Plastic Procedural Planet first attempt

[2centthompson]

im doing kinda what your doing but im makeing mine in unity what engine did you use and plz help me out it would be greatly apreciated i have no programing skills how did you make the atomosphere i cant do that i just put another sphere over my first one and made no collision but its not that good as yours theres no totorials that i know of that show how to do the atmosphere thing

[handkor]

@2centthompson It's my own engine but for the atmosphere look up the article on Atmospheric Scattering in GPU Gems 2 by Sean O'Neil. It's simply a sphere around the planet and everything is done by the shader.

[MrRileyI777]

@handkor Oh, I see.

Makes sense now. I was just wondering, as I have nine planets and corresponding heightmaps that I'd like to use at some point.

[jimburnettva]

Thanks for the quick reply. Looking forward to see some code. I understand and learn much easier by example! Thanks!

[jimburnettva]

Got a project for this I could download and try?

[handkor]

@jimburnettva Not yet, hopefully I'll have something in playtesting in a couple of months.

[TheFXGuy]

Next spore is made by a youtube-based developer. great job, man.

Is there any way you could use this engine to export 3D models (and texture maps) of planets? Sure they would be big, but that would be an extremely useful tool.

[handkor]

@TheFXGuy There is no need to export, the planet is just a height map on the sphere, easy to do in many 3d modeling software. For the texture I am using perlin noise. I am future plans to mix it up a bit bit generating perlin noise is also easy and more flexible when done in 3d modeling software. If you want to use and create external resources there are already better setups. I am using simplifications of those techniques to do it in real time. For example look up bryce for noise textures.

[TheFXGuy]

@handkor Oh, so that's why the planet's mostly one color. I'm guessing you had it so that the intensity of the map changed the color (some green, some brown, some white)?

[handkor]

@TheFXGuy Yes eactly.

[legogenius]

Did you find that HDR was important in getting the look of the sun and atmosphere correct? I have also implemented the O'Neil algorithm but I can't get decent tuning like you have.

[handkor]

@legogenius I am only doing an exposure correction at the end of my pixel shader.

float exposure = 2;

float3 finalColor = 1.0f - exp( -exposure * color );

but none of my buffers are HDR.

[ripperrhino]

epic how long did this take you could make a game where you can travel the world and stuff!!

[handkor]

Probably took me about a week, or more like two weekends.

[ripperrhino]

wow thats fast

[Supertax2]

Cool:). There are several engines like this beeing build atm. You probably heard of them: the I-Novae engine wich will bring forth a game called: Infinity: the quest for Earth, and the geist software labs engine. Well gl with yours but if you havent, I suggest you check out those mentioned above:)

[alston2reel]

Any tips on how you learned XNA

[lordnipple]

That is awesome!

do you have any plans to build on this?

[handkor]

Yes this is only a small part of a larger space shooter project.

[lordnipple]

wow. I'm an artist, do you need concept designs?

[handkor]

I'm good for now, I'm still working on the base engine. No point making assets yet.

[NukeMyHouse]

Space shooter?  There are so many other things you can do with a planet like this.

[lintfordpickle]

Hey - that looks great.

I would love you know how you got the scattering to turn red at the sunsets - it's something I'm not been able to get sean o'neils scattering to do :(

[handkor]

Make sure you've got your ratio between the atmosphere thickness and planet radius set to 2.5% and just fly from the dark side toward your sun while staying as low as possible to the ground. Test with a flat planet first. Also increasing your scattering constants helps (although I have not done that yet). I saw your videos and it look like you are already doing it right.

[handkor]

Actually a more stylized cartoony look is what I am working towards but not Mass Effect though. Aiming more for Wing Commander: Privateer.