Earth-Like Planets

In Lightwave Modeler, use Ball Numeric (ctrl + n after choosing Ball from the menu) and create a "sphere" with the following specifications.

Once it is created, subpatch it (Tab). Save it, and send it to Layout. It should look something along the lines of this.

With the objects button (at the bottom) selected, open item propeties for your planet and set render subpatch level to 5.

Now open up the surface editor. You should have only one surface, Default. Leave it that way. Enable Smoothing for Default. Set Bump at 200%, and open up the bump texture window. Create a Procedural texture, and adjust the settings to match the picture's. Also set the texture scale to 250mm for X, Y, and Z.

Click to enlarge

Set antialising level to Medium, and frame size to 640 x 480. Dont bother moving the camera at this point. Render it (F9). Hopefully it looks similar to the image shown.

As you can see, our planet is lacking in color. Open up the Color Texture options. We want our color to be dependent on the altitude (or magnitude of the bumpmap in our case). So create a gradient layer, and set the Imput Parameter to "Bump". Now to specify when the colors will occur. To make it quick, the RGB values are on the left, and the Parameter value is on the right of the dash. Enter these values.
4,71,145 - 0 21,134,202 -.2211 213,201,162 - .2807 114,151,83 - .3123 60,132,62 - .6877 230,223,210 - 1
The Color texture window should look like this when that has been entered.

Click to enlarge