Pixel Planet Generator
About
A showcase of some shader code for Godot game engine. Currently there are 8 types of planets, also generates black holes, galaxies, stars and asteroids. Each type has a lot of possible variations. Also allows you to export any planets you like in either a png , gif or a spritesheet.
Drag your mouse around the planet to change the lighting.
If you want to use this for yourself you can download the source for the shader code. Lots more options for variations are available in the source.
This project is completely free to use and will stay free, but donations are very appreciated, thanks!
FAQ
- Q: Can i use this in my game, tutorial, project, etc. ?
- A: Yes, it's completely free, use it however you want. Credit is appreciated but not required.
- Q: Is this available in Unity, etc?
- A: The only official version is this one, but here are some ports other people have made:
- Bevy Engine: Game tools Pixel gen by locuris
- Monogame: MonoGame-Pixel-Planets by EnthusiastGuy
- Unity: UniPixelPlanet by hmc
- Defold: defold-pixel-planets by selimanac
- Q: On the downloadable version, where do I find the exported files?
- A: On Windows and Linux, in the same folder the program is. On MacOS under "
~/Library/ApplicationSupport/Godot/ - Q: How do I use spritesheets?
- A: Determine how many frames you want for an entire rotation. Set this amount of frames for the width (or height). If this exceeds the file width limit, try increasing the other dimension (width/height) for more frames. And of course whatever tool you use to display animations has to support spritesheets.
- Q: How do I use color import / export
- A: Paste in a list of html color codes separated by newlines. Keep in mind that using the copy/paste from clipboard requires browser permissions. Also clipboard access seems to be disabled in firefox.
- Feel free to ask me anything if something isn't clear, cheers!
Source
Source on Github: https://github.com/Deep-Fold/PixelPlanets
Available under MIT license. Credit is appreciated, but not required.
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Update to Godot 4Mar 29, 2024
- color importing & exportingMar 18, 2023
- Layers!Jul 10, 2022
- Quality of life stuffFeb 27, 2022
- Galaxies & More PixelsDec 24, 2021
- GIF ExportsSep 07, 2021
- Dither togglingJul 03, 2021
- Random color palettesJun 06, 2021
Comments
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Have you thought of implementing height or normal maps to the shapes? I could imagine it would be hard since its not a 3D object, but it would lift the possibilities of the use-cases alot!
Thanks if you find time to answer - Amazing tool, props!
Oh that's actually a really good idea! It would definitely help in applying lighting and stuff. Unironically one of my favorite suggestions so far. I have a big list of things I want to add, so maybe I'll go and work on that sometime soon in the new godot versions.
Thanks and glad you like it!
Question how would I give proper credit to you for this asset? My intention is to use this for a school portfolio project that I am working on but my hope is to eventually use this in development of a full fledged game at some point.
Sounds like a cool application for this project! You can just say something like 'Pixel Planets by Deep-Fold' or something like that, whatever you feel like really. Also credits aren't required, but I appreciate that you want to give them!
I have a question about the asteroid shader, would it be possible to make it rotate over xyz axis?
Unfortunately not easily. They aren't actual 3d objects, so they can't rotate in other directions.
Yeah I was afraid of that, it's not projected on a sphere like the planets but I thought maybe there would be some other math trick that could be done:-)
Maybe someone much better at math than me :)
Haha, yeah it was a little above my math level too:-) They are great though!! It really looks great in my game, I'm making a 2D sidescroller with pixelart style in space. These planets and asteroids are really cool for the background! I took the shaders which Hiromitsu Matsubara converted to Unity and added the black hole and universe because they were not in there. Then I added scripts so that they can be used on sprites and all settings can be changed. So now I use them as shaders in my game instead of exporting the spritesheets. I also created a particle effect that spawns asteroids of random sizes and rotate them over time randomly. It looks really great!!! If you want I can put the sources for that on Github after I've finished my game, just say the word:-)
Did you know someone is reselling your work?
Not sure how it works with your MIT license but its still shitty, Didn't even give you credit
Unfortunately I came across this after I purchased this:
https://overboy.itch.io/overstellar-pixel-art-animated-planets-stars-space-backg...
