[RELEASED] SUPER-EARTH realistic rendering of planet beauties (pin-ups)

I know what got you here! Pin-ups, right? This little word caught your attention?! Curves will sell... they say. Here we go, all curvy shapes, almost mathematically perfect roundness, actually. Grab it while it's 30% off and love it, my dear connaisseur ;-)


Click on the Youtube logo to view enlarged clip. Watch the clouds moving realistically, do you see the hurrican twirling? You can even set the speed for this.

Click on the Youtube logo to view enlarged clip.

Click on the Youtube logo to view enlarged clip.

Click on the Youtube logo to view enlarged clip.

SUPER-EARTH v.1.2.0f1
Asset package to render realtime 3d planets (super-earths).

One license per seat. Requires Unity 5. 64-bit recommended for high resolution textures.

We love planets, don't we?!
The images of our universe available on the net are very often just breathtaking. It teased me for a long time to make a move into space and create a 'space universe cosmic something' on my own. It became some planet creation asset for Unity.

This project was sleeping on my harddrive for a year and waiting for Unity 64-bit to emerge. Unity 5 64-bit is here. So, here we are! I'm glad to introduce you to SUPER-EARTH.

SUPER-EARTH is not a newtonian system! It's not a solar system. It is not using procedurals, it's not like terragen! So what is it then? It enables creation of fairly unique 3d-planets as you can see in the images/youtubes here and on the website, simply by using the supplied textures and adjusting materials. Planets can be even free of polar pinching. SUPER-EARTHs are good for flybys and orbiting.

Links
Asset Store
superearth.de
Documentation
Reading the documentation is strongly recommended. Please read more about requirements and details before purchasing!

Workflow
Just typical editing in Unity: applying materials to objects, actually materials to objects with similar name. Easy because materials and objects follow the same naming convention. Or simply duplicate any planet object and its materials from the provided example scenes. Apply the duplicated material to the duplicated object and adjust material properties or swapping of textures as you wish. I suggest exploring the provided examples. Read the docs for more.

Materials
Several hundred materials to render planets.
Solutions to render planets including pinch free poles and rendering of planets mapped with six 4k textures. Render soft and smooth planet edges/rims with low (and high) resolution geometry!

Highres textures
-26 cloud maps at 8k (16k archived)-
-26 cloud gradient maps for cloud turbulence/movement
-8 surface color maps at 8k (16k archived)
-8 surface bump maps at 8k (16k archived)
-8 watermask maps at 8k (16k archived)
-Map set for earth at 8k (16k archived)
-26 civilisation light textures at 8k (16k archived)

Midres textures
-57 surface color maps at 2k
-57 surface bumps maps at 2k
-Textures also included as cylindrical projections being usable in other planet renderers.

The textures are the heart of the package. Even if you prefer your own planet rendering technology the planet textures might be still very useful in your space project.

Purchasers will get access to full 12GB .unitypackage and 16k textures. You will need to send me an email with your invoice number for confirmation. Please read the documentation.

Take a look at the images below or go to superearth.de for more.

Feel free to contact me.

 

SUPER-EARTH is now available at the Asset Store. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

 

Hi fellow game creators,

what would you like to see in SUPER-EARTH? What are you missing? I will be happy to get some feedback and appreciate your comments.

 

Breaking News!

Today November the 3rd - 4th, 15:00 o'clock, SUPER-EARTH is promoted on Unity's 24 hour sale. If you planned to buy it, now it's your chance to grab it with a 50% discount.

 

You said there are several hundred planet materials... does that mean there are several hundred `alien worlds` able to be rendered? Are there other examples?

 

The answer is yes and no;-) I have several shaders that render planet surfaces and clouds in different 'flavours' mostly related to quality. Means one material doesn't equal one planet. Without clouds it's approx. 200 planets in different qualities. Add the clouds and you have even more. Yet, by adjusting the material parameters you can create many many more, I wouldn't say infinitly but the appearance of a planet can be changed drastically so that you will have difficulties to understand it is based on the same textures, it will look like another planet. To get an idea of this you are heartily invited to browse the package contents section in the Asset Store for the materials. The materials already have a planetlike look as they are presented in a spherical manner. Click/Browse the materials to get an impression of what you will get and what can be done. For more rendered examples you can check the image section on superearth.de or in the Asset Store. Make sure to check the documention.

 

Hey guys, don't forget to email me your invoice number for confirmation and access to the 12 GB version! Read the documentation.

 

Good time to grab it. SUPER-EARTH is now on sale!
Was $85, is now $25. Mad, isn't it?

 

SUPER-EARTH 1.1.2f1 is waiting for approval, meanwhile check out some Youtubes that I've add to my initial post. Cool new feature is cloud turbulence (e.g. hurricanes, coreolis). It's controllable via gradient maps that you can paint outside Unity. You can match this gradients exactly to the cloud textures. Actually I've matched these already but you can add your own or rework the provided to your liking. You will need an image editor that can paint these kind of gradient maps. Krita for example.

 

Hi, I just found you on the asset store and I'm THRILLED to see that there's a new version in queue waiting for approval as of today! Great timing!

This is simply beautiful work and is EXACTLY what I was looking to have in my space game (to give my planets an organic, life-like feel from orbit).

I'm on Unity 5.5.0 with my current project; do you think this will plug right into 5.5.0 without a problem? Does it support 5.5.0? I think I'm good on the RAM; I have 32GB and am running a modern box (10-core i7 CPU, GTX 1070 and SSD).

Great work, thanks!

 

Hi strife77!
Thank you for your nice words. I admit I have not tested with 5.5 but I don't see a reason why it shouldn't work. In the unlikely case of a problem with 5.5 I will fix this anyway. I will test with Unity 5.5 in the next days.

