It’s been quite a long time since Mankind has left its cradle, the holiest of all planets, Terra. With the invention of the first warp-drive it was only inevitable for the Imperium to become an interstellar force of magnificence.

Planets, once mysterious and distant, are now essentially mere points of interest in the vastness of the Galaxy. From the scales of subsectors and solar systems, we look at them as if they weren’t of any significance, just another specks of dust in the sea of the stars. Yet when approaching a newly discovered planet, a sense of wonder and humbling awe fills even the coldest of hearts.

In Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor – Martyr, planets (with many other celestial bodies and such) are indeed points of interests, as in you will get specific missions tied to them. This is the final zoom layer on the Star Map, where you already chose your difficulty tier and difficulty. You’ll see the mission type, its briefing, your objectives, and your possible rewards when approaching such a celestial body.

Our lead artist, Anikó Salamon explains how she approaches creating a planet:

„You can create a planet in multiple ways, depending on what kind of celestial body we’re talking about.

We need a 3D model that has been already UV mapped correctly, based on the special needs of the shader. Then we can apply a texture set on the model, the texture consists of various values of base color, metalness, roughness, reflectance, emissive and normal base. For this at Neocore, we’re using Substance Painter, Photoshop and an editor for our in-house engine (Coretech).

Most of the textures are made in Substance Painter, because different maps can be painted together well, and we can modify them later easily, it keeps the different masks on separate layers. We can use these later for different effects.

The last stage of the process is done in the Coretech editor, when we use the in-game shaders to fine tune all details, like atmosphere, cloud layers, however we’d like them to be.”

Thanks to Anikó for her insights!