Universe Sandbox News

We started 2025 by releasing our major graphics overhaul, but we have much more planned for the year, including allowing meteors to burn up in an atmosphere, simulating basic life, and getting Universe Sandbox on mobile devices so you can create and destroy on the go. Before diving into details, let’s look back on some highlights from 2024.


[h2]Highlights from 2024[/h2]
The Moon’s shadow passing over Earth during the total solar eclipse across North America on April 8, 2024.

We spent 2024 working on our major graphics overhaul, released March 2025, and many of the other in-progress features mentioned in this roadmap. In addition to the awe-inspiring realistic graphics, our March graphics update included many quality-of-life improvements. Our biggest accomplishments from the year include:

• Improving material simulation and manipulation with more realistic atmosphere colors and opacity and the ability to swap one material for another. (Update 34.1, March 2024)
  
• Replacing our 10-year-old graphics technology with a state-of-the-art system so you can immerse yourself in a more awe-inspiring and realistic universe. (Update 35, March 2025)
  
• Implementing a new interface system that automatically positions, resizes, and closes panels so you can focus on manipulating the universe instead of managing panels. (Update 35, March 2025)
  

The new graphics rendering and user interface systems were major milestones on our 2024 Roadmap.

[h2]What’s the Plan for 2025?[/h2]

• ✅Finish our major graphics update.
  
  • Released on March 3, 2025!
    
• Add basic life simulation where vegetation grows, dies, and gets eaten.
  
• Optimize and rewrite our simulation using Unity’s Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS).
  
• Bring Universe Sandbox to phones and tablets (iOS & Android).
  

We plan to work on all these projects in 2025, but some, like getting Universe Sandbox on mobile devices, have been in the works for years. Additional challenges may arise that delay features, and our priorities may change.

[h3]Even More Graphics Improvements: The Saga Continues[/h3]

A comparison of Earth and 100 Colliding Moons showing how much more realistic the scenario looks in our new graphics update.

Earlier this year, we released our major graphics update with hot, non-stellar objects emitting light, physically based lighting, and more. But we’re not done yet! We’re planning even more graphics features, including object selection highlights that are unique to the object’s shape and new point light object.

• But Wait, There’s More!
  
  • Now that our new graphics rendering system is out, we’re planning to utilize it to add even more graphics features, including
    
    • Redesigning object selection outlines to be more visible, useful, and unique to that object’s shape instead of always being a circle.
      
    • Adding new Point Lights with customizable colors to light up your simulations without adding stars (and boiling Earth) for that perfect shot.
      Work in Progress: Point Lights are a work in progress that allows you to customize your simulation's lighting further.
      
      
    • Simulating supernovas emitting light (Spoiler - they’re really really bright).
      Work in Progress: A supernova lighting up a few different objects, including Jupiter and a very large banana. Space Goggles are On because the supernova is so bright.

[h3]Life Simulation: Let There Be Life![/h3]
Work in Progress: The work-in-progress life simulation interface tracks the mass of vegetation, herbivores, and non-living matter, and the habitability of each point on a planet's surface.

Last year, we began working on life simulation after adding materials like carbon dioxide and oxygen to planet atmospheres. Vegetation will grow, spread, die, and be eaten on planet surfaces, similarly to how we simulate temperature, liquid, and gas flow.

• Simulating Vegetation
  
  • Life can spread to other planets on fragments from collisions.
    
  • As vegetation grows and dies, the amount of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the atmosphere will change.
    
  • Vegetation will grow, spread, and die based on the local conditions on the surface of a planet.
    Work in Progress: All life on Earth is killed, only to reseed it with some vegetation using the Planetscaping tool. The vegetation slowly spreads back across Earth.
    
    
  • You’ll be able to customize the conditions needed for life on your planets so your plants can absorb methane and emit hydrogen, for example.
    
    • You can even set the conditions to make life grow on Titan!
      Work in Progress: Custom vegetation thriving on the surface of Saturn’s Moon Titan after setting the temperature range and atmosphere pressure to match Titan’s surface and having it take in methane and output oxygen.
• Animals & the Circle of Life
  
  • Herbivores, like vegetation, will also be simulated on planet surfaces. The overall herbivore mass will be tracked and will also depend on how much vegetation there is on the planet to support them.
    
