Bill Hails wrote:

>I've taken this as far as I can on my own, hoping for some
>suggestions and comments.
>
>It looks better at a higher res,
>see http://thyme.homelinux.net/Orrery.jpg
>
>  
>
What a wonderful image! What was your technique for making the Sun? I've 
made some experiments with using media for the sun, but I've never 
gotten anything that looks as good as that. On the other hand, the sun 
could be somewhat less bright and it might be good to make the grains 
more visible. Although this is propably a fake-color image, here's a 
good example of how grainy the sun is: 
http://www.phy.duke.edu/courses/313/table-images/soho-image-of-sun.jpg . 
Also it might look good if you included some solar prominences like seen 
in the bottom left of the image (and share the code ;-) .

I'm not sure if the orrery is supposed to contain all the planets, but 
Mercury is the first planet in the solar system, not Venus. As far as I 
know, Mercury would have been well known when orreries were made. And 
Jupiter is the fifth in the solar system, not Saturn. On the other hand 
the rings of Saturn are absolutely wonderfully implemented, and it would 
be a shame to remove Saturn from the image. Also, the relative sizes of 
the planets seem a bit off - the radius of Mars is just 0.54 times the 
radius of Earth, and Venus about 0.95.

The color of the athmosphere of Venus doesn't seem quite right, either. 
While Venus does look almost when viewed through a telescope, I'm not so 
sure if the actual color of the athmosphere would be as white when 
viewed from space. Here's an image: 
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/youpie/systsol/venus1.jpg . I couldn't find info 
on whether or not that image has fake colour, so you propably should ask 
someone else about that. :-)

The wooden paneling in the back wall has a very similiar colour to the 
table, and because of that, the table "blends" with the wall. Also, the 
frames of the pictures in the backround seem quite flat. Have you 
considered adding glass panels in front of the pictures? The reflections 
might look quite nice (but admittedly slow down render times). Also, how 
about dimming the general lighting and allowing the Sun to light most of 
the image? That might give the image some more athmosphere.

Hopefully I'm not too "harsh" in my critizism. ;-)

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