Surface Colors

The Surface Colors property of a Terrestrial Planet or Planetoid determines the source of the object's colors. The property has two options: Default and Custom. When the Surface Colors property is Custom, the colors of the object's surface are generated based on surface elevation, and can be set by the user.

Location
The Surface Colors property is located in the Colors section of the Appearance tab of the object's properties panel.

Default Color
For known terrestrial planets and some planetoids in the Solar System, including Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Pluto, and Ceres, the Default appearance of the object's surface is set by the Universe Sandbox database to match the known appearance of these planets. For other terrestrial planets and planetoids, the surface colors depend on elevation, and the three elevation colors (see below) are randomly generated.

Custom Color
The Custom colors of a terrestrial planet or planetoid determine the appearance of the object's surface. The color of any point on the surface is based on the point's elevation. Three elevation colors, representing the colors at High, Middle, and Low elevation, can be set by the user.