This is a good one!

[Jochen Stier]

I have finally done what some of you have asked me to do a long time ago. I have made the shuttle more flyable! But not only that, this release also contains the shields and engine trails a la Eves Online.  Everything still needs a bit more work, but the effects are already quite nice. I especially enjoy flying as you have much more control over the shuttle now. Even there is still much room for improvement. I will add laser cannons now … maybe we will get around to an online gun fight before the year is over.




P.S. I have only updated the runtime engine not the studio.

[zachzab]

Cool! Can you get a video for it? I checked the website but didn't see one.

[Tamarin]

Really amazing stuff Jochen. Very playable demo.

[TorakunSama]

I just tested the Demo, and there are many things that need a lot of work. Sorry I'm more criticist than appraisal.
First good job in getting the shuttle more flyiable, unfortunetly we lost a nice feature it had, the booster....
Now tuckling the problem areas.

Noise and scale: the terrain in the planets has too much noise and the last is out of proportion. I explain : When you approach the ground from space, you realise that the terrain is noisier closer than in the distance. It will look more realistic if the ground, specially the mountains were smoother, all the nice noise we have closer to the ground would do wonders in the bigger land mass,... I think.... Elevation is too agressive, hills are too steep. The overall impression of land is that it's ginormous, it has to do with scale; all objects are too small. When you look int horizon you feel like in Jupiter or like a bug in the ground.
So in short : Less detail, smoother land, localized noise (stronger by elevation) and bigger objects (trees, vehicles) may save some computing power and improve the looks.
 
Textures: the textures in the texture packs are not seamless, aggravating the feelling of repetiviness. I see animated shaders for objects like the shuttle and the teleportation devices, it's a bit disturbing, I'd prefer that on the static ocean, and clouds.

Fog: is there any? Hiding geometry with volumetric fog can boost up speed.

Atmosphere: it looks self iluminated; the algorithm for the scatering is it dynamic or precomputed? We get light in absense of light?(I'm talking specialy about the editor).

This game is making great improvements, but I believe that we are in an  era were looks, are a bit more important than playability. Make the planets look better, let's add more stuff to the shuttle, ok laser, but also some functionality, like the shield should work on upper atmosphere at a certain speed. At low altitudes you get incandescence only at Mach 5... Maybe build a city or two it might be just blocks, but at least have a location, a place to go on Land.
I'll add more stuff later....
Keep up the good work [I have got  a huge grin on my face everytime I play the demo  ], Big fan.

[Jochen Stier]

Fog: is there any? Hiding geometry with volumetric fog can boost up speed.

Nope, there is no fog yet. I will add that as a screen-space effect soon.

Atmosphere: it looks self iluminated; the algorithm for the scatering is it dynamic or precomputed? We get light in absense of light?(I'm talking specialy about the editor).

The atmospheric scattering is computed dynamically on the GPU by casting rays from the view point through the atmosphere. I did some work with the atmosphere recently and I think that "self ilumination" effect is lesser now.

Textures: the textures in the texture packs are not seamless, aggravating the feelling of repetiviness.

Well, they are supposed to be seamless. We were thinking of overlaying a few textures to get rid of repetition... but I am always quite aware of it myself.

The overall impression of land is that it's ginormous, it has to do with scale; all objects are too small. When you look int horizon you feel like in Jupiter or like a bug in the ground. So in short : Less detail, smoother land, localized noise (stronger by elevation) and bigger objects (trees, vehicles) may save some computing power and improve the looks.

A planet is a really huge place I think trees, shuttle and these types of thinks should stay within normal proportions. We can, however, add huge structures. I think Tamarin posted a little sketch a while ago about a city suspended in the sky by a space elevator connected to the ground. Now, that would be a cool structure.




The noise function of the planet is quite customizable. Select the planet node in the tree view and then you can change all kinds of parameters. Lessening the number of octaves smoothes the surface quite a bit. I will eventually revisit the game prototype and redo the terrain a little. Right now the mountains are quite high as well. Up to 25km, I think. Right now I am busy with finishing up the deferred lighting and adding some features to the editor.... There is never enough time.


BTW, what kind of GPU do you have ?

[TorakunSama]

Right now the mountains are quite high as well. Up to 25km, I think. Right now I am busy with finishing up the deferred lighting and adding some features to the editor.... There is never enough time.

I see... sorry if I'm rushing... I'll show more patience...
I agree, spend as much time as possible on lighting, it's paramount!
I'll quiet down a bit.