Solar System (Help)

Just to start things off, I’m (sort of) a newbie when it comes to rendering stuff in blender.:smiley:

Two issues/questions:

  1. I recently began a project of making the solar system in blender (with as much detail as possible). I have successfully created Earth and the moon thanks to the help of Andrew Price’s tutorial and have begun making the other planets. The problem is not with the planets but rather with the sun. I’ve managed to get a texture map of the sun and apply it to a UV sphere and give it a bit of a glowing effect with another smaller halo UV sphere inside of it (which for me is fine) the problem I have, is that I want it to be as though the farther away I am from the sun the more it turns white or yellowish with flares and such and when I get closer I can see the detail of the map. I tried putting a halo outside the sun itself and having that illuminate but I can not get it to get a large illumination when I am zoomed out and when I’m zoomed in all I get is the white light. Is there anyway I can get it to do what I’m looking for?

  2. (Again with the sun) is there a way I can use a Lamp to illuminate outward instead of always being in one general direction? I want the light to come from the sun and hit each planet on the side that’s facing the sun.

-Quinton

I would use a different sun for the close up shots. Then you can just use a yellow sphere for the farther away shots and get the flares in the compositor.
I made a sun in BI awhile back:


For the lighting of the other planets, use a sun lamp where the sun is located.