Are you bored of seeing the same static background when launching the game? Do you wish that your main menu was more dynamic? Now you can bring it to life with a 3D globe (it spins!)
Immersive Planet
This highly customizable mod attempts to make RimWorld's main menu more dynamic by rendering a low poly planet in the main menu. It has no effect on gameplay, and won't impact your in-game performance at all. The scene stops automatically when you enter the game, and is re-initialized when you return to main menu. Low size of texture files also means minimal RAM consumption.
Now with a dedicated options tab, you can tweak the main menu to your liking! Choose a planet from a mix of real and fictional celestial bodies, adjust the position, atmosphere and rotation speed.
Limitations
But wait, since RimWorld already generates a planet during world creation, why would I make one from scratch? Well, that was the original intention of the mod. I wanted it to either read the newest save or generate a planet from scratch, and then display it in main menu. Turns out, it's harder than I thought. I've spent a good couple of hours trying to decode the logic behind how a planet is rendered in RimWorld, and I was left with more questions than answers. And due to some additional stuff, like the planet shaders not showing in the main menu, I've decided that it'd be too complicated and possibly heavy on performance to change all of that.
You might also notice that the planet isn't shaded. That's because I couldn't find an appropriate shader among the game files. RimWorld uses mostly custom shaders for planet rendering, and while I could probably import a generic "Unlit" shader somehow, I still haven't found a way to do it optimally.
26/01/2025 UPDATE:
I've managed to import shaders to RimWorld. Planet glow and advanced lighting options inbound next update!
Future of this mod
While I failed to fulfil the objective I had in mind, I'm content with what I've made and I'm looking forward to continuing this mod. For now, I'm leaving this version as a "proof of concept" but I'll gladly add more features in the near future. Besides custom textures and a variable spin rate, or maybe even a ship model orbiting the planet, I'm also open to your suggestions of what could possibly be added.
For now, grab a drink, open RimWorld and enjoy the view, while vibing to [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbWrge7DEb0&t=95]the soundtrack that inspired this menu[/url] in the first place.
