I'm not sure that should be so surprising.
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Star Citizen Pre-Alpha: 'Arena Commander' Dogfighting
- Thread starter MrBig
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I'm not sure that should be so surprising.
Blockbuster AAA title vs. small crowdfunded indie game, m8. It's surprising alright.
Ahem.
"Small" doesn't apply when you have a budget north of 90$ Mio and 200+/- people working on the game. Unless you're talking about Doom? ;p
Should have my sarcasm-detector checked then!
I didn't know Doom 4 was being crowdfunded
Man, ID Software has hit hard times lately
maybe they should revive the Commander Keen franchise
Dictator93
Member
done!Look so pretty
Put them in PC screenshot thread!
It legitmately looks fucking amazing @ 4k...
Now imagine it with area light shadows and all the other stuff they will add
done!
It legitmately looks fucking amazing @ 4k...
Now imagine it with area light shadows and all the other stuff they will add
Sure, sure. But will they add auto-targeting gimballed weapons, thus making Kabouter happy and / or even angrier, possibly both at the same time?
Yes, yes they will. They're thinking about it, at least.
Zalusithix
Member
Heh, now they're offering "Concierge Black Cards". $10 metal wallet-sized cards that give access to future "pop-up events and meetings". I doubt I'll ever use the supposed functionality, but they look cool, so I bought one lol.
Also, just looked at the Vault and they have the WIP Khartu in there. Here's some quickly cropped and resized versions of a few of the images.
I need my Khartu back. That thing better be up again on the Anniversary sale.
Concierge Cards said:
Also, just looked at the Vault and they have the WIP Khartu in there. Here's some quickly cropped and resized versions of a few of the images.
I need my Khartu back. That thing better be up again on the Anniversary sale.
Dictator93
Member
October Monthly Report and Weekly Alpha 2.0 / SM report are up.
A lot of juicy details.
Just my hunches.
I imagine the shield update will move it over to a compute shader / use sparse textures like their original document at GDC said, as well as finally adding the geometry displacement to it (right now the texture updates but the geometry remains the same).
Currently UI seems to be rendered after every single other thing in the game and is devoid of all shading, post processing, etc. So I imagine the screens which UI actually displays on will now be integrated with the rest of the light and shading so it does not "stand out" as much... along with having proper support for post processing.
Also, glorious particle lighitng, blur, and physics
A lot of juicy details.
Just my hunches.
I imagine the shield update will move it over to a compute shader / use sparse textures like their original document at GDC said, as well as finally adding the geometry displacement to it (right now the texture updates but the geometry remains the same).
Currently UI seems to be rendered after every single other thing in the game and is devoid of all shading, post processing, etc. So I imagine the screens which UI actually displays on will now be integrated with the rest of the light and shading so it does not "stand out" as much... along with having proper support for post processing.
Also, glorious particle lighitng, blur, and physics
MasterOfPastures
Banned
It seems they are taking a page from Elite to do the ship UIs. As long as navigation can be done with one hand on keyboard and the other on mouse, it will be a huge boon to immersion and coolness.
Dubbedinenglish
Banned
Bug. Back out to hanger and load in a second time. You should be fine then.
Dubbedinenglish
Banned
Sorry for double post
.
Speaking of the UI I hope they look at the natural position in the cockpit for the ships and move to consolidate the UI to give better sight lines. I think the head sits way too high in the ships and is forcing all the HUD elements all over are you should see clear horizon. I have this screenshot to show where you should be looking from in the Gladius:
Note the integrated HUD is inactive and we have the helmet HUD taking up all this space which should be integrated into the ship displays. The Gladius systems is actually displayed twice here and the 3d radar occupies so much space pushing the central (most important) part of the HUD. There in theory be different modes for UI display like scanning, combat, landing/docking that would hide frivolous parts of the HUD when it is not needed. I don't need signals info in the middle of a dogfight.
not sorry
Speaking of the UI I hope they look at the natural position in the cockpit for the ships and move to consolidate the UI to give better sight lines. I think the head sits way too high in the ships and is forcing all the HUD elements all over are you should see clear horizon. I have this screenshot to show where you should be looking from in the Gladius:
Note the integrated HUD is inactive and we have the helmet HUD taking up all this space which should be integrated into the ship displays. The Gladius systems is actually displayed twice here and the 3d radar occupies so much space pushing the central (most important) part of the HUD. There in theory be different modes for UI display like scanning, combat, landing/docking that would hide frivolous parts of the HUD when it is not needed. I don't need signals info in the middle of a dogfight.
