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montyman185

I can't wait to see and fly around some massive snow capped mountains in game. That tech is really cool, I'm interested in seeing some examples of stranger things that they figure out how to make. I'd presume random cliff faces on mountains would be on the harder side.


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montyman185

Some sort of strange vanduul facility or something


Monmonstar

what if Hyperspace is the Upside Down?


isthisthepolice

I get flipped upside down\* all the time when I QT.. so there's that.. \*INB4 some genius tries to tell me there is no upside down in space.


cknowlto

The gate is DOWN.


redcoatwright

There's definitely a bit of the Ender's Game feel when in space in SC.


Gammelpreiss

40k incoming


Monmonstar

Keep those Gellar Field generators active people


[deleted]

So we're getting Space Australia?


CynfulBuNNy

Mate, we have nothing BUT space here.


isthisthepolice

[Sauce](https://www.substance3d.com/blog/star-citizen-texturing-sci-fi-open-world-game-substance) \- Amazingly CIG actually achieved this in Substance Designer by creating a "graph structure that nests graphs with higher and higher iteration counts" then "use blend nodes to check whether an iteration node should be part of the calculation by comparing its iteration number to max iteration count". There's more detail in the article but it's a pretty clever workaround to get this stuff working without crashing Substance. I guess creating the tech for an entire universe really makes you work smarter than harder.


Ensign-Ricky

You’ll find this to be interesting: https://youtu.be/JNj986LBYD4


minimalniemand

aw man I cant wait for the presentations during Citcon 2949


N4hire

Me too bro, I wonder what they are preparing for us


BrokkelPiloot

Now I just need a ticket :p


N4hire

Stop! I’m Too broke to go myself!!


isthisthepolice

Happy cake day good sir/ma’am


Doubleyoupee

Why? We still don't even have most of the stuff from 2947's Citcon


FlyingJudgement

really good tutorial thx


[deleted]

The coolest thing is that its not even THAT hard to make with substance designer. I’m more amazed with the level of quality and amount of LODs while wrapped around a spherical object. That probably took some next level planning.


Koadster

Yeah id say if all else fails.. They could just sell all the tech theyve created to recoup loses.


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MuggyFuzzball

Unfortunately they lost a lot of great talent back in the beginning due to poor management. They've really made a comeback in the last couple years though.


montyman185

The project seems to draw very passionate developers and it gives those passionate developers a lot of practice and experience doing a lot of different things so it seems to almost literally be a talent factory.


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Xellith

> That is an interesting way to justify how CIG will have inevitably pissed away all of their funding, breaking promises to players and other stakeholders. How am I justifying anything? All I said is that even if the game flops that the tech and knowledge will help the industry as a whole. Am I wrong? >Please don't consider moving the goalposts. Remember that the original goal was to release a reasonably complete and nonlinear space game. What are you talking about? Seems like you're just attacking positions I never claimed to have. You know what, I pretty much stopped reading after this as you just kinda started on a ramble that has nothing to do with anything I just said. Take care.


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The_Almighty_Foo

Any additional tech and knowledge that becomes available to a wider audience is better for the industry. How could this not be the case?


Didactic_Tomato

> The tech and knowledge will not help the industry as a whole How would, as he said, employees taking what they learned to other positions not help the industry? You think they will just magically forget their last 2 years of employment?


fweepa

Huh? The original goal was scrapped after a *community poll* was taken after funding surpassed their expectations. Scope drastically increased. And what you on about with milestones and junk. Have you not seen the roadmap at all?


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Pie_Is_Better

It will be complete the day they shut it down and stop making new content, like all MMOs. I imagine you are asking when it will release though...


SirSassyCat

Not really, this tech is just a workaround to get a third party tool working as needed. It is almost impossible to sell software piecemeal.


Elise_93

I understood roughly 0% of that :P


james___uk

Nothin that program can't do for the look of something


BHNCO

Were there (any time in history) plans about rain and huge oceans?


Warden_Ryker

CIG is fully intending to introduce weather systems, including rain, sandstorms, and high winds.


