Sky Haze (Planet Shader)
A custom Unity shader that hangs hazy, atmosphere-tinted planets in a daytime sky — that dreamy sci-fi look, on demand.
Overview
Have you ever seen the moon in the day sky — the haze of the atmosphere casting a blue tint over its surface? That look has been spotted in countless sci-fi movies and games, and I've always wanted to recreate it in 3D so I can use it on demand for a game or demo. This is that project.
My Role
I created a custom PBR-based shader using Unity's Shader Graph tool. It was a breeze working with blending options, custom lighting, Fresnel, and even render queue work using the Universal Render Pipeline.
I wanted to frame the image, so I created some trees and small props to make something more interesting to look at. This shows off the skybox blending, depth, and atmosphere properties I built into the shader: you can give each planet its own atmosphere using Fresnel as the primary filter, then layer the atmosphere of the planet the player is viewing from, and much more.
Enough words — have a look at the end result.