  • The names and life requirements of the two species will be customizable as well, so you can let your imagination run wild to simulate your favorite plants and animals, like cows, trees, whales, dik-diks, skunk cabbage, aliens, unicorns, you name it (literally)!
    
• Future Models
  
  • We plan to make our food chain even more complex with carnivores in the future.
    
  • You’ll be able to quickly cause catastrophic events leading to mass extinctions. For now, we have a simple Kill All Life action.
    Work in Progress: Kill all life on a planet with the press of a button.

[h3]Advanced Physics Technology[/h3]

Work in Progress: Earth is orbited by eight Ceres, which get stretched and ripped apart by Earth’s tidal forces, forming rings around the planet.

Improving collisions with more realistic friction and craters, simulating atmospheric drag, which allows meteors to burn up in the atmosphere, and continuing to optimize our physics simulation are all things we're working on this year.

• Advanced Game Engine Features
  
  • We’re continuing to reconstruct our simulation architecture using the Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) from Unity, the game engine we use to build Universe Sandbox. We’re excited about the expected performance gains and future opportunities it brings. We plan to roll these changes out in multiple phases.
    
    • Phase 1 replaces our current physics engine with a new DOTS-based system that will make Universe Sandbox easier to maintain and improve.
      
      • Upgrading to DOTS in phase 1 lays the foundation for everyday, non-spherical object collisions (like two dice), building and flying spacecraft, and constructing megastructures like Dyson spheres.
        
    • Phase 2 will unify our collision simulation to allow for more realistic collisions of celestial objects like planets and everyday objects like pigeons. This phase will allow
      
      • Objects to physically deform due to craters, fragmentation, laser impacts, and more, influencing how they collide.
        
      • Everyday objects, including simple shapes like dice and complex shapes like spacecraft, to collide according to their unique forms instead of as spheres, also called rigid-body physics.
        
• DOTS optimizes our simulation by efficiently running more computations simultaneously on the CPU, allowing for more objects, collisions, and fragments.
  
  
  

  
  

  Current
  

  
  

  Work in Progress
  

  
  

New Gravity Simulation

• We’re experimenting with a new method of gravity simulation, called Barnes-Hut simulation, to allow rock fragments and dust clouds to attract and merge, forming planets & moons. Currently, these particles can only be pulled on and cannot form planets independently.
  Work in Progress: The red boxes show how the gravity tree used in Barnes-Hut simulation divides up space dynamically into chunks of particles to more efficiently simulate the intersections between thousands of particles instead of constantly brute force computing the gravitational interactions between all objects. You can see the boxes change as fragments are created and spread out in space.

Grinding to a Halt

• Our new friction model will simulate craters stretching out as objects skid across each other’s surfaces during collisions. In our current simplistic model, craters are always circular.
  

Visually Deformed Objects

• Most objects in Universe Sandbox are spheres, but in real life, some rotate so quickly that they stretch and flatten, like the dwarf planet Haumea. We’re working to simulate this stretching visually.
  
  • This will not affect the object's physical shape, collisions, or surface simulation until after Phase 2 of our restructuring our simulation with DOTS is complete.
    
    
    

    
    

    Current
    

    
    

    Work in Progress
    

    
    

Atmospheric Drag

• To simulate meteors, we’re working on adding a drag force so objects burn up while traveling through a planet’s atmosphere. Currently, objects pass through atmospheres unchanged.
  Work in Progress: A small asteroid burns up as it travels through an atmosphere before crashing into the surface.

Tidal Locking

• We’re planning to simulate objects becoming tidally locked, where the same side of one always faces the other as they orbit each other, like the Moon to the Earth.
  
  
  

  
  

  Current
  

  
  

  Work in Progress
  

  
  

Mathematical Points

• We’re planning to add more visualizations of useful mathematical points and boundaries, including
  
• Lagrange Points - the points where the gravitational influence of two objects is equally strong. Objects placed at these points orbit in a stationary position relative to the two objects like the James Webb Space Telescope is to Earth and the Sun.
  
• Hill Spheres - the boundary within which a moon is gravitationally bound to a planet.
  
• Roche Limit - the boundary where the tidal forces pulling on an orbiting object are stronger than its self-gravity, ripping it apart.
  