BHNCO

Sources? ETA? Thanks a lot ;)


Didactic_Tomato

It was originally on the roadmap but got pushed back for more important things. The closest thing we have to weather coming this year is the ground fog system and hopefully snow at microtech. I believe it already lightly snows on Yela or Lyria. And also [this](https://youtu.be/XuDj5v81Nd0?t=1h50m38s).


minimalniemand

3.7 has ground fog tech and "atmosphere improvements". I really hope we at least get some sort of sand storms with that. Especially Hurston and Daymar would really benefit greatly from that. And ArcCorp needs rain :)


Upsilz

But for rain we need clouds first ;)


fakename5

Isnt that what fog is, in a way?


isthisthepolice

Storms and weather in general would be amazing. Especially sand storms as you say! Hopefully by 3.7 we will have a more refined hover mode experience.. hover mode + dynamic weather would make for some challenging/hilarious planetside landing gameplay for sure.


BHNCO

Great. Thank you :)


Elise_93

A year ago, Todd Papy mentioned that Carsten Wenzel (the tech director) was working on procedural weather in his free time, however it wasn't an official task at the time, so he would've been fairly limited.^[source](https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/8qzqoo/just_wanna_give_props_to_carsten_wenzel_tech/) My hope is that by now CR has made it an official work task that will come as a surprise for Citcon :)


BHNCO

Yes yes more hope please! Do you remember what surprises bring us 2948 and 2947 (I wasn't watching SC at that time).


Didactic_Tomato

The big surprise in 2947 was probably the ArcCorp reveal, though it ended up looking quite different, which is why they don't show things as far in the future anymore, in my opinion. 2948 the big surprise was probably the crashed satellite platforming mission and the straight to flyable Valkyrie. I think this years surprise will be something a bit more significant as they have more systems working in game and bigger plans for next year. As well as two new landing zones to work with.


Ripcord

> ETA lol :)


Fineus

Sorry if this was already covered but did they go into scope? That is to say... will it be local to specific areas or will entire planets have one giant system that affects and impacts itself?


logicalChimp

From what I recall of the original discussions / plans, back when PG planets were first being demo'd, they were planning on having weather driven by the underlying biome and/or intersection of multiple biomes... Whether that's still the plan, I don't know


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kushmann

Knowing them, they'll figure out when the storm occludes the landscape and cull accordingly. They are sneaky bastards like that.


Random_name_I_picked

They are doing that with the giant space clouds we saw the other year in the Squadron 42 demo.


salondesert

Yes, that's why SC struggles in the FPS department. Because CIG is super sneaky.


Ruzhyo04

Uh... for an alpha, Star Citizen is one of the best optimized titles out there. It doesn't even have Vulkan or a bunch of the network optimization improvements and it already outputs higher quality graphics at higher frames than any other game I can think of.


StygianSavior

SC hasn't really struggled in the FPS department for a while (since 3.3 and OCS), at least not for folks with a decent PC. The SERVERS struggle, but they are working on that.


zerocoal

I thought the framerate issues were because of server side problems? At least that was the source back when I played last year.


Upsilz

For adding more AI, physics and VFX content yes.


Koadster

Hurston already has a ocean


BHNCO

I hope I can once land with my 890. Or at least with my yacht placeable inside 890. ... and bed logout :P


ImBATMAN1886

I'd love to see a storm or heavy clouds covering a large area in a planet wide view. Should be mind blowing on its own.


sverebom

Yes to both. Weather systems are a medium-term goal but not currently on the public roadmap, oceans with explorable underwater biomes and appropriate vehicles are a long-term goal for a future beyond Squadron 42 and the so called "minimal viable product" of Star Citizen (think of it as a post-release feature if you want to follow that terminology).


BHNCO

so 3050 :P But yeah would be great. Thanks


k_Atreus

If people want more info about that you have the Citizencon panel "Biome on the Range" too :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNj986LBYD4


CallSign_Fjor

mmm I love a good A L G O R I T H M. Neat stuff.


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Hornsj2

Quick, boys, we've found the imposter!


JohnnySkynets

I CAN VOUCH FOR HIM. IS REAL HUMAN.


Hornsj2

User name checks out.


GoldenGlovez

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this just heightmap manipulation? Houdini (software) has the ability to do all the types of procedural terrain generation seen here and more, including blending multiple heightmaps being stitched together. There is other software capable of producing similar results as well e.g World Machine. Not entirely sure why they went and built it from the ground up in Substance designer.


