About

Pshine ("planet shine", name inspired by KSP mod of same name) is a work-in-progress open-source space simulator "game" written in Vulkan and C23 (because why not). Currently, the implemented features include:

Atmospheric scattering
Patched conics orbital simulation
200 lines of octahedral sphere (not terrain!) mesh generation
Simple sphere LOD system
Real sizes/values (so the Earth's radius is 6,371,000 meters)
C23 math library with a goofy python generator
Silly build system using only ninja files

I plan to add:

Proper terrain mesh
Minimal spacecraft simulation (so orbital maneuvers)
Other stuff probably, I don't know

NB: I'm only working on this when I feel like it, this isn't anything serious.

Devlog

Bloom — 26th of April 2025
Ring Shadows — 11th of March 2025
Jovian life — 27th of February 2025
Many atmospheres at once — 26th of February 2025
Config files! — 26th of February 2025
Hello — 24th of February 2025

Screenshots

It's 1 am.. Earth at the bottom from very high above, atmospheric scattering and a blooming sun.

Showcasing the User Interface and differnet celestial bodies' orbits. View from Earth, the Moon is visible, the orbits of Jupiter and Mars are visible (and their labels).

A sunset on Mars, from high above the ground. The dark Martian surface is taking up the right half of the picture, with a gradient from pale blue near the surface to orange, with a small dot of our Sun in the middle.

View of Earth partially in shadow from ~10 million km, with the Sun visible on the left.

Sunrise from space (or almost space), Earth fills up the right side of the screenshot, with the atmosphere showing a gradient from green to blue.

Earth and sun from very far away, so that half the Earth's orbit is visible.