This is a quick update post to reassure anyone who’s interested that the project continues to be in development. Most of the updates continue to be purely visual, although there will soon be a return to gameplay mechanics. The most immediately noticeable improvement is that the planets are no longer entirely static — oceans now freely move around! Although many will appear much like the short video below, the water system supports oceans of any color. This will allow for exotic planets with oceans of methane or other crazy environments.

I will update this post with close-ups of the new texturing system, but I will sum up the changes for now. Planets now support a palette of up to 64 textures determined by slope and biome. This pool of textures is drawn on to create more interesting landscapes with changing details. Up to four textures are supported at any given terrain vertex, which allows for large-scale variation across the planet.

I hope to delve more deeply into some of the updates expected for v0.4/0.5 in an upcoming post, but that’s all I have for a quick update today. Enjoy the water eye-candy!