Planets and Satellites

It is a collection of geometry node groups that can make planetary systems that contain stars, planets and moons. You can create entire solar systems with precise control over various parameters such as size, distance, rotation speed, orbit speed, axial tilt etc.

You can plug in any input geometry and create custom animations with lots of objects in a non-destructive way. The true power of this package lies in their ability to inter-connect to create a complex system. You can also create interesting motion graphics animations.

There are three node groups included in the file that are:

• Planet
• Satellites
• Object text

Planet:

This node group can be used to create a singular object that can be a planet, sun or a moon. With numerous customization options, you can precisely control the orbiting animation of your planet or satellite.

You can plug any number of satellites to each planet and you can have infinite number of satellites of satellites as long as you plug it to the 'Satellites' input socket of the planet node group.

Satellites:

Satellites node group can be used to add multiple satellites with several randomization options. It can be used if you want to quickly add a large number of satellite objects orbiting around a center point. You can also add a collection of objects and use 'Pick instance' option to randomly distribute them as satellites.

You can drag any object from the outliner and use them as the input geometry.

Object text:

Object text node group can be used to display the text label of any object as it is orbiting any other object. The text will always be facing the active camera. You can create an entire system and create a new object with a new node tree to create labels for each individual object.

Object text takes instances as input and you can use the index input to pick which instance you want to attach your text to.

Inter-connections:

The real utility of this package is in their ability to inter-connect with each other to create a complex planetary system. The planet group has the 'satellites' input socket. You can use join geometry node to plug in various objects and plug them in the satellite input socket. If you give axial tilt to any planet, it's satellites will also tilt their orbit planes along with the planets.

Click here for the pdf.