More progress on the planet shaders today, which almost gets us to the point where I can put out a new alpha build. Today’s big win was getting the various Normal channels aligned properly so that craters (or other detail) supersede the landscape, and the clouds supersede the craters, etc. When combined we get a solid normal response on the landscape which doesn’t bleed through the clouds:
The craters are very basic right now, so I’m making them more realistic by forming them from heightmap data taken from a 42k Moon heightmap. Various real craters of various sizes and depths can then be scattered procedurally as needed. We can also now use any kind of heightmap data to further drive the surface features, from mountains to giant cracks.
Randomly, here’s a reasonably barren world with some surface vegetation:
