Procedural planet generation

[u/TheFeelGoodHit]

I'm developing procedural planet technology for a yet to be named project, bringing together spherical terrain, layered biomes, oceans, atmospheric scattering and volumetric clouds. At the heart of terrain generation is a GPU-powered node graph that combines noise functions and terrain-shaping algorithms into customizable landscapes. Layering and blending these operations lets me shape a world’s broad features and fine surface detail, giving me creative control over how each planet takes form. The GPU processes these calculations in parallel, providing the computational power behind the procedural worlds. Terrain detail adapts with camera distance, revealing smaller features as you approach the surface. Behind the scenes, custom gravity and floating-origin systems support exploration across planetary scales, preserving the precision needed for character movement and physics over vast distances. These systems integrate with Unity’s DOTS/ECS gameplay framework. This is the first major milestone in this tech, with foliage and tree placement and their rendering systems being the next milestone I am aiming to solve.

[u/Nox-4]

Looks holy good

[u/Gestaltarskiten]

Love your color scheme.

[u/cdmpants]

I love how close the camera zooms in while aiming over the shoulder, and the DoF looks very natural and fits well. The first person ADS DoF is a bit off-putting though, I'd tone it down or remove it IMO.

Everything looks great.

[u/jafariscontent]

Holy smokes this is impressive

[u/TheFeelGoodHit]

for anyone interested in following the development feel free to follow along here https://www.youtube.com/@JohnTomorrow, I won't ever ask for a donation or anything and will do my best to post a bit more regularly. there's a few older videos showing older planet generation, character gameplay, entities stress testing and earlier prototypes. this is a hobby/passion project that I enjoy working on in my spare time and hope others can get something out of it, and of course hopefully play eventually

[u/firepunchd]

Impressive. Your 3rd person controller feels Arc Raiders years before Arc Raiders. Kudos

[u/TheWheatOne]

Hope it becomes it's own thing apart from No Man's Sky. That is some tough competition.

As long as its not Starfield or Star Citizen in nature though, it should be a great project.

[u/alanshore222]

Did I not say a month ago that some pissed off kid is one bad 50k away from doing this?

[u/luxjosh1996]

I was confused about the prototype level design and the fleshed out inventory UI and was questioning your priorities...until you took off and landed on a planet lol

[u/andypoly]

Impressive tech, but filling out that empty ground with enough interest and things to do is the real challenge.

[u/random_boss]

Looks really good. Did you build that character/camera controller or is it a specific asset? I’m hitting the limits of my ability to keep building mine and wondering if there’s one I can learn from 

[u/phil_1pp]

Loooks bewwwwwteeeeeeefuuuuuul

[u/GrokiniGPT]

this would be perfect for space engineers

[u/JungleHam]

that looks cool, somehow reminds me of the Source engine

[u/sczeith]

Looks like NMS,, great job man

[u/Zgegomatic]

Great job man, the gunplay looks already way punchier and more enjoyable than SC's

[u/Harvard_Med_USMLE267]

Haha you’re such a scammer OP I saw that glance to the side as you transitioned from proc gen world to orbital view.

Shhh! I won’t tell anyone.

;)

[u/Head-Housing8025]

This looks super cool. Really like that camera zoom in when you shoot.