Thanks for the heads up! I didn't know that. It's a maybe unfortunate side effect of the MIT license, but it does allow people to do whatever they want with the planet images, including selling them.
I don't really care about the credit but it does suck for the people who pay for something when they can get that same thing for free. So not too much I can do about it, but thanks for letting me now! Perhaps you can still request a refund from itch if you want?
Wow, on itch, even. Shameless.
Would it be possible to add an option for rotation around the X, Y, and Z axes? I’m hoping to create an animated GIF of a planet rotating from a 45° overhead perspective.
Unfortunately not easily doable because it isn't actually a 3d object. But it might be possible through some maths, I'll have to take a look at it. Thanks for the suggestion!
Oh, thank you for your reply. I originally thought it was a 3D model. It seems that implementing it is not that simple. But achieving this effect in a 2D way seems quite interesting.
Yeah it's basically just a 2d shader with some transformations to make it look 3d, so it can run really efficiently that way.
this is just an idea but what if you could make the planet explode?
Certainly an idea. Or maybe just put a low res explosion gif over the planet
I have a suggestion; what about the ability to add rings to all types of planets? Such as terrain planets. (or just have them as options)
Good idea! I've been wanting to add an option like that at some point. I'll have to test if godot's web performance is okay again so I can bring out some updates
yk this is rad
thank u
can you add pulsar star plz
What would that look like exactly, just some beams?
Nice generator!
Thank you!
Thank you, I used it along with a pixel space background for my first game. Here is my game.
Very good for a first game, glad the generators came in use. Well done!
Great !!
Nice, glad you like it!
u are a Genius .
thank u
This is really awesome
Thank you, glad you like it!
coolest!
Thanks!
Beautiful creation! From a beautiful mind! Thank you for this!
Thank you! You're very welcome
This is a seriously awesome planet generator! However, I have one problem with it: the exported planets spin way too fast!
When exporting as a gif, I have to get to the 1000 frame count to get something that doesn't spin super fast, and even then I wish I could get it spinning slower at a nice framerate. It would be really awesome if we had the ability to export a 1/2, 1/4 or 1/8 rotation for more cinematic shots where the planet rotates slowly but not for a full cycle.
All in all though, awesome tool. So fun to mess around with, great job :)
I'm not the creator, but you could export it as a spritesheet instead and then change the animation speed as you see fit if you're using it in a game engine.
that's a good solution, but what I'm really looking for is more frames in the same rotation to get a more cinematic shot. changing the animation speed doesn't really change that as it'd make the animation choppier!
idk if u still need it, but i found a funny way to make it: watch the gif when u recording by some apps like OBS with lossless scaling, then u will get a video for example 144fps/s, then u made it XD
Pretty good suggestion. I just went with the assumption at first that this would only be used as a looping animation, but I guess that doesn't have to be the case. I'll see if I can make that an intuitive setting at some point.
I want to use this to create system maps in my Halo ttrpg game. Do you happen to have/know of a 16:9 simple space backdrop in a similar artstyle? Anything I find online has other planets/stars depicted.
Try my pixel space background. Might be the style you're looking for, you can disable stars and planets and stuff.
That is perfect. Not sure how I missed that lol. A combo of the two would be the only way this gets better. A space background where you can add stars/planets in columns from left to right to make a system diagram.
Glad to hear that works. I've kinda tried to keep the projects separate so people can just use the parts that work for them individually. Maybe you could try adding the stars/planets to your background in whatever game engine or art program you're using?
Epic stuff 🔥
Thanks!
simply one of the most useful asset in the world
That's big praise, thank you! Glad you like it
I'm exporting but it doesnt export. I tried gif and png.
Are you on the browser version? It should just export do whatever your default download folder is
do you mind if I use this in my (free) game?
Go ahead, it's completely free to use
Thanks!
Just... WOW ! This looks so good !
Thank you! Glad you like it.
Very useful for word building and making games etc.
Thank you!
You're welcome! Hope you can get some good use out of it
Very interested in figuring out how to export shaders as spritesheets/png's, you implemented that in this project flawlessly, seems like you incorporated another github project to do this. Were there any online resources that helped you with this? Poked and prodded at your project a bit and trying to work through a course on shaders, but my brain struggles to wrap my head around how you pulled it off. Amazing work!
