Ben Parry · Senior Graphics Programmer

Most of the stuff to do with planets is handled by a distinct team in Frankfurt. I know that there's something on Carsten's schedule. He's got an idea for how to deal with the issue that planets have: they tend to have a cloud deck that extends a really long way away. It curves with the surface of the planet and that kind of thing. Also, I think planetary clouds have a very specific way that they tend to get lit. You have to skew much closer to reality than we had to for the space gas cloud. So I think he's cautious about just saying, yeah, let's just use the gas cloud tech, because if we did that right off the bat, it would look pretty terrible.

Mike Snowdon · VFX Director

They need to be dynamic as well, don't they, on the planets?

Ben Parry · Senior Graphics Programmer

Yeah. I mean, there's still room, if when he's developing it he decides that he wants the nearest area, like the nearest so many kilometers, to be generated from the same source that his tech is rendering the rest of the clouds from. Suppose they look great in the distance, but when you get close they start to break down, or they don't solve all the problems you would see if you actually have to see a ship weaving in and out of them. If something goes off key like that, at that point I think it would make sense that we could generate from his source data, create on the fly some sort of procedurally generated gas cloud stuff. I don't know. It feels like these things should be able to work together.