This tutorial shows how I made the rings for the planet in Man-O-War

1	Ring planets are wonderful visions of space, but how do you create them in 3d? The particular problem being to recreate the wonderful banding.   It's not as hard as you may fear, actually! ;) Download and unzip this file, it contains a ring object for use in 3d, and 2 Photoshop files for textures (you can work the Photoshop files in most good paint packages)
2	To begin with we create the pattern we want for the ring planet, here I use Paint Shop Pro, but you can also use Photoshop and other packages.   3D textures like this are best created to square dimensions, so make a new image, 512x512, this gives good size for clear definition of finished image, the more complex the texture, the more detailed, the bigger you want the initial picture. Very fine work maybe be at 1024x1024 or bigger.   Using the FILL tool in your paint package, you Edit its properties. Ringed planets have many bands and variations. By adding lots of different bands you can work out your overall pattern (in Paint Shop Pro, left click below the gradient color bar to add more color markers then change their color in the area to the left)   You can also add TRANSPARENCY in the area below in the same way. White= Solid color, black=transparent, grey shades=varying transparency. You don't need transparency but it maybe nice for your finished result.
3	Once you have the fill gradient worked out, paint it in, with the bars of colour being VERTICAL (it's easier for later on).   As you know, the important thing about ringed planets is the rings often have transparent areas that end up looking black because of space behind it, to achieve the sharp areas of transparency (rather than fading areas), the best way is to use the ALPHA CHANNEL .   Selections are saved into the alpha channel, and 3d packages, like Bryce, use these for making transparent areas and other effects. You can make the selections in a variety of different ways. If you use FEATHER on the selection, the edges of transparent areas in the finished image will not be sharp, but fade in and out, which maybe what you wish. Ths image shows the resulting Alpha Channel when the selections have been feathered, with some being thin and wipsy. A selection to the left, which wasn't feathered, stands out sharp. In Paint Shop Pro, when you have your selection chosen, use SELECTION--SAVE TO ALPHA CHANNEL. There should only be one alpha channel by the way, delete more if you make too many. You can add to a selection by holding down the SHIFT key, so you can end up with many bands. It is very important to note the selections MUST start at the very top of the image! Otherwise, thin horizontal bands will not be selected.
	NEXT