Strata Nova

[iWasAdam]

hehehehe.
Been a bit busy, hence no recent update...

ok. starting to slowly pull together the UI:


Here's a planet with 2 'moons'. The planet is in the background with the first planet and then the second. We can also view the first planet


In both examples you can see that I've added some 'night lights'

I've also made the planets much brighter in their appearance to make them more visual

[Derron]

How are the nightlights rendered?
the "Xerxies" with the selection-background (center right) shows some non-anti-aliased outline pixels - and two planets below the planet has white "pixel fireflies" (as if you render them via draw commands - not directly as a texture which would "scale down" with the scaling commands).

The textures of the big planets are "blockish" - going to the bottom/top of the planets you can see the warping of your "make it look like a 3d planet"-algorithm.

Dunno how to avoid that though.



@ hud
Layout might be good, design is a bit "dull" for now. Maybe orient a bit more to the LCARS design of Star Trek?
But maybe its just the font which makes it look so ... "prototype" ;-)



Nice to see you did not loose interest yet - not nice to see you are still focusing on GFX instead of gameplay 


bye
Ron

[iWasAdam]

yep all the images are shader based, so the initial images are fed into the shader and it does the rest. I've added a bit more blur to the light - maybe I should increase the resolution a bit. but it's at 1024x512 at the moment...

Yep, the hud is still work in progress, behind the scenes I've been doing some odd optimising of the planet locations so the internal 3d systems can be fed directly to the ships and then back to the display. got the initla code working this morning 

This means that the planets are sitting in a 3d world which can be quickly checked now

[Derron]

Depending on how you create the planet textures you might create a high res one - scale it down and use the scaled one for "normal display" and the highres for the zoomed ones. Kind of "mipmapping".


bye
Ron

[iWasAdam]

As far as I am aware, mipmapping is already turned on and maps auto created.
What I have got is a low res version of the map for general dev and hires versions for the final project...

NEWS:
Just created a 'ship' at a planet position and moon position. these were then displayed at the correct positions in view space. so the internal 3d system basically works. Next up is making the ships move...

and here's the code to transform 3d space into 2d view space:

Code: [Select]

local px:float = planet[0].CenterX
local py:float = planet[0].CenterY
px += planet[plnt].X * scale
py += (planet[plnt].Y * scale * _eyeY) + (planet[plnt].Z * scale * eyeY1)


[iWasAdam]

and... I'm not done 

I've removed the pseudo clouds and replaced them with procedural ones so there is no cloud texture it's all calculated. the new clouds rotate, have density and also move... so weather patterns, and theve got color and other stuff thrown in as well:

Her's a planet with two moons. You can really see the 'blue/green' clouds on the first moon (also shown with high resolution planet textures) yum yum yum!

[Steve Elliott]

Much smoother visuals.   

The 'E' character needs sorting though.

[Derron]

Maybe IWasAdam is fan of Joe Biden ;-)


@ clouds
they look like a marble-texture - It's possible but looks a bit "melted with the ground" (at least on static images).
Maybe more perlin noise?
Look at google images for "earth clouds" and you will see a bit more.

That you can color them (and other things) is surely useful - think of a sulfur planet or so - or mars + clouds.


Once you do procedural clouds - the planets could be procedural too ("ocean + countryside + mountains + forests + ..."). Stuff can become scientific - but also it is something you might enjoy coding.
Hope you do not plan to allow a "planetside view" (land with your ship and explore ...). No need to code No Man's Sky.

 

bye
Ron

[Steve Elliott]

Maybe more perlin noise?

+1
Yes I like the smoother visuals, but some noise to break up the clouds a little.

[iWasAdam]

mmm, think I should be able to add some noise in there

And nope, not going down the 'no mans sky' rabbit hole with terrain generation.

Been working on a little math problem:
for any 3d line xyz0 to xyz1. move a certain Length along the line.
Solved it:

Here showing two lines (in yellow), with the exact same lengths being marked along each line (orange squares). This is in 2d being projected back into 2d so there are minor jitters. but it works.

This means the next step - ships and movements can begin

[iWasAdam]

ok, so lets turn attention to the UI - which was never that good looking...
how about: 


And there is even a freighter marked. it goes from a source to a destination loads and unloads! destination can be other things like ships - for expansion, etc

[Derron]

Is this 1:1 resolution or scaled down?

I assume on FHD (or UHD) screens the menu might look a bit ... overwhelming (aka "too big"). Of course this depends on whether the GUI is relatively sized or absolutely.

Designwise something is still missing - it looks rectangl-ish/blockish and is full of opacque colors (single tone). This makes it look "clear" and "distinctable" but ... dunno how to describe it (and how to do better while staying with the basic design idea) but it looks like a status screen - maybe it needs some interactive stuff in it?

Is it visible all the time or only when selecting stuff?

I think it might work if it is only shown that way in status/sub screens (trading, showing planetary stats, ...) while during "main game" it is hidden and only some icons or a side-bar (with minimap etc) is presented.


bye
Ron

[iWasAdam]

Thats a really interesting observation about the UI.

Here's what I've done:


basically the UI hides to the side (showing a little bit)
when you go into the area the button slide out and are highlighted as you hover over them

[iWasAdam]

if we have solar systems - which could be taken over. then we need some form of map system (with tutorial systems, etc)

Say 'Hello' to the initial Stellar Cartography (yep, no 3d was hurt)