[h3]Universe Sandbox on Phones & Tablets[/h3]

Universe Sandbox in portrait mode with our new dynamic interface system that automatically positions, resizes, and closes panels so you can always see the simulation.

Getting Universe Sandbox on mobile devices (iOS & Android) is a major focus again this year. We’ve made a lot of progress with our new graphics update and interface system, which significantly improves usability on small touchscreens, but there’s still a lot to do.

Immerse yourself in a universe more awe-inspiring and realistic than ever before with our next-generation graphics update! We've also added many interface improvements to make controlling the universe easier and more intuitive. You need to see it to believe it.


[h4]A More Realistic Graphics Engine[/h4]
We’ve completely replaced our 10-year-old graphics technology with a state-of-the-art system to make Universe Sandbox look more realistic with physically-based lighting. This new system has required us to update our minimum requirements. Learn more.


[h4]Edit Objects Simultaneously[/h4]
The properties panel now lets you edit multiple objects at once. Use the new Multi-Select tool to select multiple objects and try increasing the mass of every object in the Solar System simultaneously!

[h4]Automatic Interface Management[/h4]
Focus on manipulating the universe instead of managing panels with our new interface system that automatically positions, resizes, and closes panels so you can always see the simulation. This immersive system also provides better support for ultrawide monitors and small screens (like smartphones).

[h4]More Highlights[/h4]

Focus on realism
Making Universe Sandbox look as realistic as possible with physically-based lighting has made stars realistically bright, and collisions result in blindingly realistic hot spots. It turns out there’s a reason you’re not supposed to look at the Sun.


Light from hot planets
Hot objects now emit light based on their temperature so you can use intense impacts to light up your simulation. Previously, only stars could emit light.

Localized glow
Objects now bloom only in hot areas, like those created from lasers or collisions, instead of being surrounded by a single uniform glow.

Smoothly blending clouds
Gas and dust clouds now smoothly pass over planets instead of creating sharp intersections.

Realistic artifacts
The surfaces of human-scale objects, or artifacts like spacecraft, have shiny, reflective metals and rough, rugged edges that interact with light more realistically.

Math in text fields
All object properties now support basic math. Try typing “*42” into a property to multiply by 42 or “/3” to divide by 3, for example.


Explore planet surfaces
Move across the surface of a planet with the WASD keys after landing on it by zooming in for a closer look or using the Land action button in the planet's Overview tab.


Light intensity with distance
Objects are now always realistically lit based on their physical distance from a light source. Previously, objects were lit with the same intensity based on the camera's distance from a light source instead of the object's distance from a light source.

Light warping
Black holes now realistically warp the visuals from other black holes instead of blocking any black holes behind them from being seen. The images below are from the same simulation, with custom colors in the “Before” image that make the black holes easier to see.

Updated View Panel
We’ve improved the View panel with more intuitive controls and lighting options
You can now see and change the camera target from the View panel.
Space Goggles provide a more comfortable view that filters the brightness to show the action while preserving realism. Turning them off switches to an unfiltered realistic view where stars, hot objects, and collisions can be blindingly bright.

Before


After

Action Buttons
We’ve added all-new Action buttons at the top of every Properties tab. Quickly fly to a planet or explode it. Your call. (These buttons replace the Action tab.)


Save objects or learn more about real astronomical ones with our new Wikipedia button under Additional Actions.


Color maps
We’ve updated our Data View color maps to make them more perceptually uniform. We've also added colorblind-friendly color maps and the ability to invert them.


Inspecting the surface
Use the new Inspect tool to quickly see the temperature, material composition, elevation, and other properties of specific points on a planet’s surface.


Selectable Orbital Parent
It’s now easier to create binary systems orbiting a common center of mass (also called a barycenter). View and adjust an object's Orbital Elements around a binary by selecting the system's barycenter as the object’s Orbital Parent.

Choose your Startup Simulation
Choose the simulation that automatically opens when Universe Sandbox starts, from any of our included simulations to your own custom work in progress. Just go to
Home > Settings > General > Experience > Startup Simulation

New hotbar
The hotbar has been overhauled so you can add even more shortcuts to manipulate the universe. To edit your hotbar, go to Settings > General > Edit Hotbar or right-click on it and then select “Edit Hotbar.”


