Planet

Started by FrankB, February 19, 2012, 07:06:45 PM

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FrankB

couldn't help but try a few ideas on a procedural planet project that was resting in my projects folder for a long while.
There are a few things left that I'd like to try and do, but I thought I might as well share where I am at with this project.

Cheers,
Frank

FrankB


Gannaingh

Not at all, just out enjoying the 3 day weekend here in the US ;) I like the overall shapes of the continents, but the tiny fractal detail all along the coast could use a blendshader to make it less consistent and softer. I really like the color of the water, especially the shallow turquoise areas. Throw some clouds on this bad boy and it's well on it's way to some greatness!

FrankB

Thanks Darth!

Here's another iteration....


freelancah

Very nice Frank! In the large image where ocean meets land..there is some dark shorelines. If you could somehow smooth those out I think it would be perfect

FrankB

Quote from: freelancah on February 20, 2012, 04:47:36 PM
Very nice Frank! In the large image where ocean meets land..there is some dark shorelines. If you could somehow smooth those out I think it would be perfect

Thank you :)

I'm actually working on these now. Tricky little bastards are hard to come by ;)


FrankB

unfortunately I discovered a flaw in the way I put this together, that introduced these shore line cliffs. I can't fix it with this approach so I have to try something else. Procedural planets, especially the earth like ones, are really difficult to make. More than I expected.  >:(

If keep you posted on progress...

Frank

FrankB

Here is another iteration

...


FrankB

and this is the latest.

It has an icy northpole and more landmass along the eqautor, less landmass towards the poles.
I've added just a few clouds, as it seemed so wrong without any at all. I'll work on some global clouds later.

Frank


Hannes

The shapes of the continents look great. Maybe there's a little bit too much displacement. Looking forward to a more cloudy version!

FrankB

Quote from: Hannes on February 22, 2012, 05:38:01 AM
The shapes of the continents look great. Maybe there's a little bit too much displacement. Looking forward to a more cloudy version!

Thanks Hannes!

There definitely is too much displacement, particularly in image Planet57, but also to a degree in image Planet59.
All still WIP of course. More clouds will come at the very end of this project.

Cheers,
Frank

nvseal

Quote from: FrankB on February 21, 2012, 07:52:36 AM
unfortunately I discovered a flaw in the way I put this together, that introduced these shore line cliffs. I can't fix it with this approach so I have to try something else. Procedural planets, especially the earth like ones, are really difficult to make. More than I expected.  >:(
Frank

Yes they are.  ;D I'm curious how things look at ground level. When I was working on my procedural planets I would always run into issues where I had to choose between nice global scale with strange fractal artifacts at ground level or nice ground level detail but lacking in global fidelity.

FrankB

Hi Stephen,

I am open for nice surprises, but I don't expect to be able to get awesome detail on ground level, especially not far from the origin. Perhaps the detail will suffice for a  few km distance from the surface. However, as far as I can tell, I have found a way to not have loads of spiky artifacts on the planet (which was a problem I had with a previous setup), which is encouraging.
Secondly, I actually expect people to want to use this for space shots and close orbit level animations perhaps.
But I don't know, maybe I can push this further somehow. I definitely plan to perfect and add a couple of features, such as the ice caps, latitude dependend landmass distribution, and climate zone dependend surface texturing.

Frank

FrankB

#14
some renders from different altitudes

from space
from 500m above ground
from below 10m above ground


the space render already shows the climate dependant texturing along the equator. By the way, the two close ups are from near the equator.... so far from the origin.