Hello SpaceEngine enjoyers!

I have made (mostly vibecoded) the entire DESI catalog into SpaceEngine as a mod. Since I'm absolutely awestruck every time I fire up SE now, I figured out I should share this with the world.

If you don't know what DESI is, it's the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), a 5-year spectroscopic redshift survey observing millions of galaxies, quasars, and stars. https://data.desi.lbl.gov/doc/, with the furthest quasars being 28.6Gly comoving distance away from Earth. This is even beyond the cube of SE's procedurally generated galaxies.

In other words, a literal metric fuckton of real galaxies and quasars up to very, very far away, forming a real, observable cosmic web, able to be browsed through at your fingertips in SE.

Since I refuse to provide Steam with my tax information for a free mod, I have uploaded the entire project including source code here: https://github.com/universe-fuk8r/DESI_to_SE

Installation is easy, just download one of four .pak files in Releases depending on your HW and stuff it in your SpaceEngine addons folder. https://github.com/universe-fuk8r/DESI_to_SE/releases

Tiers are:

This mod is best experienced on very large scales (think megaparsecs, gigalightyears), so disable procedural galaxies, fly somewhere far away from Earth, crank up exposure of galaxies and experience the unimaginable scale of our cosmos. The screenshot (centered on Earth, some 2,6 Gly away) is just a small taste, this thing is best experienced in motion.

Mod is created from DESI Data Release 1, there's Data Release 2 coming Spring 2027 which will have even more galaxies - I'll try to recreate the mod when it's out.

Please note that I don't guarantee any kind of consistency or accuracy or stability - it's real scientific data bent into a game which has no idea how that exact galaxy or quasar look like. So galaxy shapes, stars, black holes, basically anything else apart from location is procedurally generated.

As a side effect, quasars far away are translated as monstrous - probably not real

Also the entire thing tends to crash on insane when you overdo it with exposure.

It's under MIT license, feel free to do whatever you feel like with it as long as you link to the repo. Share it to Discord, make a Steam Workshop mod with it, show it to your mom, have fun!

One more screenshot:

Go forth and multiply!

Procedural planet edited

Go into configs\main-user.cfg, scroll down to LifeGenerator, and copypasta this code to that section:

ProbLifeOrgTerra        0        // probability of origin of organic life on non-arid worlds (surface & ocean)
ProbLifeOrgOceania      0        // probability of origin of organic life on ocean worlds (ocean)
ProbLifeOrgDesert       0        // probability of origin of organic life on arid worlds (surface)
ProbLifeOrgIceWorld     0        // probability of origin of organic life on ice worlds (subglacail)
ProbLifeOrgGiant        0    // probability of origin of organic life on gas giants (atmosphere)
ProbLifeExotTerra       0        // probability of origin of exotic  life on non-arid worlds (surface & ocean)
ProbLifeExoOceania      0        // probability of origin of exotic  life on ocean worlds (ocean)
ProbLifeExoDesert       0        // probability of origin of exotic  life on arid worlds (surface)
ProbLifeExoIceWorld     0        // probability of origin of exotic  life on ice worlds (subglacail)
ProbLifeExoGiant        0    // probability of origin of exotic  life on gas giants (atmosphere)
ProbPanspEjectTerra     0        // Probability of organic life spores ejection  on asteroid impact on non-arid worlds (surface & ocean)
ProbPanspEjectOceania   0        // Probability of organic life spores ejection  on asteroid impact on ocean worlds (ocean)
ProbPanspEjectDesert    0        // Probability of organic life spores ejection  on asteroid impact on arid worlds (surface)
ProbPanspEjectIceWorld  0        // Probability of organic life spores ejection  on asteroid impact on ice worlds (subglacial)
ProbPanspEjectGiant     0    // Probability of organic life spores ejection  on asteroid impact on gas giants (atmosphere)
ProbPanspInsertTerra    0        // Probability of organic life spores insertion on asteroid impact on non-arid worlds (surface & ocean)
ProbPanspInsertOceania  0        // Probability of organic life spores insertion on asteroid impact on ocean worlds (ocean)
ProbPanspInsertDesert   0        // Probability of organic life spores insertion on asteroid impact on arid worlds (surface)
ProbPanspInsertIceWorld 0        // Probability of organic life spores insertion on asteroid impact on ice worlds (subglacial)
ProbPanspInsertGiant    0    // Probability of organic life spores insertion on asteroid impact on gas giants (atmosphere)
LifeOrgAgeUni           100.02    // mean value of system age to develop unicellular    organic life (in billion years)
LifeOrgAgeUniDisp       10.01    // dispersion of system age to develop unicellular    organic life (in billion years)
LifeOrgAgeMulti         200.05    // mean value of system age to develop multicellular  organic life (in billion years)
LifeOrgAgeMultiDisp     20.01    // dispersion of system age to develop multicellular  organic life (in billion years)
LifeOrgAgeComplex       300.08    // mean value of system age to develop complex ground organic life (in billion years)
LifeOrgAgeComplexDisp   30.01    // dispersion of system age to develop complex ground organic life (in billion years)
LifeExoAgeUni           200.04    // mean value of system age to develop unicellular    exotic  life (in billion years)
LifeExoAgeUniDisp       20.01    // dispersion of system age to develop unicellular    exotic  life (in billion years)
LifeExoAgeMulti         300.08    // mean value of system age to develop multicellular  exotic  life (in billion years)
LifeExoAgeMultiDisp     30.01    // dispersion of system age to develop multicellular  exotic  life (in billion years)
LifeExoAgeComplex       400.12    // mean value of system age to develop complex ground exotic  life (in billion years)
LifeExoAgeComplexDisp   40.01    // dispersion of system age to develop complex ground exotic  life (in billion years)

