Die Citizencon hat einen Blick in die Zukunft von Star Citizen geliefert. Die neue Genesis-Technologie oder Planet Tech V5 sorgte dabei für Aufsehen. Hierbei handelt es sich nicht nur um ein grafisches Update, sondern um eine fundamentale Überarbeitung der prozeduralen Planetengenerierung.
Die Technologie nutzt physikalische Daten und Logik, um Himmelskörper zu erschaffen. Anstatt Biome von Hand zu platzieren , entstehen Wälder, Flüsse und Berglandschaften nun auf Basis von Geologie, Erosion, Bodenfeuchtigkeit und der Sonnenentfernung. Das Ergebnis sind Biome, die dort existieren, wo sie auch physikalisch Sinn ergeben, etwa Sümpfe in der Nähe von Wasseransammlungen.
Alles Neue zusammengefasst: So wächst Star Citizen bis Ende 2025
Genesis steigert zudem die Renderdistanz von Objekten drastisch und macht Landschaften lebensechter . Die Automatisierung der Detailplatzierung erlaubt den Entwicklern, sich stärker auf die Qualität zu konzentrieren, während die Engine die Quantität liefert. Felsbrocken sollen realistischer liegen und das Fahren mit Bodenfahrzeugen angenehmer gestalten.
Die ersten neuen Planeten mit Genesis sollen 2026 spielbar sein. CIG plant, das gesamte Verse schrittweise auf die neue Technologie umzustellen, was eine deutliche Aufwertung aller bestehenden Systeme verspricht.
04:35so let's talk about how that's continued to evolve
04:38since our presentation last year.
04:40And instead of just highlighting some really cool biomes
04:43that we can create,
04:44let's go ahead and show how all this work applies
04:47to the upcoming planets of Nix.
04:49So there are three planets in Nix.
04:53Nix 3 is a gas giant and I think it's blue?
04:58It's not going to surface, I don't really know.
05:01Nix 2 is a yellow, toxic, it's got like this high pressure atmosphere
05:10and it's like a very volatile planet with high risk reward gameplay.
05:14It's going to have some really interesting biomes for you to discover,
05:17but for now just know it's going to be dangerous
05:20because today we're going to focus on what we consider to be the hero planet of this system.
05:33Nix 1 has got a rugged, remote beauty.
05:37It's got a diverse set of biomes from weathered, rocky mountain ranges
05:41to vast, sweeping forests and grasslands
05:44and from damp, expansive wetlands to claustrophobic, festering swamps.
05:52These core biome concepts give us a fantastic platform to hone our technology.
05:57In some cases, because the current tech couldn't do them at all
06:00or because we want to completely step up our game for them.
06:06So, let's approach this planet in much the same way that you, the player, will.
06:11From orbit.
06:13The orbit appearance of the planets going forward
06:16is far more tied to what is present on the surface.
06:19Previously, we had different data that drove the orbital and ground colouring.
06:25That's because the orbit was designed to look like vegetation that we'd place on the surface
06:29and the ground colouring was trying to be a mix of soil, rock
06:32and the organic compound colouring that forms the kind of colours there.
06:38Now we author much more of the data in a unified way.
06:43When you look at Earth, you see blues and greens for ocean and vegetation
06:47and brown or yellowy tones for sand and soil.
06:50We wanted to keep it as simple as that.
06:52The same set of textures and data that define the colour of the soil, sand and rock
06:56on the ground are used to create the orbital look.
06:59We then assess the presence of vegetation and competition between different species
07:03on each part of the planet and use that to blend in tones of green,
07:06including variations due to species health and the current season.
07:12This creates a far more complete image
07:15and allows you to identify features, geologies and potential points of interest
07:19all the way from space.
07:20Let's go down to the surface and start with something closer to what you're used to,
07:26but in a whole new light.
07:38When we approached the surface of the planet,
07:41we wanted to start by focusing on just the soil and rock.
07:44One of the things that was missing from our terrain previously was simply feature complexity.
07:51Looking at our contemporaries, we lacked detail at the ground scale.
07:55To combat this, we've added a new layer of data.
07:59That layer is called the medium tiles.
08:04These are intelligently placed on top of the existing 4km terrain tiles
08:08based on slope, soil type and other erosion data.
08:13And these medium tiles don't just create height changes.
08:17They also bring in local erosion data, both for soil and bedrock size values.
08:22And this gives us a whole new level of terrain detail, of scale
08:27and allows us to create far more unique locations across the planet.