Dictator93
Member
BTW, this is kinda funny (although necessary of course for the game to look good when it animates).
That makes this the 7th retarget of the character rig?
That makes this the 7th retarget of the character rig?
Rephin
Member
Yeah, I bought one too just for looks. I don't think I'll ever go to one of their conventions but the card looks slick.
BTW, this is kinda funny (although necessary of course for the game to look good when it animates).
That makes this the 7th retarget of the character rig?
It is really hard to say if that is just rig v7 with inverse kinematics added, because rig v7 was mentioned in August monthly report and in September 19th weekly update and IK was mentioned in multiple weekly and monthly updates after that, but in a quick scan I didn't notice a mention of yet another versioned motion rig.
I suspect all that mouse dragging stuff will really only matter on larger ships, in things like engineering stations. Small ship will just use hotkeys and presets. One should note a lot of those paradigms already exist in the existing helmet ui.
In VR, you'll just look to whatever screen you want to tinker with and use one of these to 'click' with your mind. Problem solved.
Even V1 would have IK as it is standard. You need it to do even the most basic of character animations.
What they might not have is the adaptability in the environments or motion re-targeting.
Didn't you know? You'll be bying a brand spanking new Saitek HOTAS with track balls especially for Star Citizen!
I sure will be Byeing those HOTASes.
Xplatformer
Member
This title needs to save me. I'm missing my PS4. My PC is being used for 300 hours of Rocket League, and 50 hours of Shadows of Mordor.
Zalusithix
Member
I got to thinking about the Org yesterday, and how it's just kind of "there" without being worked into the lore or anything. The first step in attempting to integrate the org within the universe a bit more would be defining what the name actually means. NeoGAF as a name has meaning in today's world as an acronym, but has no relevance in Star Citizen's universe. Given the name is set via necessity, we're left to create backronyms from it. The Elite community went with Neo-Galactic Adventure Force. The (abandoned) sub org "GAF" in Star Citizen did something similar with "Galactic Air Force".
Now the NeoGAF (or rather NEOGAF) organization doesn't have a set goal or purpose, so any derived name would have to be generic enough to encompass a variety of activities. We're not a dedicated fighting squad, nor an exploration team, nor mercantile guild, etc. Rather, it's a mishmash of everything with the exception of piracy. (Or at least I assume so as one person pirating under the NEOGAF banner could leave everybody else in the Org as a retaliatory target).
I'm hardly the most creative type when it comes to stuff like this, but after a bit of word play I did come up with New Origins: the Galactic Advancement Foundation. It's cheating a bit to get the "e" without another word, but 6 full words gets even wordier. At any rate, it's generic in scope and allows the "GAF" short-form moniker to still work. It also allows another short form reference to the org as New Origins which can uniquely identify it if we use sub organizations in the future. In the sub-org situation you can switch the "the" in the name to an "a", tack on "member/subsidiary" at the end, and you have the ability for role specific subs under the "Galactic Advancement Foundation" umbrella in the ***GAF SID form. This is much akin to how terms like "VitaGAF" exist today.
Just wanted to get the ball rolling on this a bit.
Now the NeoGAF (or rather NEOGAF) organization doesn't have a set goal or purpose, so any derived name would have to be generic enough to encompass a variety of activities. We're not a dedicated fighting squad, nor an exploration team, nor mercantile guild, etc. Rather, it's a mishmash of everything with the exception of piracy. (Or at least I assume so as one person pirating under the NEOGAF banner could leave everybody else in the Org as a retaliatory target).
I'm hardly the most creative type when it comes to stuff like this, but after a bit of word play I did come up with New Origins: the Galactic Advancement Foundation. It's cheating a bit to get the "e" without another word, but 6 full words gets even wordier. At any rate, it's generic in scope and allows the "GAF" short-form moniker to still work. It also allows another short form reference to the org as New Origins which can uniquely identify it if we use sub organizations in the future. In the sub-org situation you can switch the "the" in the name to an "a", tack on "member/subsidiary" at the end, and you have the ability for role specific subs under the "Galactic Advancement Foundation" umbrella in the ***GAF SID form. This is much akin to how terms like "VitaGAF" exist today.
Just wanted to get the ball rolling on this a bit.
staticneuron
Member
How about Near Earth Organization:the Galactic Advancement Foundation ?
