Planet surfaces

Use a copy of the body material and keep the original maps assigned. Set the light and a fixed Exposure before you edit. Turn the planet or camera until the terrain and a highlight are both visible.

Build a palette

For this world	Start with	What to look for
Terrestrial	Water Deep Color, Vegetation Color, Desert Color	Contrast between oceans and continents
Oceanic	Water Deep Color and Water Shallow Color	A readable range of colors across the water
Moon	Tint	A warm or cool cast on lit craters
Gas	Tint, then Pole Color and Pole Boost	Color separation between bands and poles
Sand	Desert Color and Mountain Color	Clear separation between lowlands and highlands
Ice	RampLow, RampMid, RampHigh	A range of ice colors across the height detail

Oceanic 01 with Water Deep Color set to RGB (0.04, 0.35, 0.22). The preset cloud maps remain assigned.

Tune detail and gloss

1. Inspect the surface at the distance you intend to use. Raise Normal Scale on a material that has it to emphasize texture relief. The silhouette comes from the mesh.
2. Use the material’s texture tiling controls to change the size of repeated detail. Triplanar mapping blends three directions around the sphere. Judge seams and fine patterns from more than one angle.
3. Move the light or camera until you see a highlight. Compare Smoothness at the same light angle. Higher smoothness tends to tighten a highlight where the material’s masks allow it. Use Specular or the shader’s water or land equivalent to change highlight strength.
4. For surfaces with Fresnel controls, use a grazing angle to judge the color near the edge. To change the actual glow beyond the body, edit the Atmosphere shell.

For your own texture set, follow the channel reference. Use the Shader Reference for the exact settings available on each world.