Pixlab (Patrice) posted an interesting link to a video. Create a Glass Ball
I have tried to get most of it, if anybody is interested to do it.

Wow, that's a lot of work
Thanks Issabella, it's great to have it as a pdf

Issabella, do not ask me to create a .py from such a long .pdf...!!!
But certainly you did a very precious effort for those who like to follow your tutorials.

Awesome result; will wait for Diego to creat the .py file. lololololol

Thanks a lot.
I'm afraid we will have to do it manually.

Issabella - thanks for this; you have now taken over the 'glass guru' mantle.

Thank you Issabella
The video was a bit hard to follow. I got it done but it took days to get it right.

-I had a problem with the supernova making the whole image blurry and washed out.
So I dropped that and just made another "air bubble" then scaled it flat and wide,
put on the top of the sphere, then Gaussian blurred it and finally used that same alpha
select/invert/clear technique that was used many times to keep the edges sharp.

Thanks a lot you all for your appreciation, but I'm sure there will be some errors through it.
I'll try to correct it when I repeat the process. But it is good to know the concept the creator used to get so nice effect.
The most difficult part for me was to have so many layers with so many details without having a good English level.
LeftyLeo, congrats for your result and your skill to solve the supernova part.

Wow Issabella, a lot of work to make this tutorial, good job
Almost three years ago I also followed this video tutorial with this as the result.
Whether I also had problems with the supernova, I can't remember.
Then the search is to find a creative alternative, as leftyleo did

Thank you Issa for the tutorial, I decided to create a plugin. Work in progress, this is what I got so far.

Pocholo: i remember having marbles like that as a child.

_so you went for coding a plug-in ? wow.
good luck

I used to play a lot as a child. I used to play the game of "Cova" (that is what in my country is named). We drew an oval shape on the ground and place all the marble inside the shape. Then, you have to try to get as much of you can, using one marble. If you miss or you don't get any marbles out of the oval shape, then is somebody else turn.

Thank you for your comment!