Science of the Spheres - development

[NovaSilisko]

Unfortunately, this normal map, despite how nice it looks, is too deep and ends up hiding real details of the terrain, so it will have to be toned down a bit.

[Spacepetscompany]

Do you plan on including Micro sized black holes? Maybe at the center of galaxies?

[NovaSilisko]

Do you plan on including Micro sized black holes? Maybe at the center of galaxies?

I think there will be something at the center of each galaxy, just like how there's a core at the center of each planet. Not sure what would make it special, though.

[NovaSilisko]

Random gif dump...

[tygoo7]

More fiddling with the UI

http://i.imgur.com/GfeAdOj.jpg

I made the toggle switches for the mini screens and the HUD work, too.

Is this made using the new Unity 4.6 UI system?

[NovaSilisko]

Is this made using the new Unity 4.6 UI system?

No, the earlier 2d stuff was though. The 3d UI will eventually use it though, just with invisible buttons above the models.

[NovaSilisko]

Rewrote the planet surface shader. No normal maps yet, and needs to have triplanar mapping implemented in the future.

Still:

Blog post coming tomorrow with some more pictures and a general recap of recent progress. Nothing exciting.

[NovaSilisko]

And aforementioned blog:

http://www.scienceofthespheres.com/september-23-panels-planets/

More planet pictures forthcoming after I punch unity in the face for sucking at multithreading.

[spaceman1999]

In that blog post was the icy planet using Eeloo's texture?

[EuSouONumero345]

Really resembles Eeloo.

[NovaSilisko]

Here are the additional pictures I mentioned: http://www.scienceofthespheres.com/planet-picture-dump/

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In that blog post was the icy planet using Eeloo's texture?

No. It's just a texture inspired by both it and Europa.

[NovaSilisko]

Sorry for lack of updates recently. Stuff going on for both me and r4m0n, so it might be a while still before any noteworthy progress again.

[NovaSilisko]

Got the triplanar mapping made.

But I still need to figure out how to make normal maps that don't screw up with triplanar mapping.

I'll provide an example of the problem. This is the material with only the diffuse map:

Which is what the planet material currently uses. And it looks fine.

Add on a normal map, though:

And things get messy. The normals don't seem to know where the light's coming from anymore. The normal map here is a 4x4 grid of raised blocks with lowered gaps in between them.

I don't really know how to fix this, so am stuck on the planet materials for now...

[MrHappyFace]

Could someone explain what triplanar mapping is?

[NovaSilisko]

Could someone explain what triplanar mapping is?

It's a way to make things texture nicely no matter what shape they are. It projects textures onto the object on the X, Y, and Z axes, and blends them together at the edges. Three projections - hence triplanar.

On the subject of triplanar, it has burned me out severely trying to figure out how to make the normal maps work. Been taking a break to focus on music for a while. r4m0n still has work as well but should be back in action by the middle of the week, ish.

[Nemrav]

Does this work with the galaxy generator you showed off I while back ?

And could your grid system generate a texture (terrain paintish thing) based on a height map ? such as for a habitable planet negative levels get an underwater texture while the higher in ordinary units, the more rocky, less grassy the blend is (say 2 layer texture baking) ......

Well, I mean in the future, do you think it could mean that....

[NovaSilisko]

Does this work with the galaxy generator you showed off I while back ?

And could your grid system generate a texture (terrain paintish thing) based on a height map ? such as for a habitable planet negative levels get an underwater texture while the higher in ordinary units, the more rocky, less grassy the blend is (say 2 layer texture baking) ......

Well, I mean in the future, do you think it could mean that....

It does work with the galaxy generator, you can fly around between stars and the planets will load and everything. I need to make a video of it.

If I understand your second question right, it could in theory, but I don't feel comfortable adding even more textures per-planet to have underwater-specific textures. Right now the main and secondary textures blend with a simple noise function, while the cliff texture is based on the steepness. I need to un-break the blending texture between textures, too...

[spaceman1999]

I wanted to bump this thread and I was wondering when if ever will we get an updated demo?

[hotmailcompany52]

Any new news yet Nova?

[Kinglet]

Any new news yet Nova?

I also want some progress reports, as it is nearly half a month since the last one.

[NovaSilisko]

Any new news yet Nova?

It's up and down. Mostly down... Started modeling a properly 1970s desktop computer yesterday, and today am going to do some experimentation for the construction system.

I wanted to bump this thread and I was wondering when if ever will we get an updated demo?

Yes.

[Sylandro]

I would like to try my best and be a Beta Tester, please

[Stratzenblitz75]

As someone who loves "planetary exploration" type games (such as Space Engine, and Outer Wilds), this game looks VERY promising. I really like the idea of an "abstract" microverse with the static "gravitational cores". Think of all the bizarre configurations that could arise and how challenging it could be to explore them! Also, I like the idea of having a "tangible" ship where you can walk around the interior, sit in the command seat and pilot it. I really wish more games did this. (In fact, I wish there were more planetary exploration games, there seems to be a shortage of good ones as of late)

I can't wait to see where you take this.

[NovaSilisko]

Doing some prototyping of construction stuff...

[spaceman1999]

OOOH! What are those?