Planet Generators

[clarence]

I have recently tried some of the planet generators that's floating around the web. Here are the ones I found most useful.

 

 

http://topps.diku.dk/torbenm/maps.msp

 

Quite simple web-based generator. Not so many parameters to change, but it's still one of my favorites. Images can be in a multitude of projections and color schemes, and the land masses look good. With a bit of photoshop adjustments the end result can get very good. "Bump map on land only", "Non-linear altitude scaling" and coastal contour lines are fine additions to the images.

 

 

 

Planetary Generator 4 (for Filter Forge)

 

For photo-realistic blue planets, this is the best planet generator I have found. It has a lot of parameters, but never feels difficult. Optional cloud layer looks very good, and is highly tweakable. Photo-realism, as is often the case, takes some time to render though. The biggest drawback is that it's not free: The generator itself is free, but you need Filter Forge 4 to run it. The good thing is that you can try Filter Forge free for 20 days. It would also have been very useful to be able to export a rectangular map of the entire planet - hopefully it will appear in version 5.

 

 

http://wwwtyro.github.io/procedural.js/planet1/

 

Web-based generator with a lot of controls. With this one you see the resulting planet directly as a rotating sphere, and the resolution goes up to 4000 pixels. You also get four different image maps, if you know how to utilize them (in a 3d program for example). My two biggest problems are that the GUI is a bit difficult, and that the actual maps just doesn't look very good. I might have to spend some more time with it, but so far I've not been very lucky with this.

 

 

I would also have liked to try AstroSynthesis (as it is supposed to be very good), but as there is no Mac version, it wasn't possible.

[Sam E.]

Very cool, thanks!

 

For a lo-tech version of planet and society random generators, check out Sine Nomine Publishing's Stars Without Number - the core rule book of which is free to download!

[clarence]

Yes, I also enjoyed Stars Without Number's planet/society rules. The tagging system works surprisingly good. To fill all those randomly generated planets with life, rules like that are perfect time-savers. In fact, using a handful of different rules for creating societies would probably go a long way to create the right kind of heterogeneity.