// INTRODUCTION

Planet Studio is a built-in software in SimpleRockets 2 that is designed for creating procedural planets with physics. You can either create star systems, which have multiple planets that orbit a star-like object, or you can make a planet. These planets can have wildly diverse characteristics, such as clouds, atmospheres, oceans, rings, continents, buildings, canyons, craters, and the list goes on. I am going to teach you the basics and give you some tips.

// ELEMENTS

"Elements" is the name for the individual pieces of instructions that tell the software what kind of planet to make, whether it be an earth-like planet, or an icy desert planet. You can tell the software where to direct the information, also known as output, by changing the values in the "Data Inputs/Outputs". The value limits are predicted by using the position of the elements in a certain pass (things like "Height" or "Final Pass"). For example, let's say you have an element called Jimmy, and you have another element called Michael. You want Michael's output to get into Jimmy, what output value do you set to Michael? If Jimmy is at the top of the list, set Michael's output value to 0. If Jimmy is 3rd on the list, then set Michael's value to 2. Remember that he values will not stick to each other, so if you move the elements around, they won't be plugged in correctly, unless you change the output values accordingly.

// NOISE

Noise is the basic form of procedural generation, if not the definition. Many creative software uses noise in different ways, but we are going to talk about how SimpleRockets 2 uses it.

- Octaves will increase the amount of detail if you increase the value
- Frequency changes how many chunks of noise to apply, higher values will lead to things like tiny, scattered chunks
- Strength can increase the value of the noise, some might say height
- Lacunarity and Gain are things that you just have to experiment with

// BIOMES

Biomes are simple elements that can be customized easily in the biomes tab, but some can only be customized in the terrain generation tab. When you first make a biome element, you should always remember to set the input value to a noise element, otherwise the software won't know what shape the biome is. You can change things like the specularity or the emission of a sub-biome. Remember to set the tire track strength to something like 30%, higher values are recommended for darker terrain, like a lava planet.

// WATER

The oceans tab looks like a water droplet, you should be patient when you open it because it lags a bit when it's enabled. The system is really quite simple, you can experiment with the values and see what you like. 3D waves are only rendered on a PC.

// RINGS

Rings can be modified in the rings tab; it looks like a sphere with a thin torus that encompasses it. When adding another texture to the game, you will need to make an image, and insert it into a file called SupportFiles, it's inside UserData. Once you added the image, re-open the game. The game will automatically set the pixels on the bottom row of the image to the rings. The transparency of the separations in the rings is guided by the transparency of the image, no masking necessary.