This was the original sketch the client sent to help clarify what they were looking for.

We had used this stock photo of a flash bulb in a previous direct-mail project, so I used it as the basis for this image, and put in a hint of an Earth-like planet. Since Fluent is an international company, there's always the potential to upset some by showing or not showing certain continents. Being Earth-like but not Earth might avoid that issue altogether.

The planet and clouds in this image were created using a fantastic Photoshop plug-in called LunarCell by Flaming Pear Software.

The bulb on the black background wasn't going to work in most applications, so this version uses a more common shape bulb, but the same planet, rendered a little brighter, less atmosphere effect, and showing different land masses.

LunarCell also allows you to save your planet in separate, flat, "image maps" for use in 3D modeling and animation programs. In this version, I saved the clouds, land color and land topography as separate files. In Hash's Animation:Master, (A:M) a 3D animation program, I wrapped the land color map around a sphere to give the sphere color, then added the land bump map to give the surface of the sphere the effect of raised mountains and lower oceans. For atmosphere, I created another, slightly larger sphere around the planet, wrapped the clouds file onto it for the color of the clouds, and then applied the file again, this time using it as a transparency map, which made the white of the clouds solid or opaque, the greys semi-transparent, and the blacks invisible. Lighting it with a "sun" and rendering it with an alpha channel gave me a planet I could combine with the lightbulb photograph in Photoshop, and show as much of the planet as I wanted.

Why do this in 3D instead of directly through LunarCell in Photoshop? I didn't like how the clouds covered the right edge of the planet. With all of the controls LunarCell gives you, rotating the clouds independently from the planet surface is not one of them. There's always a work-around, and reassembling the pieces in A:M worked perfectly -- I had the same planet, but could move the clouds around until I was pleased with the result.

It was decided that it would be preferable to use the Earth, as the purpose of the graphic was to help convey how Fluent software is used world-wide by the power generation industry. A quick rendering of the Earth in Animation:Master, with the Earth colors being from clip art, and clouds from LunarCell. This time, compositing it in Photoshop, I brightened the center of the Earth, as if illuminated from within, as my client wasn't convinced how much of the Earth should show, and how it should fade out. The Earth was rotated to show some of Europe and Africa. Trying to show equal amounts of Europe and North/South America, gives you a view of a lot of ocean... not ideal.

Finally, it was decided to go with a combination of all of the previous variations: use the original flash bulb shape, on a white background, but the base (the screw-in part) of the second bulb made silver instead of the brass tint, with the edge of the planet becoming the edge of the bulb, fading out like the day/night terminator sweeping across the bulb, and a gentle glow around the white part of the bulb to differentiate it from the white background.

Since I had been developing the image in "print" resolution, Fluent was able to use this image in direct mail pieces, and their newsletter, as well as on the web.