Making a good background for a space shooter

[Dola]

http://www.viewizard.com/astromenace/am3.jpg

The stars part is pretty simple, just some particles, but how could i achieve this cloud-like-purple-blueish stuff in the background?

I thought about using canvases to generate some gradients but it would still not be very close to what i wanted.Ideas?

[substitute541]

http://www.viewizard.com/astromenace/am3.jpg

The stars part is pretty simple, just some particles, but how could i achieve this cloud-like-purple-blueish stuff in the background?

I thought about using canvases to generate some gradients but it would still not be very close to what i wanted.Ideas?

Image. Or some random heightmap generator.

[Darky]

I'm Using particleSystem for my RTS :

[micha]

If you want to predraw it you can use rendering filters in gimp. You find them in filter->render. There are some pretty nice effects in there.

[Roland_Yonaba]

I'm Usig particleSystem for my RTS :

Really nice!

[kikito]

You can find a way to make a decent stars background relatively cheaply here:

http://www.sea-of-memes.com/LetsCode4/LetsCode4.html

This technique is refined and expanded upon (with nebulae) here:

http://www.sea-of-memes.com/LetsCode10/LetsCode10.html

On this case, the nebulae are generated using simplex noise. This is feasible in LÖVE, using either ImageData, Canvases or a mixture of both. He's mapped them to an spheric map, but you don't need that because you are doing 2d, not 3d. What you need is to make sure that there are no discontinuities on your nebulae/clouds - they must have "soft edges".