Hi everyone from a land of pens, parachutes and light bulbs, 
  
Before I dwell on the texturing of  our little sacboy model, which we all know and love, I'll first need to learn all the basics.  
Which I have  =)  
And if you don't mind, I'm going to tell you all about it now. 
 
Here's the first thing I've done: 

Bump Map

That's a nice little site, good find. You could key the clouds layer to slowly rotate around the earth, that would look pretty cool. Although, if it's taking you 2 minutes to render a single frame then maybe animation isn't such a good idea. 24 frames per second could really fuck you up ;)

Cool! I liked what you did with the Earth on space. Pretty nifty! ^^

" Cool! I liked what you did with the Earth on space. Pretty nifty! ^^ "

" @Jeust said:

" Cool! I liked what you did with the Earth on space. Pretty nifty! ^^ "

What do you mean? Earth on space? "

" @Jeust: Ah, that! Yes I did. But it's not "modeling" per se. There are only 3 simple, plain spheres of geometry here. Everything else is done with textures, maps and rendering. But yes- I did it and it is 3D. "

" @Jeust: Thank you duder. "

It'd take much longer on my computer. :-| I think that, combined with the fact that UV unwrapping busted my ass, is the reason I stopped modelling. Though your blog is making me want to try again. 

Pretty cool, makes me want to get back into 3D modelling. Is there a particular reason you chose Maya over 3dsmax? What I would really like to see you do with this model, is add a specular map so the water reflects more than the land, and make the clouds cast a shadow on the Earth. 

I'm pretty sure that like in 3dmax Maya has a place to set a bitmap as background when rendering and not have to use a extra sphere, the space looks a little stretched.
Good job though, and have you placed any light since it tok 2 min to render some spheres?

I've started modelling stuff again too. I pretty much forgot everything I learned in 3ds max, so I'm starting over again with various tutorials. Also, the program has changed quite a bit since I last used it 5 years ago, so getting back into a steady rhythm again is quite difficult.
 
The only stuff I have left from my earlier days of 3d are these two:
 

Ahhh the planet model. The 3D equivalent to the programmers Hello World. I remember how proud I was the first time I modeled planets. Whenever I got let down after putting hours, upon hours, upon days of work into a model only to have it turn out like crap in the end I would always take a few minutes and make a cool looking space scene to boost my ego because they were so easy to make look awesome!
 
Good place to start learning the basics of applying textures and how to map them onto the model correctly. Keep up the work.
 
EDIT: Also, fuck you! Making me want to find a copy of 3DS max and to try doing 3D again! I always get half a body modeled and get frustrated when I mirror it and one little vertex is off center and it fucks up the whole model and I need to start again. I was free of the nightmare of 3D! STOP TRYING TO PULL ME BACK IN!

This makes me want to start re-learning Blender. I remember doing this kind of stuff with a randomly generated black and white cloud image in the GIMP, then making some random terrain with it. I learnt for about a week then stopped ha. 
 
 Oh and ya, I'm an open source guy :D 
 
EDIT: Good work btw.

Looks great!
 
If you want to try something a bit more technical with texturing, you can try making an atmosphere effect on a 3rd sphere, with ramp shaders on the transparency and diffuse color parameters:

Alright, I finally took a break from gaming and started a 3D project. I plan to build a domed mega city with a surrounding wasteland. I built the basic structure of the city today, though it still lacks a lot of detail. And textures. And lights.