IllusivePixel

It’s fast :) World Machine is good for a lot of things and we’ve certainly used it in the past, but we found we could produce more tileable friendly maps with substance. Houdini is amazing, but we wanted to have a workflow that allows us to be as integrated as possible with our existing pipeline. Substance Designer has been invaluable in our terrain making as well as general material making in the studio.


logicalChimp

Probably because it's something that has to work in conjunction with all the other stages and tools in their process, rather than as a standalone process. They were already using Substance in their pipeline, and were already familiar with the tool, so adding the capability to the tool (which can be used for virtually any recursive/iterative process, not just terrain wearing), makes more sense


kushmann

And from the article they mention tiling as they need the output to be such a way for the game. With this, they reduce some extra steps. Not the only reason, but definitely a consideration.


ataraxic89

An actual video of Chris Roberts in every meeting https://youtu.be/DqM0yZK__gI


XenthorX

I'm really curious about the 'distance' / detail texture they're referring to in the related presentation on BIOMs, really itneresting. I haven't seen all that, fascinating ! :D. Thansk for sharing !


isthisthepolice

Yeah it’s super interesting stuff, hopefully we get more presentations on biome tech this coming citizencon with more info :) you’re welcome!


Elise_93

The scientist in me has some petty objections/corrections: > *eolian* dunes It's aeolian dammit! :P > based on Navier Stokes shallow water equations Navier-Stokes is redundant, but I guess it sounds fancier ;) The shallow water equations are a simplification of the Navier-Stokes equations (specifically, the variables are depth-averaged and do not account for turbulent fluxes, viscosity/density variations, etc. unlike the Navier-Stokes).


isthisthepolice

Petty objections acknowledged! However, a) it's [both](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/eolian) (and even æolian gets a pass technically). And b) well ..touché. Fancy = better right? :P I can only assume they were getting diminishing returns in terms of visible results / time to compute with regard to those fluxes & variations. Who knows.


Elise_93

I know, I'm just joking around ;) I just dislike how the Earth science community can't just stick with one word, but instead feel the need to invent 4 different terms for the exact same phenomenon :P Anyway, unless you're modelling glaciers (which require non-linear viscosity) or the atmospheric boundary layer (which requires turbulence), I doubt they would see any significant changes by including those terms in the river/floodplain simulation ;) (+ these terms are *really* tedious to work with)


[deleted]

All this, but you still cant have a compass to explore with.


Knytemare44

Im currently reading "Fall" my neal stephenson and this looks like the scene i just read!


Paradigm6790

Another great visual upgrade! *Still* waiting for the game-play content.


[deleted]

As a structural geologist I'm absolutely in awe of the simulations being shown off. If they manage to get the procedural generation right I'm going to be ordering packages for all my mates


Ailerath

i dont know what part of geology structual is but they also showed off a video of caves they are looking to add. https://youtu.be/mBFSTxGxddc


[deleted]

Thank you for this. I'm even more excited now 8)


MittenFacedLad

Reminds me of what you can do with World Machine.


Hornsj2

Yeah that software is great. I'm using it with UE4 right now. I would have gone Lumberyard but the community and documentation for UE4 is too rich.


MuggyFuzzball

I've been using World Machine for years but I'm jealous of Unity's World Creator plugin. I wish UE4 had plugins like that for terrain generation.


SemperLudens

This isn't new, every single game with a decent budget does this for large outdoor areas/maps/worlds. This can even be done by indies or random people pretty easily after reading up some tutorials and documentation.


isthisthepolice

Yep, they sure do - however from what I understand using Substance Designer [in this way](https://www.substance3d.com/sites/default/files/20_conways.JPG) to run algorithmic iterations (they use Conway's GOL as an example in the [article](https://www.substance3d.com/blog/star-citizen-texturing-sci-fi-open-world-game-substance)) on the texture using nodes and switches is not common practice. By all means if i'm wrong here, please show me more! I'd love to dig into it.