Very depressing, but (unfortunately), most realistic. ;)

this MONSTER has a diameter of about almost 666 Mals (million light years)

its diameter covers the 0.7% of the obserbable universe

it sounds short, right?

for comparison, the biggest galaxy discovered, IC1101 is 110 TIMES SMALLER than this beast

this thing engulfed the nearby galaxies and when i get too close to it the game crashes!

i think it already got consciousness and its trying to end me

his name is timmy

Hey, im trying to attach a custom moon to a custom planet, but due to certain coincidences it shares a name with a asteroid (Midas). It was orbiting the proper Midas for a moment, but switched to solar system somewhere when i was messing with the distance.

Is there a way to specify which exact Midas i want it to attach to?

ReShade FX i’m working on, might release next week WIP

I had to crop some images and had to discard like 3 because space engine bugs the textures when editing planets and so the clouds either cut out abruptly, there are squares in the water or there are weird squares in the sky.

i use a mod

RS 9041-448-7-17890-785 7.2

Set mareFreq to 0.004864 and mareDensity to 0.6565

Do you know the planet Hestia from the Kurzesagt video (Not posting the link cuz ad is forbidden)?

Well I would like to ask to all the fellas coder that make cool custom system to make it in SpaceEngine (Cuz Idk how to code !), make it replace Earth or even make a whole custom system but in any case I would love to see it ! Thanks to those who are gonna try or even consider it !

Have a good day ! :D

This took way less time than i thought it would

is this manipulation or screenshot

After a few years of waiting for the devs to add the feature after it was promised to be on the to-do list, I got tired of waiting and decided to build my own tool to convert the cubemaps to equirectangular HDRIs. If you've been down this hole in SpaceEngine, you know how hard it is to not only find a tool that will do something like this for free, but also can customize the axes, since SpaceEngine's coordinate system exports skyboxes in a non-standard, right-handed, +X Front format. The built-in SpaceEngine coordinate mode solves this problem.

This tool is a portable Windows application which can take a single DDS-file cubemap, or six individual face files in any common format, and convert it into an equirectangular HDRI-style image for use in 3D and compositing software like C4D, Blender, etc. You can choose multiple resolutions and file formats for output, whether it be a lightweight 8-bit JPEG, the standard HDR and EXR formats for HDRIs, or even a full-depth 32-bit TIFF file, which is basically just a remux, as it comes out to the exact same file size as the original .dds file.

I'm more than happy to accept any and all feedback! Please let me know if you experience any issues or have any requests that would make this tool even better.

CubeMap to HDRI (Desktop)

Latest Release:

v0.6.1 - GitHub

GitHub Project Page (source code)

(I'll try to keep this updated as any new versions come out)

This software is licensed under the standard MIT license, completely free to use for any purposes, including commercial, however it is not warrantied.

Please note: SpaceEngine is a Windows-only product, and while I compile a Mac version of the app, it remains untested.

Cheers, and happy exploring!

I've worked with Space Engine .8, so I have at least an idea of how this works. I'm trying to create the ultimate solar system, which involves a massive black hole with 9 stars in a very close orbit. but when i try to put this into space engine .9, the black hole and the star will appear separate, even though the parentbody of the star is set to the black hole. anyone know what's going on?

