How to Create a Stunning Atmospheric Glow Around a Three.js Earth Rendering?

How can I render an 'atmosphere' over a rendering of the Earth in Three.js?

Overview

This detailed response provides a solution to creating an Earth-like atmosphere effect using Three.js and GLSL. The approach involves rendering a planet with an additional ellipsoid representing the atmosphere. By interpolating colors and applying light scattering effects, the result is a stunning, atmospheric glow around the Earth.

Technical Details

The solution relies on custom vertex and fragment shaders:

• Vertex Shader:

  • Computes the camera direction and pixel position in the ellipsoid space of the planet.
  • Passes these attributes to the fragment shader.

• Fragment Shader:

  • Determines if the ray intersects the atmosphere and planet ellipsoids.
  • Computes the length of the ray within the atmosphere and the associated optical path length.
  • Computes the distorted color based on the optical path length using light scattering coefficients.
  • Combines the amenuated light with light sources and ambient light.

The shader is optimized for performance and accuracy, allowing for atmospheric rendering at larger distances. The provided sample uniforms and source codes can be customized to achieve desired atmospheric effects.

Implementation

The implementation includes modified Earth rendering code to add the atmosphere pass. The result is visually appealing, providing a realistic representation of Earth with an atmosphere.

Additional Notes

The solution also includes improvements for rendering distant planets and stars. The source code and additional insights are available for reference, along with impressive visual representations of the atmospheric effects achieved.

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