Carleton University - School of Computer Science Honours Project
Winter 2021
Procedural Planet Generation
Michael Ting
SCS Honours Project Image
ABSTRACT
In the field of simulations and game design, most assets must be individually hand crafted with enough diversity to fully populate a world or given space. This approach to asset development leads to many resources dedicated to developing textures rather than the game itself. The other option for developing assets is procedurally generating them with the best solution often depending on the specific task at hand, however, one task where the procedural approach excels at is developing terrain and planets. Given that our universe is potentially infinitely sized, with an infinite combination of planets, a developer might want to emulate this feeling in their game. This project focus on tackling this obstacle and produces a wide variety of planets to suit any need. The project successfully creates and provides customization options for four different planet types of Gas giant, Earth-like, Rocky, and Cracked: all with their unique feeling and setup. Each planet class has its own unique customizations and potential parameters that can be utilized in their respective algorithms to produce stunning results on a planetary scale.