A Potentially Dangerous Asteroid
Watch the projected path of one of the most potentially dangerous asteroids ever detected, YR 2024, as it flies near Earth in 2032, or check out a What If? scenario of what the impact might look like under
Close Encounter of Asteroid YR4 2024 with Earth in 2032
And
What If Asteroid YR4 2024 Collides with Earth in 2032?

[h4]New Minimum Requirements[/h4]
Improving our graphics means we need to update our minimum hardware requirements to include
4 GB dedicated video memory (up from 2 GB). 8 GB is recommended.
4 GB RAM (up from 2 GB). 8 GB is recommended.
4 GB of free disk space (up from 2 GB).

Windows:
DirectX 12 
Windows 10 21H1+ (support for Windows 7 SP1, 8, 8.1, and older versions of Windows 10 will be dropped)

Apple:
Silicon (M1 or newer). Intel Mac will no longer be supported. Universe Sandbox may still run on Intel-based Macs, but we cannot guarantee good performance for every Intel-based Mac.
macOS 11.0+ (support for macOS 10.14 and 10.15 will be dropped)

While it is never fun to have support dropped, this new graphics system will allow us to improve performance and add new features to Universe Sandbox now and well into the future.

We’ll ensure all users affected by this change can always access the version of Universe Sandbox from before this minimum requirements update. Learn how.

Check out the full list of What's New in Update 35.

Please report any issues on our Steam forum, on Discord, or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.

Since our last sneak peek of the Universe Sandbox graphics update, we’ve put out a preview version of our new state-of-the-art graphics system that you can test now on Steam to immerse yourself in a universe more awe-inspiring and realistic than ever before. We've also made many interface improvements to make controlling the universe easier and more intuitive.

There's still more to do before this update is ready for release, but we wanted to share other improvements you can look forward to and test out right now.

[h4]Space in a New Light | Update 35 is now out![/h4]

Learn more about all the additions and improvements in this update.

Work in Progress

The properties panel now lets you edit multiple objects at once. We’ve even added a new selection tool to make it easier to select multiple objects.

We’ve implemented a new user interface system that automatically positions, resizes, and closes panels so you can always see the simulation and focus on manipulating the universe instead of managing panels.

All object properties now support basic math. Try typing “*42” into a property to multiply by 42 or “/3” to divide by 3, for example.
Work in Progress

Move across the surface of a planet with the WASD keys after landing on it by zooming in for a closer look or using the Land action button in the planet's Overview tab.
Work in Progress

It’s now easier to create binary systems orbiting a common center of mass (also called a barycenter). View and adjust an object's Orbital Elements around a binary by selecting the system's barycenter as the object’s Orbital Parent.

We’ve added all-new Action buttons at the top of every Properties tab. Quickly fly to a planet or explode it. Your call. (These buttons replace the Action tab)
Work in Progress

Save objects or learn more about real astronomical ones with our new Wikipedia button under Additional Actions.
Work in Progress

Use the new Inspect tool to quickly see the temperature, material composition, elevation, and other properties of specific points on a planet’s surface.


Stars and collisions can be blindingly bright. We’re overhauling the View panel with more intuitive controls and lighting options to show the action while preserving life-like accuracy and letting you customize your view of the universe. Learn more in our new guide under
Home > Guides > Tutorials > A Realistic View of Space Comparing Earth and 100 colliding moons with Realistic (Space Goggles off and no artificial lights) and Enhanced (Space Goggles on and no artificial lights) Object Visibility.

Work in Progress

We’ve updated our Data View color maps to make them more perceptually uniform, along with adding colorblind-friendly color maps and the ability to invert them.
Work in Progress

This preview version includes over 50 fixes and improvements related to all aspects of Universe Sandbox.

Our new graphics renderer and interface improvements are still in progress, and final appearances may look different. We’re excited for you all to test out the preview version and eventually share the full update with everybody.

Join our community discussions on our Steam Forum and our official Discord community.

Updated on March 3, 2025

Immerse yourself in a universe more awe-inspiring and realistic than ever before with our next-generation Universe Sandbox graphics update. We’ve spent the last two years completely replacing our 10-year-old graphics technology with a state-of-the-art system in our biggest update in years and our biggest visual update ever!

• Our new graphics engine is a vastly improved realistic rendering system that’s more robust, easier to improve, and lets us better show you how the universe really looks.
  
