Sunday, December 22, 2013
Happy one-year anniversary!!!
One year ago on this day, the Limit Theory Kickstarter campaign ended, culminating in 5.5 thousand people donating more than three times what was asked, to help a 21-year-old college student bring his dream of a vibrant, procedural universe to life. One year later, I still couldn't possibly be more grateful that you all gave me the chance to do so. It's been a heck of a year. There have been more lines of code than I can count...but more importantly, more conceptual revelations, gameplay ideas, algorithmic triumphs, ridiculously-long-and-detailed discussion threads, and more deeply-satisfying "aha" moments than I can count! And of course, more ghosts, monkeys, and squirrels than any of us care to admit
It's been a long trek, and it's obviously not over yet. But there's no question that we're far beyond the point of no return. We've come too far to ever look back. Limit Theory is becoming, and will be, the radiant reality that we all wanted it to be. Thanks to you all
---
As for today, I'm still dropping my hours into the interface. I'm gearing up to get "serious" about the rendering piece of it. I mentioned a while back that I believe this type of interface can be rendered significantly more efficiently than a standard one, thanks to a few key properties of it. I'm looking forward to seeing just how snappy I can get it to feel, especially on huge sets of nodes (like a regional map). Currently, the region map cuts framerate in half or so (which isn't all that bad, when you think about the fact that thousands upon thousands of objects are being mapped to those nodes in real-time). I think we can do better
I'm also working on integrating the holographic 3D shader into the interface. Ultimately, I'd like for the nodal UI to look somewhat like the command interface used to look, except perhaps a bit more structured. Yes, I do plan on doing away with the command interface. It was cool and served it's purpose, but I believe that the system map in the new UI will basically end up being the same thing (or at least, that's the plan!)...except that it'll be totally integrated with the rest of the UI, and more functional than ever! The great thing about this is that, if you want a dedicated "command interface," you can just open up your system map. But, since the nodes in the system map are the same as the nodes that will be drawn on the primary render view as an overlay (when I get the whole projected overlay thing implemented), you'll also be able to do all your commanding from first-person perspective! I love this unification. It reminds me of wayyyyy back during the KS when I showed the "tactical interface" in gameplay demo 3. With the nodal UI, the tactical interface is really just a system map that's projected into first-person, in the same way that the command interface is just a system map viewed from an arbitrary, movable camera.
Once I get the holographic stuff integrated, I'm really looking forward to seeing what I can build in terms of a hardpoint / ship subsystems interface. It'll be so cool to see the ship in holographic, full-3D, and be able to just click on the subsystem nodes, which will be overlayed / projected as they're actually positioned on the ship. It'll be exactly what a ship subsystem interface should be
(Did you think I forgot about him? )
Post
Mon Dec 23, 2013 8:41 am
#1
Week of December 22, 2013
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” ~ Henry Ford