I think the best solution would be to have a seperate "Clouds" layer from the celestial body layer, which could then be configured in different ways, and could rotate in every axis to simulate cloud movement. It's not the best looking way, but it probably is the simplest. Here are some detailed sections and stuff:
(more coming soon)

General Stuff
Clouds could adjust their color, height from planet (0 is sea level, 10000 is 10km from sea level, etc.), rotation speed and direction, etc. Extension of clouds beyond atmospheres should be possible in case we wanna create some super scifi giga-pulse-magneti-whatevertheheckyawannacallit star.

Inputs
The best solution is to have the clouds either have their own built-in noise, or let the player use an input plug which can then be used to create more funky designs (think of the planet brush), and the latter also allows backward compatibility with older celestial bodies.

Minimum Input Limit
This would essentially decide how much of the input is used for clouds on a 0-1 scale. 1 would mean only the maximum value is used, 0 means that the minimum is used (i.e. entire cloud layer/sphere is covered), and in between those we get the more usual values, e.g. 0.5 would mean that only the inputs above values of 0.5 will be converted to clouds, while those under will stay transparent and not do anything.

Appearance
Clouds could of course be colored and textured, with a few built-in stock textures, or we could use textures with transparency to create more funky designs.

Cloud Layers
Players could create multiple layers (maybe a limit up to 10-25 to limit lag?) and adjust the parameters seperately for each one, as well as a handy "apply to all layers" and "reset to default" on each. Of course, we could adjust each of their heights to simulate going through denser or less dense parts of the atmosphere. Seperate names and coloring would be nice too.

Segments
Players could choose to seperate different segments of the clouds and have them rotate differently. No idea how this would be implemented, but it would be cool. For examples, think of a hurricane or similar storm rotating extremely quickly while also slowly being moved along by the clouds.

Settings and Details
In the settings, there could be an option to toggle the detail of the clouds, or delete them entirely. Here are my ideas:
Off: Clouds will not be shown regardless of the planet
Low: Clouds will be shown in but will not rotate
Medium: Clouds will be shown and all of them will rotate together regardless of segmenting
High: Clouds will be shown, and the multiple segments could rotate induvidually
Ultra: Same as high, but maybe support for 3d volumetric clouds on high end devices???

Tags
Idea

4 Comments

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    21.4k Zenithspeed

    you're right, that is similar
    to be fair i did go into a bit more detailed approach though
    @SumoSasquatch85

    1.8 years ago
  • Profile image
    4,038 Dawon

    @Zenithspeed it's on the first page

    1.8 years ago
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    21.4k Zenithspeed

    too hard to find, i usually don't wildly search the suggestions tab mostly because it's stuff that's already been suggested (or even implemented) or it's literally impossible to implement
    i have no idea how close my suggestion is compared to whatever you're thinking, but hey, it happens :shrug:
    @SumoSasquatch85

    1.8 years ago
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    4,038 Dawon

    Why don't you just upvote the suggestion that's already been made?

    1.8 years ago

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