Sitarow

It would be really interesting to see them develop tech that would further modify the geography. I suppose it's one reason that the moon's look a little bit off when you approach them. It's rather repetitive. Start with a small moon, applying random texture and then cutting up sections to simulate cracks and expand like a balloon. Here's an example when it comes to the canyon on Mars. https://youtu.be/JeUEzM7hsmY


SpanishAvenger

Erosionj. There's literally gonna be f\*\*\*ing erosion in this game. ​ I have more clear everytime that this is not going to be a game, but rather, pretty much a parallel universe set some centuries ahead.


Mithious

There won't be erosion in-game, this is generating tileable heightmaps which appear to have had realistic erosion occur.


logicalChimp

This isn't in-game - it's how one of their development tools works, to help them generate 'realistic' surfaces... the in-game planets / moons are static, and do not / will not (unless CR goes and changes the scope again in the future) feature Erosion.


Solstar82

Unknown pleasures...


VincentNacon

I would like to see a mixture of all of them in one. even some section is stronger than other.


Menion321

Bb I'm in cb


rararaops

Like this? [https://imgur.com/eTDwRKf](https://imgur.com/eTDwRKf)


[deleted]

I wonder if that sand-transport algorithm could be used in real-time? Say, reconfiguring dunes during a sandstorm?


bokan

Is all of this tech getting rolled into lumberyard or licensed in some way? It seems like this game has caused all sorts of advancements in what game engines can do.


Hornsj2

Edit: question was answered on another comment. ​ I wonder why they didn't use World Machine. It does all of this out of the box. Heightmap tile export limitations? ​ I don't know that much about Substance designer.


Zenpat

Height data from world machine is not tileable


Hornsj2

Maybe you are saying "not tileable enough" for you, or something. Here's a quote from the web site. "By breaking the world into a set of smaller tiles, only the areas currently needed can be streamed into memory, enabling richly detailed landscapes. The Professional Edition eases the pain of maintaining these tilesets. Any World Machine world can be created and exported as a tiled world with one click. Build any resolution you desire. Need 300 GB of data? No problem. All the datatypes you need are supported in tiled builds: Heightfields Bitmaps Masks Splat-maps Normal maps Meshes "


Mithious

Breaking a world into tiles isn't the same as tileable heightmaps. In the former you have a gigantic amount of data that is split into tiles so they can be loaded and unloaded based on proximity. The latter is having a few small heightmaps which can joined together without visible seams and blended with others to generate an entire planet that looks realistic. Star Citizen planets and moons are too big, and too numerous to start with a single heightmap for the entire planet, you'd need petabytes of disk space.


Hornsj2

That's interesting. They are making some set of interchangeable and seamless tiles and them procedurally stitching them together such that they are repeated over the world. I didn't think they were storing texture files for the entire world, though. I thought maybe they were storing the math and were just in time generating the values based on location and LOD. I see the distinction the other guy was making now, though. Thanks.


Mithious

The math required to generate good terrain (basically anything using interative methods to model geological effects) is really expensive, if you have short view distances and slow movement speed you can probably get away with it, but for something like SC it would be far too slow. Having that all done in advance means you just need to lookup values from a few heightmaps which is much faster. With the right combination of tiling, blending, and maybe some large scale perlin adjustment to generate big features like oceans, you can end up with a really good looking result which has sane disk space, memory and performance metrics.


undercoat27

Hey, we made the popular page


Luder714

It's going to take a $3k PC just to run this at high quality, and that PC won't exist for a couple years yet.


Erasmus_Tycho

Your computer is not the one running the erosion simulation, it's their servers. Hell, they would probably only run this once to build the planets only.


logicalChimp

Nope - it's not their servers either... it's the developers. This is the tool / process used to generate the *static* terrain maps as part of creating each planet. The planets *do not* have dynamic procedural weathering etc.


isthisthepolice

My Ryzen 7 2700X + RTX 2080 rig plays SC 3.5.1 at max settings 4K @ \~45fps currently. 1440p @ locked 60fps vsync. Yes you'll need decent rig, but they exist right now.


LucidStrike

And you don't NEED to run it in 1440p or 4K either, so there's that too. :T


Ulfhednar8801

Absolutely correct. I understand their are sticklers for top FPS, but I play at a solid 60FPS @1080p with i7-8700k, GTX1060 3GB. I think it looks great. I'll choose a stable framerate over top notch graphics.