08:31So now that we've nailed the surface, let's have a look at adding some rocks.
08:35We've now got two major contributors to the rock content of our planets.
08:40Firstly, long desired feature, cliffs.
08:44We are adding large scale, very detailed to all our cliffs based on the geology at a given location.
08:50This adds an exciting new dimension to steep slopes that we simply couldn't get before.
08:58The second is a big one for you ground vehicle enthusiasts.
09:01Rocks are now found not scattered everywhere, like spilt popcorn at the cinema,
09:06but only in places you'd expect to find them,
09:09thanks to a brand new rock scattering algorithm that isn't annoying as hell.
09:15Using physical data generated for each large and medium tile,
09:20now rock distribution makes sense and has a physical basis.
09:23So if you're still crashing into them after this comes out, that's on you.
09:32The rock assets themselves have had a glow up too.
09:35We now create rock sets related to a particular geology that look like they originated from the same source.
09:42And this ties into how we'll be distributing mineables in much more interesting ways too.
09:46So now that our base terrain and rock scattering looks good, let's add some vegetation and explore some additional biomes.
09:58Next one's forests and grasslands are full of trees, various grass species, rock formations.
10:12And they're found in all sorts of elevations like mountain valleys, open plains and dense meadows.
10:18And when we start to add a bit of fresh water, they begin transitioning into more wetland type biomes.
10:31And while forests are super cool, let's focus on the grasslands and wetlands today.
10:41So, how are we making these look so great?
10:44Obviously, we've had grass before, but never meadows of it.
10:50Because until now, we haven't been able to spawn grass in large enough quantities or effectively represented at distance.
10:58So we're stepping up our game in terms of spawning, shaping and shading grass.
11:05With Genesis, we now leverage GPU spawning to create vast quantities of assets across all biomes.
11:11Whether it be dense meadows or more complex collections of ground cover like you can see in these wetlands.
11:21We are also able to fit our grass tiles to the ground by conforming them to the unique terrain underneath.
11:27Now we can finally cover complex terrain shapes with grass and ground cover assets.
11:32And as a result, they are now gravity aligned, meaning each blade is oriented as you'd expect and not sticking out like before.
11:37Next, let's take a look at how we light our grass.
11:47Now, as in real life, the shading of a grass blade or indeed a whole field of grass is lit very differently to like a flat surface.
11:54We now use a solution that shades meadows of grass far more like fur or hair.
12:00And this, if you think about it, makes sense.
12:02At a distance, a field of grass is far more like a carpet or cloth than a flat surface.
12:08This improves how our grass looks from a near perspective as well as bringing us nicely into how we're solving the distant representation of grass.
12:15So, let's talk about the distance problem.
12:20One of our biggest achievements with Genesis is allowing us to build beautiful biomes out of floor and geology assets like a building set.
12:30Like, can I say Lego?
12:32No.
12:33Too late.
12:34But in the past, this broke down very quickly when objects simply disappeared when viewing the same biome from 10, 20, 100 kilometers away.
12:44Because we don't hide planetary transitions and allow you to view complex regions from very large distances,
12:51there are almost infinite perspectives from which you can see a location in Star Citizen.
12:54So, how can we afford to evaluate complex spawning logic at runtime for the entire swathes of the planet?
13:02Enter the Virtual Terrain.
13:06Virtual Terrain, or VT for short, is how we now cache and represent our terrain at varying scales.
13:13This has been the enabler of all of the lovely advances in terrain complexity and asset spawning we've shown so far.
13:18And it's also how we now evaluate and represent vegetation from a distance.
13:27When creating the VT for each part of the terrain, we assess if vegetation has covered the ground.
13:33And if so, what shading should be applied.
13:36For all of our biomes, we're now able to use the same shading model for the distant representation as the close-up asset.
13:42Whether that's our lovely rolling hills, some more dramatic rockscapes, those muggy wetlands, or even our festering swamps.
14:01So, yeah, we didn't forget about the swamps, and they're coming to the next one as well.
14:05Built using the lessons learned and all the technologies we've developed, these swamps now spring into existence from the planetary data.
14:15This biome combines all of the elements from the other biomes we've shown you today.
14:20From water interaction, then to spawning, unique ground coverage.
14:24And I think it creates something really unique.
14:27Anyway, that's our update on the Planet Tech portion of Genesis, and how we're using it right now to sculpt the identity of Nyx1.
14:48And I hope you're as excited as we are to explore this and everything we haven't shared yet next year.
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