Approach
I like to combine edited primitives from 3D programs and play around with them in Element 3D. This scene is really just a geo-sphere with some edited polygons, a complex model made of predefined motion design elements put together to resemble a spaceship and is completely rendered inside of after effects.
Making of
Here you can see the sphere which I brought in from 3D Max. It's a geo-sphere with extruded polys and a handmade noise by scaling some areas by soft selection. Underneath another sphere for some height differences. I brought it into Element 3D and played around with the shader settings and used 2 replicas in the particle settings with different roation to increase the randomnes. There is one light source for the planet and another for the ship, which is an extra Element layer.
The ship is a combination of several Motion Design 2 Elements from Videocopilot and arranged to resemble something like a spaceship. I used it on a separate solid to have more control over the overall performance.
