They said that they wanted to do it; they said it would require procedural generation; they said it wouldn't be in for the initial release; they said it could be several years after release...
But someone waved a magic wand, and those German engineers did the impossible...they got it working now!!!
Enjoy...
[video=youtube;-yLTm8DZ8s4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yLTm8DZ8s4[/video]
Incredible!! :D
Got back from Oxford 20 minutes ago and am enjoying it now - god damn it looks drop dead gorgeous! :biggrin:
Wow! :blink:
Quote100% in-game footage
Wow! :dribble: :woot2: :yahoo:
The twitch chat channel went crazy when they dropped that beauty.
Think Chris will have enough cash to buy an island after that went out :)
Quote from: OldBloke;407371Wow! :blink:
Wow! :dribble: :woot2: :yahoo:
And to prove that it wasn't just a "moke and mirrors" pre-rendered cut-scene (thanks Derek Smart!), they then did this (jump to 2m 14s):
[video=youtube;69ck049Bg_I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69ck049Bg_I&t=2m14s[/video]
that is sweet, amazing :blink: let me have a go! :)
Jamoe: Chris should buy a planet instead of an island and I am sure he could :D
That's what I want to see :D
We have this in Elite now but the cloud formations, planetary features are not as detailed as this. The ship flight in Elite is very good, and you can feel the change in atmosphere.
I'm glad the SC version is not a guided landing as we thought it was going to be.
There will still be guided landings - particularly around populated, built up areas like ArcCorp and Terra, where airspace is strictly controlled - but this tech will allow the full exploration of lesser-populated planets and moons (particularly Chris' oft-quoted example of landing on a desert planet, taking the rover across the dunes to visit a nearby abandoned village, where you get to explore some ruins and possibly find an alien artifact).
I'm keen to see a demonstration of a planet with varied terrain such as oceans, forests, deserts and icefields, although I suspect that that will be some way off just yet.
Quote from: Obsydian;407404There will still be guided landings - particularly around populated, built up areas like ArcCorp and Terra, where airspace is strictly controlled - but this tech will allow the full exploration of lesser-populated planets and moons (particularly Chris' oft-quoted example of landing on a desert planet, taking the rover across the dunes to visit a nearby abandoned village, where you get to explore some ruins and possibly find an alien artifact).
I'm keen to see a demonstration of a planet with varied terrain such as oceans, forests, deserts and icefields, although I suspect that that will be some way off just yet.
If even reading these type of things excite me, how am I going to cope when they're in game! :D
Quote from: Kal-Nor;407420If even reading these type of things excite me, how am I going to cope when they're in game! :D
You know what? That is exactly how I reacted when I watched the 'Pupil' video :D
Obversely this is a giant leap forward for Star Citizen, but with other games introducing it, I'm sure CIG put there foot on the accelerator to get this out. This is really two pieces of good news.
Firstly atmospheric flight, as mentioned in this post it's not going to be added to every planet but it will be added to the less populated ones. One of the issues they had in the demo was the time it took to travel between space and lower atmosphere. Naturally this was a demo so he had to speed things along. He did this by going into cruise mode and adding markers in game to know when to slow down. But with players entering from different area on the planet I don't think we will see markers everywhere. But this is something they said they need to resolve to make planet landing quicker.
Personally, I would leave as is and make it a skilled based system. Put simply you click on the planet, this gives you a reading of how high above the planet you are. You go into cruise and enter at a rapid speed. Then based on past experiences you turn off cruise at a recommended height and fly straight down. Now this will vary from ship to ship based on speed and weight, and it might even vary from planet to planet based on density of atmosphere. But it's a learning curve and any one with an ounce of intelligence is always going to pull up early until they get better at it. (And angle their approach). But it at least follows the skill based core principles of the game.
Secondly procedural generated planets, this is going to speed up plant generation a lot more. As an explorer this is fantastic news as it will keep the edges of "verse" just out of reach and bring in a whole new level of exploration. But will it come with any pitfalls?
Will we start to see patterns over time, the same streets, the same old temples. I want the verse to be diverse and have depth, I want to have a different experience on different plants. The planets on a lot of games with procedural generation have the same look and I guess my biggest fear is that CIG may use it as a crutch, get lazy and add quantity over quality. Based on the ships I can't see it, but I hope that the temptation isn't there. Yes, we are going to have a lot of rocky, mining planets that look the same. But let's have a distinguishing look every now and then to break us out of the cycle, where we look up and say to ourselves "wow, I wasn't expecting that"
I think there's still some way to go before they get this in game, unfortunately.
- The demo didn't have gravity enabled, and presumably didn't account for atmosphere in the physics implementation, so the flight model shown was no different to that in space.
They're going to have to put this in before they go too much further.
- The also didn't show what happened if you tried to land somewhere other than the hand-crafted landing zone.
I suspect that they haven't implemented collision detection for the PG planet surface at this point in time.
Again, this will need to be in before we can use it, but I think that this will be easier than the planet-specific flight mechanics above.
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This will definitely speed up planet production though, as they now have the means to embed a custom landing zone on a PG planet - we just need to see if they can use PG for other types of planet.
What I'm really hoping for is for CIG to implement Delamar (that was the asteroid/planetoid they showed) within the Stanton system initially so we can QT to it from Port Olisar and land at Levski that way as an alternative to going there directly from the main menu or from our hangars via the magic elevator.
Things are moving so fast now and it seems every breakthrough increases our momentum. But your right Obsydian, this may be awhile. It seems a while ago when we barely got any updates at all. Since Citizencon and the Derek Smart rubbish CIG has really stepped on the gas. I think more input from the Euro side of the development has helped.
I think what we have experienced here is the culmination of a lot of background work and foundation laying. They now have the majority of the core systems built which allow the PU to function, and now was the time to get that out.
With the base systems implemented, they can now start to focus more on content, although there clearly are more systems yet to be built, but what they have is now 'playable'.
I spoke with Ortwin Freyermuth at CitizenCon, and he said that showing off the Crusader system was a big '**** you' aimed directly at Derek Smart, and I suspect that the demo of the procedural generation was a similar gesture. Whether the fact that we now have a working PU is down to Derek Smart's antics or we would have been here anyway will probably never be known, but either way, I'm glad we're now moving.
As for the UK team, I agree, I think that CIG were unaware of just how much talent there is in the UK, and have pretty much fallen on their feet in that regard. There's a reason why the majority of the special effects companies involved in blockbuster films these days are based in the UK! That said, I think that Erin has a lot to do with it. I've heard it said many times that Chris is the ideas guy and thinks big all the time, but Erin is the one who puts it into practice and is more of a perfectionist than Chris (if that's possible), so it's no wonder that anything assigned to the Uk team ends up being 'one better' than what the US teams have produced.
Long am it last!
Love reading the Ortwin comments and either way if it stoked the beast then all the better. Totally agree about Erin, I think he's basically said give me the funds to finish SQ42 and the momentume of that game will boost funding for the PU. It's no coincidence that CIG has made cuts in the US to increase there staff in Europe. As you say the pool of talent is strong. But I think CR was getting sidetracked and now Erin has more say over development process.
Speaking of SQ42, I was never really into the single player game aspect of this project but since CitizenCon I can't wait.
I am so happy right now!
I watch the latest 10 for the Chairman and Chris confirmed what I had hoped they would do with this tech:
They're planning on putting Delamar (which should be in an asteroid belt in the Nyx system) into the Crusader system as a POI, and will be allowing us to land at the Levski landing zone manually in order to test out the tech! :woot2:
I've not seen the show as my internet is awful but I think this is fantastic news. So pleased this is happening!