The Birth of a Universe — The Volcanic Planet Reveal
Today, we are excited to reveal a new planet class, one dominated by sprawling oceans of lava, adventure, and opportunity — The Volcanic Planet.
Pierce the veil of smoke that pours forth from the planet’s surface and what is revealed is a fiery panorama. This is no place for punishment, however; the light of opportunity shines brightly on Explorers who call this planet home.
The planet’s crust is covered by gurgling oceans of lava, broken up by island formations of igneous rock and jagged mountaintops. This is a young planet, shined on by a young sun. To this day, massive changes in its topography take place over decades and centuries. These do not take from the scorching beauty at display but add to it — the Volcanic Planet is a living, breathing organism, with its own complex biosphere.
Standing atop obsidian-like mountains reveals a spectacle in motion below. To see the lava up this close is sublime, at once beautiful and awe-inspiring. To tread the planet is to embody the spirit of adventure, to welcome risk in search of great reward — to embrace the role of Explorer in full.
Life on the surface promotes the sturdiest of beings. Many of the planet’s native inhabitants are specialized in surviving the extreme heat and have evolved into true silicon-based lifeforms. Entombed in rock-like carcasses, beings great and small flitter back and forth across this landscape. Explorers observing them long enough might catch sight of veins of precious Quantum pulsing over those obsidian shells. Yet other organisms take to the skies on heavy-set wings covered with a viscous membrane.
The Volcanic Planet is rich in resources, awaiting exploitation by the industrious and enterprising. Further yet, stable cavern systems and formations on the surface give off a faint power signature, whose origins correspond to ancient alien technology encountered across the galaxy. What artifacts might yet be discovered? What riches await those willing to brave the secrets of the Volcanic Planet?
The Genesis Engine — Perlin Noise, The Driving Force Behind Texture Generation
Let us turn to another key feature of our Genesis Engine by shining a spotlight on the technology that empowers our use of randomized textual algorithms.
Perlin noise is a gradient noise algorithm developed for the procedural generation of object textures in the early 1980s by Ken Perlin. It has seen use in many media productions across motion pictures and gaming over the last forty years, from 1982’s Tron to Minecraft. Perlin noise is widely used to recreate patterns from nature: elements such as clouds, mountain ranges, forest expanses, and, relevant to today’s reveal, fire, lava, the myriad topographical features you may expect to encounter on a volcanic planet.
We utilize this technology by deploying multiple textured three-dimensional planes which are absorbed by the planet’s surface, itself constructed by the aggregation of multiple Perlin noises.
Our talented developers employ Perlin noise to create worlds at once familiar and distinct from one another. Combining this algorithm with the rest of the Genesis Engine’s toolkit allows our team to bring truly unique-looking planets to life. The end goal? To keep to our design philosophy of creating a reality better than reality.
Fasten in, Explorers, there’s one more planet reveal to come at https://planetquest.io.
