new:

• Added rotation to atmosphere layers.
• Added option to decouple star rotatation from sun.
• Added rotation to stars.

fixed:

• Fixed sun color not being used correctly by the shader.
• Fixed atmosphere layers not rotating with planet.
• Fixed stars mode "none" not linking nodes correctly.

new:

• The addon now ships with built-in presets.
• Introduced a new and improved atmosphere model with various phase functions.
• Added the ability to control the atmosphere layer height using a texture.
• Included background stars to enhance the planetary experience out-of-the-box.
• Planets now utilize both a physical radius, used for light calculations, and a visual radius, which scales the planet using Blender’s object scale.
• Added a performant Worley noise approximation to enhance detail in atmosphere layer textures.
• Updated planet shaders to use a HAPKE shader model, providing realistic retroreflectivity with adjustable parameters.

improvements:

• Improved viewport performance of rotating and adjusting sun lighting.
• Atmosphere parameters are now provided with physical values.
• Preset system has been improved and now supports textures.

fixed:

• Several rendering improvements and fixes to make shadows, atmosphere, planet sorting consistent and realistic.

new:

Reworked atmosphere model:

• Upgraded atmosphere calculations to more accurate and flexible ones.
• Added a layer system with 6 fully customizable layer slots that can influence the scattering, absorption, and emission of the atmosphere.
• Added ability to use density textures on atmosphere, on a per-layer basis, enabling effects such as clouds and auroras.
• Added procedural aurora density texture option to layers.

improvements:

• UI improvements to make it more in-line with our other addons.
• Improvements to depth calculations in all parts of the planet shader tree.
• Improved shadows, reducing cases where they didn't show up involving rings.

fixed:

• Fixed multiple sorting issues, especially involving atmosphere and rings.
• Fixed planet not showing up when added to the scene.
• Fixed edge cases that caused errors when removing/adding planets in certain ways.