Tutorial: Creating A Starfield and Comet

For a long time I wanted to know how to create a set of comets and a starfield to create dramatic scenes in space. Well I found out how to do the starfield, but the site was in German. I did some work and found out how to create the starfield using the old videopost trick. So lets get started.

Tools:
3D Studio Max

Steps

Creating the Comet

1. Create a sphere of any size, any shape and transform it across the X axis ever so slightly. Then add a Noise modifier to the object, and experiment with the settings. Always check Fractal, and Animate, and finally change the phase to see the effects take place. You can use the settings in the pic as an example.


2. Next go to Material Editor under render, and under the first material change the Diffuse color to a deep brown.


3. Then scroll down and under the same panel you will notice a section called Maps. Expand that section and check the Bump box and increase the value of the Bump to anywhere between 70 and 1000. Then click in the longer box next to it and select Shadow as the map.

4. In the settings for Shadow increase the iterations to 5 and drag and drop the material onto the comet.

Creating the Starfield
1. Setup a Camera that targets the Comet.

2. Next under Render select Viewport and click add Scene Event. From the dropdown menu select Camera01.


3. Add an Image Event (its the box with the curvy line through it) and from the Filter Plug in select Starfield. For now the default settings are fine but you can fool around with those and get some cool results.



4. Add an Image output event and click Files and name an output file where you want the file to be saved. Remember two things every time you render the file, this is where your file will be saved. Second, the video post is the only place where you can render and get a starfield.

5. Render this badboy. by clicking on the Running man. You can select a single frame our the complete animation. Depending on your settings for the Starfield, when you create a cool moving animation, your stars will go through a motion blur depending on how fast the animation is moving.

6. This should be your result