Expanding on what I learned on the first planet render- displacement maps ftw!

Alright! These look better than I'd even hoped for! Tutorials are the same as used below,  plus this kick-ass site for cloud maps:
Link

Next upload will be likely moons, city lights, or gas planets! :)

After DAYS of working with 3ds max and banging my head repeatedly against my keyboard, I've achived "NatGeo" Level 3d planet design... it is far from where I'd like it to be, but such is life. I will work on it again tomorrow. 

tutorials used:
tutorial 1
tutorial 2

Plus googling phrases like "why the fuck is my bitmap so small?!" 
... Turns out, something called 'Tiling'. 

Just finished the first couple models, i'm still not sure how to render these things, so: screen caps, lol. 

Plus this query into how to fill holes in polygon maps: link.

First thing's first, tutorials. I'll be trying to link every resource and tutorial I use in the making of this game. The following are the tutorials I've been using to work with 3ds Max.

 on poly modeling
on Splines
On using the Symmetry function 

So far I've installed 3ds Max and Unity 3d. I've worked with Maya before (one semester a year ago, lol) and I'm currently half way through intro course in Java- I'll be writing the game portion of this project in Unity in Java. My experience is sparse to say the least...