Star Citizen - visit Foundry 42 : exclusive impressions of procedurally generated planets and interview with Chris Roberts
Together with the sister magazine PC Games we visited Foundry 42 , Studio of Cloud Imperium Games , the youngest of Star Citizen participated . We talked at length with Chris and his brother Erin Roberts , Studio manager Brian Chambers and a number of other employees . We could also marvel at the exclusive procedurally generated planets , these explore yourself and take a look at technology and design.
Hardly any other crowdfunding project provides similar vortex as the ambitious space adventure Star Citizen of the Wing-Commander-inventor Chris Roberts. While fans support the mammoth project financially, either through direct payments or purchases of often expensive and sometimes exclusive ships, also sharply criticized Star Citizen is heard. This criticism relates not only to the game itself, its financing and expensive (temporal) Exclusive content but also on constantly enhanced development goals, the more monstrous acting scope and apparently rather insidiously progressive development. Of course, a healthy dose of criticism is basically always justified and traceable in many cases; Content for a fee, for example, a subject that is often associated with a bad aftertaste - especially when it comes to balance-endangering contents and these also turn out very expensive. How about spaceships, which often cost several hundred euros and can afford therefore only well-heeled fans. On the other hand, the ongoing development of these additional revenues will be co-financed, solely on the financial resources obtained by Backer would not be sufficient. Where we once again arrive in the development, their current status and our visit to the new Studio Foundry 42nd If you are the English speakers: In this good half-hour interview Chris Roberts is very detailed question and answer.
The new and pleasantly light and airy furnished studio is located in the Foundry 42 also fledgling European quarter in Frankfurt. Currently there are around 40 employees, in particular engine speciallists, programmers and designers are well represented and not a few have been able to gain experience with the Cryengine, not infrequently in previous jobs at Crytek itself. For example, the studio manager Brain Chambers, formerly at Crytek for Ryse: Son of Rome served as Senior Producer. This takes us to receive leads us through the studio and presents us with an employee. Chris Roberts is also there, he sits at the Engine programmers, a cookie that suits him very loudly Brian. Apparently the space guru engaged also happy with deeper aspects of the graphics engine and uses now and then times when debugging a supportive. After our tour we meet Chris and his brother Erin Roberts, with Privateer also could have plenty collect space experience, the meeting room in front of a large display, is already running a current version of Star Citizen. And although we certainly can not calm all critical voices - and this does not even want to - one is us quickly certain: the development of Star Citizen goes ahead and will make in the near future for Backer clearly visible and noticeable jump. The first editors, we must live a marvel of procedurally generated planets and these also explore itself.
Star Citizen - The technology behind the planet procedurally generated
Unlike with No Man's Sky, which also relies on procedurally generated content, the planet in Star Citizen are not completely random, but are created by a predetermined algorithm. A planet is thus generated repeatedly in the same way and thus does not differ at each visit and from player to player. The procedural aspect of Star Citizen is therefore consistent and serves only as a tool for creating worlds, which can be handled by designers and influenced by man. The differences in the use of procedural techniques can be compared for example with Diablo and Skyrim: The former relies on randomly generated content, which differ from time to time, the designers took advantage in the latter synthetically generated content around the vast world at all in a realistic for development to be able to fill out time frames. Here Skyrim is not purely determined by chance, but finally, was provided with details and enlivened by the designers themselves, adapted by which the world according to their wishes - so similar to the procedural aspect will work in Star Citizen.
The fact that this part works at all, we get amply demonstrated during our visit. The presentation begins in space, we float with an Aegis Hunter in weightlessness. Some 1,000 kilometers from our ship pulls the rocky planet Delamar his tracks by weightlessness. The right side is shrouded in darkness, the left lets the sun shine the atmosphere bluish, small asteroids whizzing by gravity caught around. As the engines awaken and accelerate the Aegis Hunter, the first mountain peaks from the volumetric clouds begin to peel, overcast remain the valleys, the light from the star slowly faded behind the veil of atmosphere. During the approach the Cryengine shoveling resistant to the necessary for Landscapes polygons, we observe some pop-ups, but it is very impressive how smooth the descent towards vonstattengeht planet surface. Built in the presentation computer Nvidia GTX 980 delivers decent frame rates to 45 fps, while we admire the barren, but highly detailed surface of Delamar. There is no artificial limit visibility, only the already in this early version working fine level of detail system limited unobtrusive level of detail. While we slide deeper, we can still make out the slight curvature of the planet on the horizon, distant mountains are in the haze of volumetric atmospheres representation. After the ship has landed and the pilot left the cockpit, our eyes on the ground consisting of dozens of high-resolution textures, closer hill obtained by Tessellation their rounded curves, dimensional looking Parallax Occlusion Maps lend rubble credible three-dimensionality. The wow factor should not be underestimated despite the stony wasteland of the planet!