• Doubling down on realism brought a new set of technical and design challenges for us to tackle to make every aspect of Universe Sandbox as realistic as possible.
  
• We’ve completely ripped out our old graphic engine replacing thousands of lines of code.
  

We’ve also included many non-graphics-related improvements with this update, including

• A new interface system that automatically positions, resizes, and closes panels so you can always see the simulation.
  
• Editing multiple objects at once in the Properties panel. To select multiple objects, hold down Control (⌘ on Mac) and click on each object you want to include.
  
  • All object properties now support basic math.
    
• New Action buttons at the top of every Properties tab instead of an Actions tab so you can quickly fly to a planet or explode it.
  

This graphics update is part of our plan to rewrite Universe Sandbox piece by piece with cutting-edge systems so we can continue to improve it for years to come. It’s like we’re gradually replacing every part of a spaceship out from under you while you’re actively piloting it.

[h4]Space in a New Light | Update 35 is now out![/h4]
Learn more about all the additions and improvements in this update.

[h3]A Brighter Future For All (Literally)[/h3]
While not exhaustive, some of the most visually apparent changes you’ll see in Universe Sandbox are

• Focus on realism
  Making Universe Sandbox look as realistic as possible with physically-based lighting has brought new challenges. For example, stars can now be realistically bright.
  

• Collisions can result in blindingly realistic hot spots. Showing the action while preserving life-like accuracy has been one of our biggest challenges.
  

Comparing Earth and 100 colliding moons with Realistic (Space Goggles off and no artificial lights) and Enhanced (Space Goggles on and no artificial lights) Object Visibility.

• Localized glow
  Objects now bloom only in hot areas, like those created from lasers or collisions, instead of being surrounded by a single uniform glow.
  

• Smoothly blending clouds
  Gas and dust clouds are now soft particles that smoothly pass over planets instead of creating sharp intersections.
  

• Light from hot planets
  All hot objects now emit light based on their temperature so you can use intense impacts to light up your simulation. Previously, only stars could emit light.
  

• Color temperature
  The color of hot objects is more accurately based on their temperatures.
  

• Realistic artifacts
  The surfaces of human-scale objects, or artifacts like spacecraft, have shiny, reflective metals and rough, rugged edges that interact with light more realistically.
  

• Light intensity with distance
  Objects are now always realistically lit based on their physical distance from a light source. Previously, objects were lit with the same intensity based on the camera's distance from a light source instead of the object's distance from a light source.
  

• Black holes warping black holes
  Black holes now realistically warp the visuals from other black holes instead of blocking any black holes behind them from being seen. The images below are from the same simulation, with custom colors that make the black holes easier to see.
  

• New and improved View panel
  We’ve overhauled the View panel with more intuitive controls and lighting options, including
  
  • Artificial Starlight switches between a realistic view, where only hot objects in the simulation emit light, and an enhanced view, where artificial lights also light the simulation.
    
    
  • Space Goggles switches between a realistic view, where stars and collisions can be blindingly bright, and an enhanced view, to show the action while preserving realism.
    

We’ve also solved some known visual issues, like the apparent “eclipses” you see after landing on a planet’s surface. Our new system solves the underlying problem - star glows (or bloom) being rendered on top of the atmosphere instead of behind it.



[h3]Under the Hood[/h3]
Universe Sandbox runs simulations by computing how data from every object, like temperature, mass, and composition, changes over time. We also use this data to realistically create and adjust the visuals you see on your screen (called graphics rendering) using shaders.

Shaders are pieces of code that run on your graphics cards and use game data to render our graphics as the simulation changes. Shaders let us show you the universe realistically, no matter the scenario, without relying on manually animated, hand-drawn images or textures.

Our old graphics system utilized Unity’s Built-in Render Pipeline. To create realistic graphics with this pipeline, we manually wrote all the shaders in Universe Sandbox using a shader-specific programming language. This code was dense and hard to read when we wanted to update it, and every time we wanted to test a change, we needed to recompile the code to test it. This was often a time-consuming process.
A snippet of custom shader code for rendering planet atmospheres. This 1100-line shader defines variables, does some math, and is tricky to parse when looking for issues.

