Development:Orbital Planet Surfaces

General

This page summarizes concepts and approaches to creating planet surfaces as seen from orbit. Topics of atmospheric entry and close-to-surface planetary topology or atmospheric effects or texturing should be covered in a separate document. Two main topics are covered in this document:

• Development of textured surfaces
• Development of procedural surfaces

References

References apply both to textured and procedural approaches if not stated otherwise.

Wiki References

Development Roadmap

• Improved planet textures (Higher quality/Fractal Enhanced?): Development:Roadmap#Aspects_for_consideration

Forum References

Texture Requirements

Development Tools

• Tools for creating planet textures

Examples, Including, Testing

• Orbital planet surfaces
• Some New Planets
• stand clear. planets coming through

Submission Process

Development Needs and Tasks

• Shady Planet...

Improvement Proposals

• Auto-Enhancing Textures
• Fractal Generation System
• More pretty stuff: atmospheres and planet surfaces

Textured Surfaces

Texture Requirements

Image Resolution and Formats

The planet surface graphics format recommended for the game is currently 2048x1024 in png or jpg format.

Keeping original high resolution image (e.g. 8192x4096 or 4096x2048) versions in stock helps maintaining quality and scalability as game development progresses or typical screen resolutions rise in the future with better hardware available to the players.

Image Properties

Naturally, the images should be seamless (tilable) so that seams are not visible on the rotating planet.

Procedural Surfaces

At the time of writing (June 2006) no known implementation of procedural orbital planet surfaces exists in Vega Strike.

Author

pyramid 16:19, 22 June 2006 (PDT)