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Mini app3 min read

Name your planet: a procedural planet generator

Type a name and get your own planet, drawn live in WebGL: ocean worlds, lava planets, ringed gas giants. Spin it and share the image.

Drag to rotate

Not case-sensitive: the same name always gives the same planet.

Example planet

Aurora

Radius
·
Day length
·
Surface
·
Gravity
·
Year
·
Moons
·
Star
·
Distance
·

Share your planet

Type a name and Echo’s cousin builds you a world. Each name gives its own planet, with its own sky, continents, weather and sometimes rings or moons, and the same name always brings back the same one. It is a small procedural planet generator, drawn live in your browser, that you can spin, photograph and share.

How a name becomes a planet

  1. Your name is tidied up (spaces collapsed, capitals ignored) and run through SHA-256, which gives 256 bits that depend on every letter.
  2. A few of those bits pick the type of world. The other bits set the details: how rough the terrain is, how high the sea level sits, how many clouds there are, the hue of the whole palette, whether there are rings, and how many moons orbit.
  3. A shader then draws it. For every pixel it traces a ray towards a sphere and works out what that point looks like: terrain from layered noise, colours from height and latitude, light from a sun, a glowing atmosphere on the edge, and clouds that drift above the surface.

No image is stored and no planet is picked from a list. The world is a pure function of the name.

Six kinds of world

  • Ocean worlds have seas, continents, polar caps and weather, and some even show city lights on the night side.
  • Desert worlds are rust-coloured, dry and dusty.
  • Ice worlds are almost entirely frozen, pale and cracked.
  • Lava worlds have black rock split by molten rivers that glow in the dark.
  • Gas giants have no surface, only stormy bands and a giant spot, and they are the most likely to wear rings.
  • Alien worlds mix violet seas and teal land under a strange atmosphere.

Spin it, then share the picture

Drag the planet to turn it, or use the arrow keys, and it keeps spinning on its own until you switch Auto-rotate off. What you see is what you share: the image is a 1080 × 1080 card with the planet, its name, its class and a catalogue code.

  • On a phone, the share buttons open the system share sheet with the picture attached, so you can send it straight to X, Facebook or Instagram.
  • On a computer, X opens a post with a link and puts the image on your clipboard, ready to paste. Facebook opens its share dialog with the link and saves the image for you to add. Instagram has no web sharing, so the image is saved to upload from the app.
  • Copy link gives you an address that rebuilds your planet for whoever opens it.

Privacy

Everything runs in your browser. The name you type is never sent to a server, stored or logged. It only appears in the address bar when you share a link, since the link needs it to draw the same planet.

Why I built it

Because I wanted to see how much personality a name has when you give it a sky. It is a small, finished thing for people who like space, shaders and giving things names.

Questions

Is the planet random?

No. Your name goes through a hash (SHA-256) and the result decides everything: the type of world, its colours, whether it has rings or moons, even its day length. The same name always gives the same planet, on any device.

Is the name case-sensitive?

No. Spaces are tidied and capitals are ignored, so “Aurora”, “aurora” and “ AURORA ” all give the same planet. Any other change, even one letter, gives a different one.

Are the numbers real astronomy?

No, they are invented. Radius, day length, temperature and distance are generated from your name to make each planet feel like a place. Nothing here is a scientific model.

How is the planet drawn?

A WebGL fragment shader ray-traces a sphere for every pixel of the picture. Continents come from layered noise, then comes lighting with a sun, clouds, an atmosphere, optional rings that cast a shadow, and up to two moons that really orbit.

Is my name stored or sent anywhere?

No. The planet is computed in your browser. A name only appears in the address bar when you share a link, because the link has to recreate the same planet for the person who opens it.

Why does it look different, or slower, on my phone?

The shader works on every pixel, so older phones draw it at a lower resolution to stay smooth. If your device prefers reduced motion, the planet stays still until you rotate it.

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