We’re transitioning our graphics rendering to Unity’s Universal Render Pipeline (URP) because it

• Includes more features we can use for realistic, physically-based lighting while still providing the flexibility to add custom mathematical modes.
  
• Actively gets updates and new features so we can continue improving Universe Sandbox well into the future. While Unity still supports our old graphics rendering system, it no longer receives new features.
  
• Comes with the latest version of Unity’s Shader Graph, a node-based visual programming language that is still receiving updates for creating our shaders.
  

Shader Graph also includes more built-in lighting models so we can experiment quickly by breaking the graphs into small pieces and providing visual previews without recompiling the code, reducing development time.

Work in Progress - Top: The Shader Graph for rendering planets. Following the graph flow is easier than reading code, inputs are simpler, and the nodes show visual previews. Middle: Close-up of the Shader Graph node for rendering liquids on planets. This shows all the inputs and outputs of the node needed to render the liquid. Bottom: Close-up of two preview nodes that show what the planet's surface will look like that can be used for quick testing and debugging (no object is selected for these previews, so they are colored black and pink, respectively).
[h3]New Minimum Requirements[/h3]
Improving our graphics means we need to update our minimum hardware requirements to include

• 4 GB dedicated video memory (up from 2 GB). 8 GB is recommended.
  
• Windows:
  
  • DirectX 12
    
  • Windows 10 21H1+ (support for Windows 7 SP1, 8, 8.1, and older versions of Windows 10 will be dropped)
    
• Apple:
  
  • Silicon (M1 or newer). Intel Mac will no longer be supported.
    
    • Universe Sandbox may still run on Intel-based Macs, but we cannot guarantee good performance for every Intel-based Mac.
      
  • macOS 11.0+ (support for macOS 10.14 and 10.15 will be dropped)
    

While it is never fun to have support dropped, this new graphics system will allow us to improve performance and add new features to Universe Sandbox now and well into the future.

We’ll ensure all users affected by this change can always access the version of Universe Sandbox from before this minimum requirements update.

[h3]What’s Next[/h3]
We’re doing more testing to track down the last remaining issues to ensure Universe Sandbox looks realistic and runs smoothly in every scenario. Many parts of our simulation already look amazing.



There are still a handful of issues we need to work out. These include issues like this one we solved a few months ago, where our backgrounds weren’t being rendered quite right with some graphics cards.



And like any new feature, there may be issues we have yet to find and fix – and you can help!

[h4]Try the preview of our next-generation graphics update right now![/h4]
Learn how to opt-in to this preview version on Steam, now available for testing and feedback.

https://universesandbox.com/support/previewversion

[h3]And Beyond[/h3]
This graphics update is just the beginning of the changes to come and includes many other improvements. The first updates to our user interface system are already a part of this preview version, and we’re actively working on a complete replacement of our simulation architecture so we can continue to make Universe Sandbox even more realistic.

Unless otherwise noted, all work-in-progress images are taken using our default “Enhanced” Object Visibility mode.

Join our community discussions on our Steam Forum and our official Discord community.

Updated on March 3, 2025

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Prepare to immerse yourself in a universe more awe-inspiring and realistic than ever before with our next-generation Universe Sandbox graphics update. Over the past year and a half, we've been replacing our decade-old graphics technology with a state-of-the-art system that sets the stage for future enhancements.

While there's still more to be done before it's ready for release, we're excited to give you a sneak peek at our progress.

Stay tuned to our Steam Forum and Discord server where we’ll be announcing a preview version you can try before it’s released to everyone. In the meantime, you can check out our 2024 Roadmap to learn more about what we have planned.



The color of hot objects is more accurately based on their temperatures.


Spacecraft and other human-scale objects will interact with light more realistically.


Gas clouds no longer create sharp intersections when passing over planets.


Objects will only glow in areas where they’re hot instead of the entire object glowing based on average temperature.




Hot objects will emit light based on their temperature.


More accurate lighting at a distance for more realistic and cinematic views.


Explore the beauty of the universe more awesomely than ever.


We fixed that annoying issue where stars look like they’re being eclipsed when seen from the surface of a planet.


Stars appear brighter, realistically obscuring surface detail.


Our new graphics renderer is still a work in progress, and final appearances may look different. We can’t wait to share space in a new light with you.

Join our community discussions on our Steam Forum and our official Discord community.