polish is good 
… and so is polish 
so yeah … go beyond the “need” … but who doesn’t “want” textured planets, eh?
especially if you figured out how to do it quickly / easily.
I’m interested in the animation angle … blender is one avenue … that would interesting to see (if you check out our LInkedIn posts you’ll see some christmas tree “graphs” in 2D and 3D … one guy morphed it to do a blender animation
Brand new to plotly … want to share those images … this could be worth show and tell … I’ll connect w you over on LI and pick up the conversation thread 