So, about those Caves in Elite Dangerous...

Mengy

Mengy
Frontier, allow me to pose a question, in the hopes that I can garner your good graces for a reply.

So we've now seen the new alien structures, and yes they are really very awesome, and they do indeed have caves inside of them, BUT these are static fixed "building assets" placed into the terrain. They aren't really caves going underground, they are more "tunnels into the structures" than caves. Which is super cool, don't get me wrong, however...

All of David's talking about caves and such coming to the game, are these alien structure tunnels what he meant, or are true honest underground caves as procedurally placed surface features coming down the line too? Caves like you see on Earth's very own moon for example? Caves like what the Millenium Falcon flew into in Empire Strikes Back?


space_glove_puppet.gif


Thank you. :cool:
 
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Strangepork

Strangepork
Mengy said:
Frontier, allow me to pose a question, in the hopes that I can garner your good graces for a reply.

So we've now seen the new alien structures, and yes they are really very awesome, and they do indeed have caves inside of them, BUT these are static fixed "building assets" placed into the terrain. They aren't really caves going underground, they are more "tunnels into the structures" than caves. Which is super cool, don't get me wrong, however...

All of David's talking about caves and such coming to the game, are these alien structure tunnels what he meant, or are true honest underground caves as procedurally placed surface features coming down the line too? Caves like you see on Earth's very own moon for example? Caves like what the Millenium Falcon flew into in Empire Strikes Back?

Thank you. :cool:
Click to expand...

cave1
keɪv/
noun

  • 1.
    a natural underground chamber in a hillside or cliff


  • synonyms:cavern, grotto, hollow, cavity, pothole, underground chamber, gallery, tunnel, dugout"there is a cave at the bottom of the cliff"


 

Andrej

Andrej
Canyon flying is really cool, but cave flying? When yours visibility limited by ship light and radar... It just blowing my mind :)
 
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Witcher 7

Witcher 7
Mengy said:
Frontier, allow me to pose a question, in the hopes that I can garner your good graces for a reply.

So we've now seen the new alien structures, and yes they are really very awesome, and they do indeed have caves inside of them, BUT these are static fixed "building assets" placed into the terrain. They aren't really caves going underground, they are more "tunnels into the structures" than caves. Which is super cool, don't get me wrong, however...

All of David's talking about caves and such coming to the game, are these alien structure tunnels what he meant, or are true honest underground caves as procedurally placed surface features coming down the line too? Caves like you see on Earth's very own moon for example? Caves like what the Millenium Falcon flew into in Empire Strikes Back?


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-R6e2hpkq_...AFk8/QWxlDbDYmQ0/s1600/space_glove_puppet.gif

Thank you. :cool:
Click to expand...

Lol.

Andrej said:
Canyon flying is really cool, but cave flying? When yours visibility limited by ship light and radar... It just blowing my mind :)
Click to expand...

Maybe we can look forward to something like the Star Wars scene where Luke flies the X-Wing thru Death Star's canyons into its core and launch a missile to destroy it :D
 

Red Anders

Red Anders
The Thargoid 'bases' are 3D meshes which have been created and pasted at specific locations. The procedural terrain generation used by the game is heightmap based and so in its current iteration cannot do overhangs, caves or anything with a 'roof' (i.e where there would need to be two or more separate heights at the location of a single pixel's X,Y coordinates. In view of that I'd say 'not any time soon.
 

Aussiedroid

Aussiedroid
I had a bit of excitement seeing potential cave systems when it was uncovered: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/358050-Possibilities-for-Caves-in-ED

Looks like I/We were correct in these ones being pre-made assets, but still hopeful that full cave systems will be in the game some day. Would add so much more depth to the game (hehe pun intended!)

.. and I hope there is an easter egg hidden somewhere in an asteroid with the star wars cave creature in it & minoch. lol :)
 

Witcher 7

Witcher 7
Aussiedroid said:
I had a bit of excitement seeing potential cave systems when it was uncovered: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/358050-Possibilities-for-Caves-in-ED

Looks like I/We were correct in these ones being pre-made assets, but still hopeful that full cave systems will be in the game some day. Would add so much more depth to the game (hehe pun intended!)

.. and I hope there is an easter egg hidden somewhere in an asteroid with the star wars cave creature in it & minoch. lol :)
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Wow, you had high expectation then :p , though I reckon we are due for a 2nd type of SRV ... if we have multiple fighters why not SRVs?

I like your easter egg hunt except may have to wait till next year ;)
 

Vasious

Vasious
Having not made it out to one of the sites, yet

Are they subterranean?

If so that might suggest placed structures can have interiors that can go below the high map of the planets.

Which means, if I understand correctly, cave structures could be generated as PG connected "Premade Cave buildings parts" making them underground with a keystoone of one entrance, then placed like the Fumarole and Geysers
 
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znôrt

znôrt
Red Anders said:
The Thargoid 'bases' are 3D meshes which have been created and pasted at specific locations. The procedural terrain generation used by the game is heightmap based and so in its current iteration cannot do overhangs, caves or anything with a 'roof'
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yes it could. it already does the reverse. any poi structure you see has or is a overhang. yes, it's a composition but that's good enough. i see no reason this volume couldn't be procedurally generated and 'substracted' from the map instead of rendered on top, with some algorithm to smooth out the edges. of course that's work, but it should be doable with a heightmap, and the engine has no problem rendering interiors.

the wrecks are perfect examples. if the engine can render objects placed by hand it can also render procedurally generated ones with the same consraints. it's just quite some work to generate them.
 

Soliluna

Soliluna
Vasious said:
Having not made it out to one of the sites, yet

Are they subterranean?

If so that might suggest placed structures can have interiors that can go below the high map of the planets.

Which means, if I understand correctly, cave structures could be generated as PG connected "Premade Cave buildings parts" making them underground with a keystoone of one entrance, then placed like the Fumarole and Geysers
Click to expand...

This is what I would expect, however if FD is planning to introduce atmospheric planets at some point they will want to tackle terrain deformation in additional axes if possible. It will otherwise be difficult to offer believable erosion and weathering without using pre-baked assets.

It isn't a simple task and certainly not one that I would like to be given as a programmer/designer.
 
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