This is a good tutorial for beginners. It covers basic maping, backgrounds, and some special effects. It goes pretty quick so it's instant gratification for the beginner. I love those kind.

Let’s start out with a sphere and place it in the center of your modeling window. It doesn’t need to be a certain size, just make it something you are used to working with. (tip: Hold down the shift key to constrain the sphere to be perfectly symmetrical.)

Next we will pick out our maps for the surface of mars. Fortunately for us we have a great resource to get image maps of Mars, NASA. I got the maps for my model on the JPL site http://maps.jpl.nasa.gov/mars.html. Download the color map and the gray scale map. We will use the color image to make the color map and the grayscale image to make the contour of the planet with a bump map. Don’t assume you can turn the color map into a gray scale and us it for the bump map. The contour of the planet is very different than the color of the dirt on the planet. We aren’t going to change the resolution of the maps in this tutorial. This resolution will provide enough detail for a semi close fly by if you animate one.

Okay let’s apply the color map first. In the Resource pallet in Strata select the “New” tab in the upper left of the pallet window. In the drop down select “Surface Texture”. Let’s name this shader “Mars”. Now select the “Map” button to load the color map that we downloaded earlier. Select the “Load…” button to brows your computer to find the color map. Select the file and click “Open”. There is no need to make any changes to the Image Map dialogue box so just click “OK”. That’s if for the color image map.

Now let’s load the bump map. Select the folder icon next to the “bump” setting in the Surface Texture dialogue box. You will see the same type of dialogue box you saw when you loaded the image map. Load the bump map the same way you loaded the image map earlier. Once the bump map is loaded set the numeric value to somewhere between .5 and .75. I like it around .5 but you can make it to your liking.

Now lets look at a quick render.

It is coming along pretty good except it has this flat look to it. Let’s give it a little self illumination. All objects reflect light so lets give is a glow map. We can use the same image we used for the bump map. Load it the same way we loaded the bump map. Once it’s loaded set the glow to 0.40. Now let’s look at a quick render.

Much better.

Okay now it’s time for some special effects! What we need is some sort of glow around the planet that will represent some sort of atmosphere. Select the FX tab on the Resource pallet. Select “New” in the top left corner of the Resource pallet. Choose “Aura Effect” from the drop down menu.

Name the new aura effect “Mars”. Check the “new color” check box and then click on the “color” button. I chose an orange type color for my aura to represent a mars like atmosphere (for windows users it's red=226, green=156, blue=92; Mac users it's red=100%, green=78%, blue=27%). After you select a orange you like click “ok”.

Now we need to set the size and intensity of the effect. I chose 46% for the size and 32% for the intensity. The last thing we need to do with this effect is to blend the color of our mars with the orange glow we made with our aura effect. To do this check the “blend color” check box.

Now lets make a quick render. Pretty good.

Now we need to set up our light source. In this case we want to have the sun shining with a little bit of a lens flair. Let’s drop in a spotlight from the tool pallet. Now position the spotlight to point at the planet we made.

With the spot light selected go to your FX tab in the Resource pallet. Select “New” from the top left corner of the Resource pallet. Choose “Lens Flare” from the drop down menu.

Name the new lens flare “sun”. Press the “Flash” button and choose a nice yellow color for the sun. Click “Ok”. In the “Glare” dialog select a darker value of the same color you chose for the sun. You can play around with the intensity of the effect, keep in mind that you don’t want to go over board with the lens flare.

Now let’s turn off the Environment light.

Now let’s get some stars in the background. This is the quickest way to do it in strata but there is a better way to get a more realistic looking starry night. That is going to be a totally different tutorial.

Anyway in the Resource pallet go to the “Background” tab. Choose the first starfield shader in the list. Now check to make sure the star texture we chose for the backgroung show up.

Go to the "Environment" pallet and select the background tab. If the star background we chose is not in the "Visable" box then click on the "Vis." button and select it from the list.

Now all we have to do is place a camera to create a good render.

That’s it. I might have overdone the lens flair but you get the idea. Maybe it isn't totaly realistic but it's not a bad starting point. Play around with the settings to see what else you can accomplish. I hope you liked the tutorial.