That part wasn't super straightforward, but the way it basically works is that the program sets a time value on the shader, then copies the image output of that shader to somewhere else, and then advances the time value every frame until a full rotation is done.
As you noticed I used another project to save all of those separate frames to a gif, and I have a custom implementation for just stacking all those images together in a spritesheet. But I didn't really use any resources to come up with that, it just seemed like the easiest way to do it.
Hope that makes sense!
Thank you for allowing us to use your asset generator free of charge. This is a seriously impressive piece of work to me, as I myself have tried working with shaders with quite some difficulty.
Here is the project I completed with the help of your work!
Awesome, glad it was useful for your game! Cool to see you have a collection of games made already, thanks for sharing.
EDIT: Just noticed the dev logs - will look at those :)
seriously impressive work - I wanted to try do something similar but find dealing with shaders very difficult - don't suppose you have any advice on learning what's required to do something like this?
I'm an engineer so understand the fundamentals just cannae ken shaders
Glad you enjoy! Shaders can really be quite tricky to wrap your head around at first, it's a different way of thinking from normal programming. I would recommend finding different resources on it until something "clicks".
Personally, I found the book of shaders very helpful for an introduction.
Thank you so much! I'm actually currently porting your solution into rust using the Bevy Engine and it has helped a great deal XD. If it gets to a state I'm happy with I'll do it as a fork of your repo :pray:
I'll also check that book out!
Glad to help! That sounds like an awesome project, and probably also helps a lot in learning about shaders. If you get something going I'd be glad to link to it in the description or something
:heart:
it's been going well XD
https://imgur.com/a/2TTEHBB
Oh, super impressive to get that implemented in another engine! Looks pretty much done aside from some scaling, nice!
Thanks for these! they are great!
You're very welcome, glad you enjoy!
This is awesome. Using it for the Indie Galactic Space Jam 2024.
Nice, glad you like it and well done on making a game!
This is so cool, i wish i had a use for it haha
Haha, glad you enjoy. Just enjoying looking at it is also a good use
I call this planet Oeie :>
add more galaxy shapes!
Any suggestions? You can also adjust a lot more of the shapes and properties of planets and galaxies by using the source in godot.
I used it to make a few planets for my menu: https://iamsul.itch.io/starshooter
Its freaking awesome thanks!
Wow, amazing game! I love the retro look and feel of it, and a lot of fun to play also. Awesome job!
Looks amazing! Would you mind sharing some technical details? Is it using geometry? What procedural generation techniques did you use?
Thanks! This is using only a fragment/pixel shader to generate the planets, using a form of fractal brownian motion to generate noise.
I made a post on reddit some time ago that goes into a lot more detail in how the generator is built up, which you can find here: https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/comments/mobhb5
Unreal! Absolutely love it. Plans to make similar generators in the future?
Thank you! Glad you like it. I have some ideas for other generators but just need to find some time to actually make those.
this is so sick. great job
Thank you, glad you like it
i wanna see custom made moons n stuff
Thank for the suggestion, but this program is really about procedural generation. There's almost certain a lot of custom moon and other planet sprites on itch and other sites
This is one of the coolest art generation tools I've come across. Will definitely be using this and citing you in my spaceship building game!
Awesome, glad you like it and would love to see what you can do with it!
Hey, it’s a really cool tool you’ve created! What’s the license for the generated sprites? Am I allowed to use them in a complete game template and sell it on a marketplace like the Unity Asset Store? I’ll make sure to give proper credit if needed. Thanks!
Thank you, glad you like it. You own the sprites you generate, so feel free to do with that as you wish. Credit would definitely be appreciated if you want, and thank you for asking permission!
Thank you so much for clarifying! I really appreciate it. I’ll definitely give credit to you in the template to show my appreciation for the awesome tool. Thanks again for your work and for being so open about usage!
Hey, I made a game using your generator.
It's called Dr.Planet :D
Thank you, this helped a lot.
Awesome! Nice job on creating a game and getting it on Steam! Hope the launch is doing well and thanks for sharing.