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Generating The Universe in Elite: Dangerous
Doc Ross from Frontier Developments talked about the way he helped to create the amazing universe of Elite.
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Stellar Forge does and she is integral to the Cobra Engine, from the boulders on the planet surface to the NPC gawping out of the luxury hotel room at an orbiting moon at dusk to the battle in the rings of the parent gas giant, it is all in sync.
For me that's why Oddity is still a success despite all the shortcomings. The scale is just incredible.
Not live in game, but pre-rendered, you could say, yes.
Obviously Steam Charts have different opinion. Compare those numbers to the alpha demo of a game "Star Citizen" with the "toy" planets and you will probably see the difference.
Well pointed.
People get hyped by tech-demos, but what's showcased in a tech demo is not really possible in a game that is supposed to run on mainstream gaming machines and to be profitable for a Game Studio
Aside from that, every game being the same other than the colors of the flashing lights and the sounds of the bells and whistles would insure that I play none of them.
The difference is of course, the players. Those who choose ED over the players who choose SC, many of the players who "chose" ED did so because of the galaxy simulation, that was wasy back before you could even land on planets. The players who play SC may not be interested in an accurate as possible galaxy, and are indeed satisfied with one system and a few planets. What you want to do then is to convert ED to SC and lose the current player base in the hope of attracting players from something that isn't even a playable demo let alone a game!
Something I don't understand in regards to scale is surely it is a matter of reference.
So if we could render an 'infinitely' detailed marble, you could say it is only a cm across. But if we were to zoom in to a microscopic level we can then see valleys, mountains, debris. And then to place a human it can give the impression that the marble is 1000's of km across.
This is what I don't understand when it's said SCs planets are not real size, is it not a design choice over a limitation
So if we could render an 'infinitely' detailed marble, you could say it is only a cm across. But if we were to zoom in to a microscopic level we can then see valleys, mountains, debris. And then to place a human it can give the impression that the marble is 1000's of km across.
This is what I don't understand when it's said SCs planets are not real size, is it not a design choice over a limitation
It's in proportion to other points of reference, and of course there is also the difference between procedural generation and "hand drawn" assets. Creating a world or parts of a world that no one will ever likely see is often a waste of resources, but not so much in this game, since rather they created the means by which they are created, and we get to enjoy going out of bounds a bit, as it were.
it's a simulation one where the size and makeup isn't necessarily realistically coupled to the gravity and atmosphere etc.
But the people making that argument can't help but be hypocrites because elite takes the same gameplay > simulation choice when it comes to outposts and taking off from planets etc etc in a number of other places.
Basically, the stellar forge is a tech demo and elite dangerous is an attempt to build a game around it ....but it had no viable plan to actually utilize the majority of what the tech demo provided. This gives the impression that the game is lacking content and it makes it harder to make dynamic/procedural content. Games like star citizen and NMS decided a better option than that was to only provide a subset of everything and by limiting yourself to the subset, you can create an environment that is more full of stuff players can do things with. Removing the things or space where they would not.
Since space is mostly emptiness and stuff you dont care about in a game, this means you end up with a game that is not technically realistic. Some players value that realism over all else. Those are the people you dont understand.
I suppose that's fair to an extent. I don't always play games like I'm supposed to, according to the thinking of some.
For example: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...ruise-to-alioth-from-78-ursae-majoris.146798/
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Why can‘t the have people walking about is maybe because the Cobra engine can’t support a moving thing in a moving thing in a moving thing. Probably wrong but thats my impression - otherwise they would let you walk about the cockpit at minimum. I’m not entirely sure but can you walk about when a carrier is jumping or are you forced to sit down.
Of course it can. All games engines use 4x4 matrices to encode scale and translation. Basically a object is parented on to another by multiply their matrices together. This is very very basic 3D programming and world management.
It's my understanding that this could be done in VR on bridges already anyway. Seems more likely that they'd rather not bother with it and the financial costs in human resources and time to flesh it out (so far), even though it was an early goal of theirs to implement it eventually.
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Any news on standing up whilst a carrier can jump? EDIT - sorry that was a general comment not just to you.
Edit Edit - I have a carrier lift tonight so I guess I will find out.
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What news are you expecting?
Anyway, my guess is that during the jump, the FC never actually moves, and its all pretty light show out the front window. The reason they want everyone sitting down is because there would be no light show in the bar, and people would be asking for it. Perhaps also standing at the extreme edge of the window would break the illusion too. Another consideration is that during the jump, the player is transitioning instances, and they probably dont want to have to handle game interactions in the installed services.
Its is all really nothing more than distracting you with flashing lights while the magicians apprentice changes things behind your back.