I was hired by ExoWorlds Inc. to create a procedural material system in Blender to generate over 10,000 unique exoplanet images, with different planet types and biome styles. These were sold as NFTs as lead-up to a video game that ExoWorlds plans to release in the future. The NFT sale was a success, selling out in less than 24 hours and generating $1.4 million USD in funds.
The planets were generated using Blender's shader node system, which I used to create several modular node group components such as craters, forests, cracks, etc., which I then combined in different ways to generate eight distinct planet types. Each planet type was also split into several sub-types, each based on a different seed value and with randomized features.
With 10,000 randomly generated planets to keep track of, this project was a great test of my problem solving and communication skills. I also learned a lot about procedural design, as this was my first major project involving procedural materials.
To see the ExoWorlds website, click the button below. I have also included a few of my favorite test renders created during the development process, which were not used in the final product.