Star Citizen - Full developer control despite synthetic content
After we have even abated us after the presentation for a while with the mouse and keyboard on the surface and the atmosphere of Delamar, we get demonstrates how the planet once created can be adapted by the editor by a designer. The developer creates the highly customized editor so-called "eco-systems", which can contain all elements such as oceans, land mass, trees, rocks, lakes and even extraterrestrial animals. Of these, a large number per planet or satellite can be used and be like "painted" with a brush to the surfaces of celestial bodies. The Cryengine accepts the transition between the individual zones so that they can not stand each other unnatural by rough boundaries. In addition, the developer remains in control of every single element - it can adjust the scenery by hand and affect each and even the smallest element, add details or structures. This is demonstrated to us by way of fast erstelltem by brush palm grove, which weighs lauschig within a few minutes ago an alien ocean in the wind. By means of a few clicks new elements, other trees, bushes or stones can be added. This can be collected over a larger area happen every tree, shrub or rock can also be moved by hand developers, rotated, resized or removed individually or together. All this is very efficient and easy to use, although it would of course always very still take a long time to fill an entire planet's surface in this way - for the actual development of the designer should probably rather a larger scale and a higher procedural content to create select content for planetary surfaces and make manual adjustments only selectively. Even away from the planet, there is still much to do for the developer.
Star Citizen - subsumption AI for NPCs believable
In addition to the procedural planet representation we could also look at a number of other developments, consult designers and programmers and are guided by their enthusiasm to work on a project like Star Citizen, infected - because so much was all the critics assured: Virtually every employee, we could interview, insisted authentic and individually the pleasure to participate in Star Citizen and technically to go out all the stops. For example, Francesco Roccucci, senior AI developer who tried visibly impressed bring us closer to the development of Star Citizen subsumption AI.
Approximately 90 percent of the population in Star Citizen will make NPCs, not only showing a complex, credible behavior but also act independently and to react to external influences. They are also any activity that a player can perform, and can do themselves. Thanks subsumption-AI that comes in a similar form in reality and in the programming of robots for use, NPCs are also able to create missions for players. For example, if they are stranded on a planet and need rescue. NPCs also have a daily routine and even hobbies. They also have a reminder. Non-player characters are so responsive to individual players differently depending on how they have behaved in the past. Thus the Star Citizen universe is not paralyzed by AI calculation, this scale over distance - so the routines in the vicinity of the player are updated, for example, 60 Hz; is not a player in the area, this happens only about once per second.
PBR materials are also an important part in the creation of 3D models. Weapons designer Tobias Wanke is working on a made of incredible 65,000 polygons shoulder weapon for ship defense, while he demonstrated us how a physics-based rendering approach affects the development. Materials behave physically correct when exposed to light and therefore act on the human eye credible. Unlike the classic texturing, are "stuck" at the surface with a pixel wallpaper, a designer thanks PBR can for a particular object or a part of a model to assign a particular material (for example, iron, copper, wood or leather). This defined physical properties such as the coloring and determines whether is scattered, reflected or absorbed incident light. Plastic thus looks dull when exposed to light, matt varnish scatters the light diffusely. But even scratches in the latter can be implemented so believable, is located below the color metal shines at these sites therefore realistic.
In Star Citizen damage can be added continuously and appear at locations where they would occur in real life, typically, for example in the magazine holder or the safety lever of a machine gun, for example, when the weapons models. For more authenticity, the generally very high polygon density makes in Star Citizen. More complex models of weapons, such as a be located at the time of our visit to work shoulder weapon for ship defense, consisting of over 60,000 triangles. For Relation: One of the very detailed main characters in The Witcher 3 is composed of about 40,000 polygons. For the smallest details such as small screws or writing in which polygons were too inefficient a complex 3D model is not created, and then generates from this a parallax map. This is finally applied by designers at the appropriate place, thus ensuring visual depth with subtleties, without the number of polygons to drift to astronomical heights.
