Planet types and prefabs

Choose the family closest to your intended look, then customize its materials. A supplied prefab keeps the mesh mapping and the surface/effect proportions together.

Choose a starting family

All paths below begin at Assets/FORGE3D/Planets/.

Family	First prefab	Best starting point for
Terrestrial	Terrestrial/Planet_Terrestrial_01.prefab	Land, oceans, clouds and city lights
Oceanic	Oceanic/Planet_Oceanic_01.prefab	Water-covered worlds and clouds
Moon	Moon/Moon_01.prefab	Rocky surfaces and craters
Ice	Ice/Planet_Ice_01.prefab	Layered frozen surfaces
Lava	Lava/Planet_Lava_01.prefab	Glowing molten terrain
Gas	Gas/Planet_Gas_01.prefab	Banded gas giants and rings
Sandstorm	Sandstorm/Planet_Sand_01.prefab	Desert terrain with dust clouds
Thunderstorm	Thunderstorm/Planet_Thunderstorm_01.prefab	Turbulent clouds and lightning
Sun	Sun/Sun_Blue.prefab	Animated stellar surfaces and corona

Other numbered or colored prefabs provide additional supplied looks. Preview the collection in Demoscene.unity before choosing one.

Understand the layers

Layer	Where to edit	What it changes
Surface	Renderer using a planet-family shader	Ground, water, surface clouds and family-specific effects
Atmosphere	Separate renderers using FORGE3D/Planets/Atmosphere	Limb color, glow and the illuminated arc
Ring	Ring renderer and its ring material	Radial bands, opacity and ring shading
Sun surface	Renderer using FORGE3D/Planets HD/Sun	Stellar color, moving detail and silhouette
Corona	Separate renderer using FORGE3D/Planets HD/Sun Corona	Rays, discharge and radial glow

Select each renderer and inspect Mesh Renderer > Materials to identify it. Not every prefab uses every layer. The surface clouds in Terrestrial, Oceanic and Sand are shader layers, so you will not find a separate cloud GameObject for each map.

Preserve a reusable setup

1. Instantiate the closest prefab in your scene.
2. Create material copies in your own project folder and assign them to the intended slots.
3. Save a prefab variant in that folder if you want to reuse the composition.
4. Scale the root uniformly before changing individual shells. Check the atmosphere fit, ring shadow and camera clipping afterward.

Keep the supplied mesh, UVs, origin and child proportions while learning the effects. Texture projection and cloud pole/middle blending depend on this setup. Swapping to a generic sphere is a separate integration task, not a necessary first step.

For a new composition, duplicate a supplied renderer/mesh arrangement and assign a compatible copied material. Planets does not create a new terrain mesh or collider from the material’s Height Map. Use Materials and customization for ownership and Technical reference for mapping details.