Hello. For quite a bit I’ve been working on a planetary gravity system alongside a plugin i’m working on to import realistic planets with their color and height maps. The result is actually pretty good, with planets being able to scale up to 10000 studs, as well as being able to import 8k maps.
Here is an import of the moon using NASA height and color maps.
It also does a great job elevating landmasses (continents), especially those with a floor close to sea level.
I also created a custom swimming + climbing system, based on real roblox mechanics rather than realism.
I’ve made some previous posts on my plugin before, but I believe this does a better job at showing it (alongside the custom gravity I made). The actual gravity uses VectorForce for the gravity, and uses AlignOrientation to actually correctly orient the player to the planet. I did use Egomoose’s gravity controller as a base to make it.
I’m planning to have this as a free plugin on the Marketplace (for the planet generator). I can’t stress this enough, but I would LOVE to hear feedback on this, what could be improved, what features you guys think I should add, and so on. It’s the only thing I’ve been lacking so far.
Let me know what you guys think!
IMPROVEMENT:
I’ve recently added fake display planets so that terrain planets can be seen no matter how far you are from it. Terrain can only be rendered at a certain distance, so this allows planets to be seen from essentially any distance. I used an EditableImage for this, which has lighting based on the direction of the in-game sun, rotates around as the player moves around the planet in space, and stays fixed in its orientation, allowing the camera to rotate and move while it still appears like a 3D object.
Example:
(The Earth and Moon in this screenshot are at a 1:4550 model, both in distances and size. Earth is 10000 studs across, while the moon is 2700. Distances are accurate to real life.)
