The Planetary landing and planetside missions discussion Thread

Edith_The_Hutt

Edith_The_Hutt
Personally I'd like to see rocks which are more than grey/brown lumps with a contour map. I know it's a bit much to ask but stratification is a massive part of the geological process and I'd love to see FD put some time into getting it right.

For example, take a look at at the detail and variety on this cliff in mars, this is the kind of detail I'd love to see:
Burns_cliff.jpg
 

Mike Evans

Designer- Elite: Dangerous
Frontier
Edith_The_Hutt said:
Personally I'd like to see rocks which are more than grey/brown lumps with a contour map. I know it's a bit much to ask but stratification is a massive part of the geological process and I'd love to see FD put some time into getting it right.

For example, take a look at at the detail and variety on this cliff in mars, this is the kind of detail I'd love to see:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Burns_cliff.jpg
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I'm no expert on the matter but simulating geological processes that could create that kind of terrain is quite difficult and/or impossible when you use a procedural terrain system where each unique point of the terrain knows nothing about it's neighbour points (I think that's how we're doing it but again, it's not my area). So the only way to create terrain like this would be to use an algorithm that results in something that looks similar but has nothing to do with simulating the actual process the terrain undergoes to get to that point. Often offline rendering of procedural terrain can use the more expensive and intensive simulation of weather and time to great effect but real time applications have to use abstractions and approximations to get something that looks interesting but isn't technically geologically accurate.
 
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Tinman

Tinman
Mike Evans said:
I'm no expert on the matter but simulating geological processes that could create that kind of terrain is quite difficult and/or impossible when you use a procedural terrain system where each unique point of the terrain knows nothing about it's neighbour points (I think that's how we're doing it but again, it's not my area). So the only way to create terrain like this would be to use an algorithm that results in something that looks similar but has nothing to do with simulating the actual process the terrain undergoes to get to that point. Often offline rendering of procedural terrain can use the more expensive and intensive simulation of weather and time to great effect but real time applications have to use abstractions and approximations to get something that looks interesting but isn't technically geologically accurate.
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Pictures!
Videos!

NOW!!!!
 

Hydrino

Hydrino
Kitiara said:
Both hands on the controls all the time?
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Steering in the left, gear-shift in the right, feet on the clutch and gas with the windows down and the radidio blasting.

Has FD been asked yet, is the Horizons teaser trailer "actual gameplay" or is it a cinematic trailer? The buggy sliding was pretty cool but it could be like the quick-flips from the launch trailer where in-game you can do that but just not so fast.
 

Tinman

Tinman
DarkMatterGenerator said:
Steering in the left, gear-shift in the right, feet on the clutch and gas with the windows down and the radidio blasting.

Has FD been asked yet, is the Horizons teaser trailer "actual gameplay" or is it a cinematic trailer? The buggy sliding was pretty cool but it could be like the quick-flips from the launch trailer where in-game you can do that but just not so fast.
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Based on what I've seen I would say those are composites made with the help of in-game assets. The last shoot with the buggy seems to be prerendered CGI though. Hard to tell though due to all the motion blur.
 

Armour

A
Will there be caves and overhangs on the planets? David Braben once said that he wanted to release something a bit more complex than just a heightmap and some textures...
 

Jools

Jools
NeilF said:
Phobos? Deimos? Our Moon?
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Our moon will be blocked with a permit (almost certainly an unobtainable one)... I`m pretty sure every moon/planet that we know the looks of will be unavailable to us for quite some time because they would be much much harder to create (people could easily compare them with reality and be disappointed)

Armour said:
Will there be caves and overhangs on the planets? David Braben once said that he wanted to release something a bit more complex than just a heightmap and some textures...
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I sure hope so... the technology for PG caves and overhangs has been around for quite some time... If they will not be in horizons i will quit instantly, as it would mean that FD`s PG skills are below average and we will never see anything interesting, which i hope will not happen.
 
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Mike Evans

Designer- Elite: Dangerous
Frontier
Jools said:
I sure hope so... the technology for PG caves and overhangs has been around for quite some time... If they will not be in horizons i will quit instantly, as it would mean that FD`s PG skills are below average and we will never see anything interesting, which i hope will not happen.
Click to expand...

Got any links for that tech that's realtime and on a planetary scale? I only know of couple of products that have that but they're offline solutions.
 
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