thread, and I'd like to personally thank everyone on the boards for making this one of the most-watched threads in the whole forum. I feel famous or something.
Also, sorry this plug has been taking so long. It's a lot of work. As I promised, I won't hold off on the whole thing until completion; I'm at least going to release a "functional universe" version like UT did with StarFleet Adventures, and then I'll add the storyline missions through semi-episodic content.
I think I speak for everyone when I say that your outstanding artwork and amazing content is what has made this one of the most viewed threads. 
I think I'll spend some time doing some cityscapes for the Delphi universe, as the civilized planets are all rather densely populated. Also, I learned a very clever trick to make quick cityscapes in programs that support height maps.
Here's the tutorial for quick and dirty cities. You'll need photoshop or something that can generate a noise pattern.
1. Make your canvas 50 x 50, or 30 x 30, or 10 x 10; it all depends on the size of the buildings you want. Smaller sample size will actually larger buildings in the final product.
2. Create a noise pattern over the image. In photoshop, you can just fill the background with black, and then use the Add Noise... filter set to monochromatic to get it done. More noise % means taller buildings and more difference between the tall and short ones. You should get a VERY pixellated black and white image.
3. Blow this image up to a larger size, such as 1000 x 1000 or something. Make sure it samples from "nearest neighbor" when scaling up, or your pixels will smudge.
4. Open your height map 3D program.
5. Load in the pixellated image you made, and you have an instant cityscape with squared-off buildings of different heights.
It's not high-detail, but for small images like the landscapes used by Nova it's perfectly fine for making city skylines.
QUOTE (oryhara @ Oct 30 2009, 12:33 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
When I first saw that cityscape I thought it was a photograph... That's awesome Delphi!
Bryce is still a beautiful program, even for its age.
Here's another render. Some sort of heavily-industrialized polluted world.
QUOTE (Delphi @ Oct 30 2009, 01:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Here's another render. Some sort of heavily-industrialized polluted world.
That leads to a rocky wasteland...
...crazy interesting idea, man. I like how the urban environment sharply and suddenly has to contrast with a barren setting.
QUOTE (n64mon @ Nov 2 2009, 11:23 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
It makes sense, when you're terraforming planets, you only terraform the parts you want to live in
Unless you have some type of dome, that would fail miserably. The air currents would carry all of your oxygen away and dilute it with whatever else is in the planet atmosphere.
Looks like that last one stirred up some controversy. The polluted grey-brown world is primarily being used as the landing graphic for Ghefesta VI, an extremely rocky, eroded planet with a large amount of tectonic activity but also large quantities of resources. The planet was originally uninhabitable and extremely hostile, prone to many earthquakes and fissures, so tectonic cooling devices were injected into the crust by the original settlers to solidify certain portions of the surface and make them somewhat traversable. The "cities" started off as nothing more than collections of extremely heavy extraction equipment on these islands of stable ground, and eventually settlements sprung up around them, but they remain limited by the edges of the artificial tectonic plates that were manufactured. Urban creep would invariably stop at the limits of these safe zones, and thus the cities were built upward into "skyscraper factories", as they could be called. The atmosphere was never terraformed, and contains lethal amounts of sulfur and oxidized metals, requiring the use of respirators and protective suits for any exterior travel. Instead of building a dome-city, which is costly and mostly just for decoration, the industrious citizens simply live indoors at all times.
It's not a very nice place to live, but the money to be made from its resources makes it extremely overpopulated.
QUOTE
Unless you have some type of dome, that would fail miserably. The air currents would carry all of your oxygen away and dilute it with whatever else is in the planet atmosphere.
Yah, I know, I meant more along the lines of "make habitable" - you wouldn't see much suburban sprawl if every piece of land had to have something done to it, whether it be airlocked buildings, force-field air bubbles, de-marshing/foundation building, whatever. Things like the mountains next door you'd leave well enough alone.
Edit: Looks like Delphi already explained. That's what I get for not refreshing 
In any case, awesome picture, and great worldbuilding.
This post has been edited by n64mon : 03 November 2009 - 07:36 PM
QUOTE (n64mon @ Nov 3 2009, 07:35 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
de-marshing/foundation building, whatever. - snip -
They said I was daft to build a castle in the swamp, but I built it just the same, just to show 'em. That sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up, and that's what you're gonna get, lad! The strongest castle in all of Britain!
Sorry, I just couldn't resist.
It can't all be cities and industry in the Delphi universe, so here's a nice little tropical planet with a bit of a grassy beach. These precious gems won't be too common though; modern science already tells us today that the majority of planets we could even land on in the first place would likely be geologically active or frozen, with few in the habitable range in between. Either way, this one is called "Eva", in the Insight star system. Here's the planetary description.
-( Called a "paradise" by some, Eva was not always the tropical world it is now. Originally found as an un-terraformed tectonically-active world, the now-defunct American government colonized and developed this planet many centuries ago using primitive cooling techniques to solidify the churning surface. It was originally theorized that this planet would make an excellent defensive outpost against enemy invasion, but as the early years of the Orion War pushed the borders further away from Earth, this sphere was eventually forgotten. Almost 200 years later, at the end of the war, the NDC established a terraforming colony to give the planet its rich environment and used it as a refugee center. It has developed in the last three centuries into a thriving commercial center. )-
Pretty. Have you considered using Terragen2 for some of your planetscapes, instead of Bryce? From what I've heard, it can create near photo-realistic images.
QUOTE (krugeruwsp @ Nov 4 2009, 02:32 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Pretty. Have you considered using Terragen2 for some of your planetscapes, instead of Bryce? From what I've heard, it can create near photo-realistic images.
A thousand thank-yous for mention of that program. I'd never heard of it before, but I'm now very seriously considering learning how to use it; its landscape-generation technology is miles ahead of anything I've ever seen. I'm amazed that for once, the free version of an incredible piece of programming actually does everything I would need it to. After all, Nova's landing graphics are by default 612 x 285, and the maximum output of the free version of Terragen 2 is 800 x 600; more than enough for my purposes.
Again, thank you. I'll be learning how to use this software.
No prob. It's a bit daunting at first, but there are some great tutorials out there, and once you get the interface down, it works amazingly well.
