sun texture map

This image map will provide a good starting point to create a sun-like object. With Cinema4D I used a turbulent textured volumetric light to produce the corona effects, and a visible light source to provide the glare streaks. Other rendering programs will provide different ways to produce similar results.

This 1024 x 512 image map was created in Adobe Photoshop using a variety of filters, with some hand painting to create the sunspots.