 

Excellent, thanks for the quick reply. Great to hear about you testing with 5.5.0.

I'll go ahead and purchase. Is it still required to send you my email to get the 12GB of textures? I'd love to have those.

By the way - I can't tell you how glad I am to see someone actually layer a planet with textures that it's deserving of! This is really great how you've done it. Very excited about this.

Edit: Meant to ask, also - do I need Shader Forge for this? I read the documentation, but it's not clear to me whether Shader Forge is required for the basic functionality or whether it's only needed to 'customize' things.

I'm kind of new to shaders, so please excuse my lack of knowledge of the subject. Obviously, with this awesome asset here, it's time to learn more about them.

 

HI strife77
I've tested with 5.5.4 and 2017.1. And no problems so far.

It is required that you send me your invoice number of the invoice that you receive from Unity. This number is used to verify your purchase in my Unity publisher dashboard. I will then give you access to download the 12GB for free. Unfortunately, Unity Asset Store has a file size limit of 4 GB so this is the only way to provide larger files.

You don't need Shader Forge to use the shaders, except you would want shader forge node editor for editing the shaders. Without shader forge you will have to hit the play button in Unity to see cloud turbulence in action.
I will update the info in the documentation to clear this up. Thank you for your feedback.

Btw, I suggest setting up Unity's user interface e.g. hierarchy, project, inspector side by side at the bottom. Doing so will help keeping (very long) object names displayed in full. See screenshot below. Also consider using SUPER-EARTH in a separate project due it's huge file size to keep your main project tidy and performant. Only import the planets that you really want into your project. Also think about the texture size that you will need and if necessary resize the textures with an image editor. My 2 cents ;-) Hope this helps. Ah, one more thing, if resizing with photoshop keep calculation at bilinear other will likely introduce visible seams at texture edge.

 

Hi, synapse. No problem about the invoice # / file size issue for the textures. I've just sent that to you through your email (Edit: and have also downloaded through the Unity Editor / Asset Store).

Thanks for the clarification about ShaderForge; I'll probably bring that into my workflow since it'll make things easier (Also, thanks for the editor tips.)

Also, thanks for the additional testing which tells me I probably won't run into any issues on 5.5.0.

REALLY looking forward to working with this! Thanks!

 

SUPER-EARTH 1.1.2f1 is approved and available! Hope you like it.

 

Just added civilisation lights. Is based on masks. No working on nice masks for these. Color and Civ light reach in the twighlight zone is adjustable. Feature will be in the next release.

 

Another 2 shots with civ lights and cloud layer

 

Good stuff, thanks for the continued updates.

I haven't had time to mess with it yet but hope to soon.

 

You're welcome and thank you too. Let me know what you have done with SUPER-EARTH. I'm curious

 

Hooray. SUPER-EARTH 1.2.0f1 is now life in the Asset Store and 30% through 8th Dec

 

Nightside: Various civilisation light textures to create Star-Wars-planet-like appearance. Dark clouds.

 

It's a pretty product. I'm not far enough along to use it, but it definitely has my interest.

 

Thank you, I'm pleased to read this.

 

Blackholes-wormholes-portals. Interstellar anyone? Needs a bit polishing here and there, and new textures. Example below, Clip will follow. Working on spaceboxes at the moment. This will be in the next release.

 

Your BlackHole looks awesome.
If I understand this product, you should be able to use other texture maps.
Please consider this collection of Alien Planet bitmaps I have available @ Gumroad.
https://gumroad.com/duael

 

Thank you Duael! Yes, its possible to use your very nice planet textures in SUPER-EARTH. Do you you have higher resolutions and heightmaps of these?

 

Synapsemassag, I only made these as color maps. There are no associated bump or normal maps.
The resolutions vary. They are made "As Is", so that the user can decide if they want to crop or scale to get the best results for their camera view.

 

So can you walk, drive and fly around on these planets with a player? Can you have A.I walk , run and drive around, fly around these planets? Or is it just 3D models for scene decoration?

 

Thanks for your interest. SUPER-EARTH is intended for mid or far orbits. It's not intended for "landing on the planet".

 

OK Thank you although will you be thinking about it for the future?

 

In a future far far away ;-).

 

Hi. Sorry for my english, helps google translate. Is it possible to place clouds in the store without a planet?

 

Hello vitekatr,

I don't understand your question.

If your asking if I can put cloud textures on the store, the answer is "no".

 

Hi Vitekatr,
breath taking beauty! Thanks. We are making this purchase soon for our "flyby spacestation" project. We wonder about the thin layer of atmosphere that reflects the sunlight at dawn.... if it is in your inventory, please demo it in a youtube or something. if not, please advise. We aim to make the flyby screen as magistic as possible. Many thanks.

 

A nebula. Just a texture example for the space boxes exposing the singularity feature that will be in the next release. Textures will be available at 16k as usual.

 

Shader Forge is deprecated. So I want to let you know that I will not support shader forge in the future. Instead I will switch to Amplify shader editor or Unit'ys native Shader Graph.

 

Click on the Youtube logo to view enlarged clip.

New feature in the next(!) release of SUPER-EARTH: singularity aka blackhole aka wormhole.

Still a lot to do.

 

Hello!
Can you port the shaders to Amplify shader editor? maybe to work with HDRP? when will be available the next update?

 

Hi sybere,
I liked Amplify and started porting to Amplify but it has some issue with refraction. I had some exchange about this with Amplify support (back in August) and they wanted to take care about this and get back to me as soon as they have any news on this topic. Nothing happend since then, so a port won't happen any time soon. I'm sorry to disappoint you here. I'm also not happy about this and at the moment doubt to make myself dependant on third party software once again. I would rather prefer to go the Unity's Shader Graph route instead but there are some other issues with "grab passes". So no ports at the moment.