Dev Diary - Issue #12 "Procedural Madness"
Hello everyone! HungryJJ here, this week I’ll be discussing some of the space combat-related tech that I’ve been working on. I hope not to bore you all too much. 😊
I want to share some insight on how we handle environments that are associated with the various levels you will encounter during space combat gameplay.
The goal was to make it easier for us to design cool-looking backdrops more efficiently so that when a player starts a space combat mission, the environment is relevant to the nebula and anomaly you are exploring.
As the space combat developed over time through prototyping, we noticed a trend of the most common environmental elements that we primarily used. Some of the examples are dust clouds, debris fields, relevant background scene objects (i.e. planets, suns, derelict ships, skybox), post processing effects, skylights and fog effects. With each element, we exposed corresponding properties so that anything can be tweaked. Depending on the element, these tweaks can manipulate color, scale, position, rotation, quantity and much more.
The tool is setup in a way that all the compatible settings are exposed so that environment designers with limited experience can jump right in and begin creating a scene. Once a designer is happy with their scene, we can populate the configuration onto any mission and override the look if necessary. They can also serve as templates for a specific type of mission. E.g. a mission through an asteroid field in the Hydra nebula would generate asteroids with a green nebula backdrop
It was important to us to provide some variation in the environments to the player, in order to make their experience cohesive whilst traveling through the Prodigium. Even subtle changes in the space scape like tweaking a star’s intensity can provide a different visual experience. Enough talk, here are some example screenshots of the settings we use, and how it translates into a procedural environment ingame thanks to the streamlined tools.
The modeling team in the meantime has finished up Empress Celestina. She’s looking good, check her out below.
We've also been finishing up some "Mantics" (your pets, or should I say Lily's pets) that the player evolves and breeds inside the Lab. Ugly critter, ain't he?
I hope enjoyed this small insight on what we have been up to. Look forward to sharing more results in the future. Later.
-HungryJJ
I want to share some insight on how we handle environments that are associated with the various levels you will encounter during space combat gameplay.
The goal was to make it easier for us to design cool-looking backdrops more efficiently so that when a player starts a space combat mission, the environment is relevant to the nebula and anomaly you are exploring.
As the space combat developed over time through prototyping, we noticed a trend of the most common environmental elements that we primarily used. Some of the examples are dust clouds, debris fields, relevant background scene objects (i.e. planets, suns, derelict ships, skybox), post processing effects, skylights and fog effects. With each element, we exposed corresponding properties so that anything can be tweaked. Depending on the element, these tweaks can manipulate color, scale, position, rotation, quantity and much more.
The tool is setup in a way that all the compatible settings are exposed so that environment designers with limited experience can jump right in and begin creating a scene. Once a designer is happy with their scene, we can populate the configuration onto any mission and override the look if necessary. They can also serve as templates for a specific type of mission. E.g. a mission through an asteroid field in the Hydra nebula would generate asteroids with a green nebula backdrop
It was important to us to provide some variation in the environments to the player, in order to make their experience cohesive whilst traveling through the Prodigium. Even subtle changes in the space scape like tweaking a star’s intensity can provide a different visual experience. Enough talk, here are some example screenshots of the settings we use, and how it translates into a procedural environment ingame thanks to the streamlined tools.
The modeling team in the meantime has finished up Empress Celestina. She’s looking good, check her out below.
We've also been finishing up some "Mantics" (your pets, or should I say Lily's pets) that the player evolves and breeds inside the Lab. Ugly critter, ain't he?
I hope enjoyed this small insight on what we have been up to. Look forward to sharing more results in the future. Later.
-HungryJJ