Comparative Analysis of Procedural Planet Generators

TL;DR

This paper compares two real-time procedural planet generators developed in Godot, analyzing their implementation, LOD systems, and user preferences through a comparative study with existing methods.

Contribution

It introduces two novel procedural planet generation algorithms and provides a comparative analysis including user study insights.

Findings

Participants preferred one generator over the other.

The new algorithms produced diverse planetary features.

The study highlights strengths and weaknesses of each approach.

Abstract

This paper presents the development of two distinct real-time procedural planet generators within the Godot engine: one employing Fractal Brownian Motion (FBM) with Perlin Noise, and another adapting Minecraft-inspired layered noise techniques. We detail their implementation, including a quadtree-based Level of Detail (LOD) system and solutions for planetary mesh generation. A comparative user study (N=15) was conducted where participants explored unique instances generated by our two algorithms alongside two existing procedural planet projects.