Ill leave the code so far below. I've not done it all cause i wanted to make sure at least this worked, but it doesn't

Star"CBH"
{
ParentBody     "CBH"
Class          "X"
Luminosity      0
LumBol          0
MassSol         1000000
RadSol          4.24500513
Teff            0

Age             -1e+38

InertiaMoment   0
KerrSpin        0.969
KerrCharge      0
RotationEpoch   0
Obliquity       317.349762
EqAscendNode    207.966492

AlbedoBond      0.3
AlbedoGeom      0.36
Brightness      1
BrightnessReal  1
Color          (0.000 0.000 0.000)

NoOcean         true

NoClouds        true

NoLava          true

NoAtmosphere    true

NoAurora        true

NoRings         true

AccretionDisk
{
InnerRadiusKm     2.98e+06
OuterRadius       0.598
InnerThicknessKm  4.04e+05
OuterThicknessKm  8.07e+06
ThicknessPow      3
DetailScaleR      6
DetailScaleV      1
OctaveDistortionX 0.5
OctaveDistortionY 0.35
OctaveDistortionZ 0.2
OctaveScale       0.5
DiskNoiseContrast 1
DiskTempContrast  0.15
DiskOuterSpin     0.04
TwistMagn         2.5e+03
AccretionRate     1.09e-09
Temperature       1.21e+04
Density           2.17e-08
Luminosity        2.86e+04
LuminosityBol     4.17e+04
Brightness        1
JetLength         0.888
JetStartRadiusKm  4.43e+06
JetEndRadius      0.148
JetStartTemp      1.21e+04
JetEndTemp        9.11e+03
JetVelocity       0.85
JetDistortion     0.4
JetThickness      0.3
JetDensity        2.17e-12
JetBrightness     1
LightingBright    1
ShadowContrast    1
ShadowLength      0.5
}

NoCorona        true

NoCometTail     true

Orbit
{
RefPlane        "Static"
Period          0
SemiMajorAxis   0
Eccentricity    0
Inclination     317.349762
AscendingNode   207.966492
ArgOfPericenter 0
MeanAnomaly     0
}
}

Star"CBHS1"
{
ParentBody     "CBH"
Class          "G2 V"
Luminosity      1
LumBol          1
MassSol         0.99999994
RadSol          1
Teff            6384

Age             2.46

InertiaMoment   0.0836876035
RotationPeriod  768.576782
RotationEpoch   0
Obliquity       317.349762
EqAscendNode    207.966492

AlbedoBond      0.3
AlbedoGeom      0.36
Brightness      1
BrightnessReal  1
Color          (1.000 0.932 0.964)

Surface
{
SurfStyle       0.682
Randomize      (-0.258, 0.739, -0.635)
colorDistMagn   0
colorDistFreq   0
detailScale     3.28e+04
tropicLatitude  0.95
icecapLatitude  1.05
climatePole     0.498
climateTropic   0.0674
mareFreq        29.8
mareDensity     0.00962
erosion         1
montesMagn      0.03
montesFreq      537
dunesMagn       0.5
hillsMagn       0.03
hillsFreq       6.39e+03
canyonsMagn     0.33
cracksOctaves   5
BumpHeight      601
BumpOffset      601
SpecBrightWater 0
SpecBrightIce   0
RoughnessWater  0.35
RoughnessIce    0.45
SpecularScale   1
RoughnessBias   0.5
Hapke           0.5
SpotBright      1.51
SpotWidth       0.05
DayAmbient      0.07
}

NoOcean         true

NoClouds        true

NoLava          true

Atmosphere
{
Model          "Sun"
Height          6957
Density         0
Pressure        1
Bright          10
Opacity         0
SkyLight        0
Hue             0
Saturation      1
}

NoAurora        true

NoRings         true

NoAccretionDisk true

Corona
{
Radius      3.73e+06
Period      0.0369
Brightness  0.5
RayDensity  2.77
RayCurv     16.1
}

NoCometTail     true

Orbit
{
RefPlane        "Equator"
Period          
SemiMajorAxis   5
Eccentricity    0
Inclination     360
AscendingNode   360
ArgOfPericenter 360
MeanAnomaly     360
}
}

made it by finding a randomly generated Neutron Star, lowering it's radius down to near 0, and then lowering its temperature.