InfraSpace News

Hello everyone,

the environment update is taking quite some time, so I thought I'd provide you with a detailed roadmap of where we are at:



Also, it's quite a big update already, so I was thinking we could push the actual terraforming into the next update and focus this update on the new terrain with the 4x bigger map and new biomes first. (Also mod support, cargo gondolas, laser). Let us know what you think about that!





The river is now generated with proper walls.



The crater generation is done, only the grass is missing in this screenshot.



The desert already has some grass here and there next to its rocks and resources.



Previously I only showed you the art concepts for the big laser from space, now the implementation is done and you can see it working in action!



That's it for this week. I'll update the todo-list progress next Friday and thanks for the patience!
Happy playing!

Hello everyone,

this weekly update is going to be quick, since we're almost completely focused on finishing the core features for the next update and are not creating art concepts for new stuff. The details:

• Our artists Andreas and Lasse are working with the new procedural generation tools to make the generated world look like their art concept
  
• Our programmer Ben figured out the issue with terrain painting and has also finished the grass system for pre-made terrain building blocks (there is some other grass in the crater and highland biomes that is generated instead of artist-placed, but that's easier)
  
• Our programmer Sepehr has taken over the laser task. Marking rocks and destroying them already works, but need to hook up the visuals.
  

While the core team is finishing the main update features, our concept artist Adriana has time to work on additional materials to be used in the game and in marketing. Without giving away too much information check out this piece:



I realize you're all waiting for the big update to drop and wanted to thank you for the patience. Happy playing!

Hello everyone,

let's start with the cool pictures this week: Check out the new laser that's coming from your spaceship to help you clear map space!





You will be able to unlock the laser cannon by repairing it on the spaceship Antares:



Now that the Founders' Fortune update is completely out and most bugs are fixed, our programmer Sepehr is taking over and is making all of the art for the map clearing laser actually work in game.



There are 2 main news on world generation:

We were not satisfied with the terrain painting method, so Andreas and Ben are working together to improve it. It's a small hiccup, but I think it's good to spend some time now because getting the terrain colors right first is important because it influences the look of all the other assets later down the line.
Terrain painting in the procedural version works slightly different than in the art concept, that's why we have a programmer working on it.

The second news is that we have done quite some work on grass engineering. Sounds simple but we need to make sure performance is fine outside of an art concept and we need to make it part of the procedural generation. With other assets, we simply put them into a prefab and use the prefab building blocks to construct a full world out of it, but foliage works a little different, because it's part of the terrain system.

Finally our concept artist Adriana is working on some special extras, but those are not part of the terraforming update and will stay secret for now :)

Happy playing!

Hello everyone,

tomorrow we're releasing the big bonus update for our old game Founders' Fortune. After that, the dev team will shift their focus back to InfraSpace completely - this includes one extra programmer.

In the meantime, we can show you the 3D model for the magnetic field generator (textures + animation to be done):





The magnetic field generator is the final ingredient for terraforming: It's a monument structure you have to build once in order to get a magentic field to shield you from the radiation from the nearby star.

[h3]Targeting Station[/h3]

Last week we showed you the targeting station to adjust the giant laser from your space ship to destroy rocks in your way. The model and textures are done and Lasse is currently working on the laser itself.



[h3]Terrain Generation[/h3]

The river is slowly filling up with assets and our programmer Ben has started working with our artist Andreas to get the rest of the concept scene art into the procedurally generated terrain. More pics probably next week!



Happy playing!

Hello everyone,

when we designed the new map, we ran into an issue that has been there since the beginning of InfraSpace:

There is a sizable portion of the playerbase that just want flat, empty maps in order to be unrestricted to build their own utopia city - but if the InfraSpace environment was just an empty field, it would look boring to everyone else, especially in the beginning of the game.

Now we wanted to make the terrain more interesting and add different biomes and make it look good, but were afraid to add too much that blocked the player's vision. The solution: a huge laser from space.

Hear me out: Antares is your space ship and it's hanging out in orbit. You can repair its components and get some small goodies as rewards. We want to introduce a large component called the laser cannon that can be targeted towards the planet.



The laser will be able to slowly cut through the rocks blocking your way. It's quite powerful and dangerous, so you will need to build a targeting station to make sure it doesn't hit your city by mistake.

We can already show you the concept and the preliminary 3d model, but coloring and texturing is not completely done yet:







The river is the hardest biome to generate because it has such an organic shape that needs to look fully connected and consistent throughout the map. What I mean by that: Volcanoes can also have a complicated shape, but artists can just make a couple of volcanoes and we can randomly select one and place it on the map. But since the river shape is fully procedurally generated, we needed to spend some time we can place art assets properly without clipping or looking weird.

I can show you a programmer screenshot of the cliff edges along the river wall: It's missing a lot of plants and artist work, but once the walls are placed properly, the rest is not that hard to add.



Happy playing!