The scene uses an ambient light value of .19. The final composite is put together in After Effects. The Ship I built the Sith Terminator model in the Electric Image Modeler, and then textured and animated it in Electric Image. Bump maps add relief to the solar panels on the ship's wings and add surface grooves and other small details to the body of the ship. The ship's engine glows are light flares.
Light flares are visible radial lights that emit a configurable flare.
I parented these lights to the engine pods on the back of the ship so that they would move with the ship. The planet consists of three spheres. An outer sphere serves as the atmosphere. This outer sphere has reversed normals and culled backfaces . When you reverse an object's normals, you are mathematically inverting the object.