Month: December 2020

Dev Log 12/11/2020

[Click the title of these Dev Logs to see the full version with images] Content production has moved to large scale testing, so that environments are caught up, and can accommodate the construction of new settings. This caused a jump forward in the current methods for planet rendering, so that the GPU can be leveraged as much as possible to lighten the rendering load. Consequently, planet-wide environments are not barren unless they are intended to be, and the objects and sites of interest can be focused on. Other items advanced:-Long distance space travel has been made smoother and more resource efficient.-Cameras were reworked to eliminate some issues with layering that were causing visual interference in some situations.-Light scattering has been blended properly for inner atmosphere and from-space perspectives.-Weather systems are being developed which can spawn in random areas of a planet.-Underwater environments are visually complete, allowing for swimming/diving to be properly completed at the player perspective (animations, sounds, etc). Shadows are now stabilized and crisp, however this came at the cost of extremely long-distance shadows. This is a known limitation within Unity. Coding a solution is possible, so a nice-to-have decision will be made on this later on. Distant shadows that are crucial will be rendered, but seeing your ship’s shadow on a planet’s atmosphere 60 million miles away is not likely to happen. The game will provide enough visual effects to be enjoyable, and that is about all I can do as a one-person team.

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