Therefor the NEO part would be replaced by relative location of the subgroup.
Anton Sugar
Member
Y'all should just keep "Neo" as is, if you're having trouble with the acronym. That's what we did for our Elite in-game faction: Neo Galactic Adventure Force
After all, "Neo" just means "new". Build it into your group history/lore.
After all, "Neo" just means "new". Build it into your group history/lore.
Zalusithix
Member
Yeah, I played a bit with "near" and "next" in word groupings instead of new for the NE. Also played with "organization" and "orbital" for the O among other things. I was trying to keep Organization and Foundation from showing up in the same name though as it's kind of redundant. "Near Earth Orbit" could be used instead if we were going by location. It'd cement NEOGAF as being the first and primary "GAF" as the first non-earth based organization is obviously going to be located quite close to home. So something like Near Earth Orbiting (Orbital?) Galactic Advancement Foundation would work. The only (relatively minor) negative is location based subs wont have an immediately obvious function without reading the description.
I mentioned the EY'all should just keep "Neo" as is, if you're having trouble with the acronym. That's what we did for our Elite in-game faction: Neo Galactic Adventure Force
After all, "Neo" just means "new". Build it into your group history/lore.
group. =P I contemplated using it straight out, but using neo reduces sub org possibilities as it would make it a monolithic entity. Star Citizen makes being a part of multiple organizations easy. (Main and affiliate memberships.) Leveraging the flexibility that can bring to the table might be useful going forward. Sub organizations aside, "new galactic" feels a bit out of place in the relatively young SC. Star Citizen is set over 350 years before Elite and hasn't even broken out of our millennium yet. As far as galactic stages go, it doesn't seem like it'd have gotten old enough to seem new again. Anton Sugar
Member
I mentioned the E
Hahah, for some reason, I skimmed over your first paragraph
That's fair enough, though! I do like "Near Earth" as the starting point for "NEO" though.This title needs to save me. I'm missing my PS4. My PC is being used for 300 hours of Rocket League, and 50 hours of Shadows of Mordor.
SOMA, lad. Go play it.
I mentioned the E
Why would that be? Can't you just make the sub-orgs the "NeoGAF Mining/Exploration/Mercenary/Trading Wing"?
Zalusithix
Member
You could, but I was trying to avoid making the names and SIDs even longer. For example, take something as simple as "Trade Wing" and peg it on to the end of the SID and you end up with the sub org's SID being NEOGAFTW. Compare that to replacing the NEO aspect in the SID where the end result is likely to remain 6 or fewer characters and have the bonus of being pronounceable.
I think branching out to include affiliate orgs on top of the main org would probably be more trouble than it's worth for a group this size. There will be a fair bit of coordination needed between people in different roles, so generally speaking I think we'd want to keep the chat unified. If role-specific chat spam does become a problem, they'll have support for creating additional private chat channels.
The SIDs can be up to 10 characters (upper case letters and numbers), but no punctuation. If we did spin off sub-orgs, I think using GAF as a prefix would work best. GAFTRADE, GAFMINERS, etc. Keeps things pronounceable and the sub-orgs would show up together in the list.
Edit: playing around with the logo a bit. It's tricky to get a convincing metallic effect. Could just use a crop of the banner Daedardus did I guess.
The SIDs can be up to 10 characters (upper case letters and numbers), but no punctuation. If we did spin off sub-orgs, I think using GAF as a prefix would work best. GAFTRADE, GAFMINERS, etc. Keeps things pronounceable and the sub-orgs would show up together in the list.
Edit: playing around with the logo a bit. It's tricky to get a convincing metallic effect. Could just use a crop of the banner Daedardus did I guess.
Zalusithix
Member
Sub organizations are certainly not something we have to worry about right away, but planning for the future never hurt anybody. In addition to roles, I wonder about potential faction alignments in regards to organizations as opposed to individuals. Multiple sub-orgs to cater to different sides while the main remains neutral could be beneficial. Once again, a bridge to cross when we get there, but having an idea of what we'd do when faced with the situation is better than going in blind.
NEOGAF itself wouldn't show up in that order. ;P Frankly though, whether we'd end up using GAF as a prefix or a postfix, it doesn't really matter to me. I just wanted to avoid a situation where we have NEOGAFBLAH or BLAHNEOGAF because it just doesn't flow, and looks cluttered. Hence the concept of making the "GAF" part of NEOGAF the major focus in the name that could be ported around.
To come up with realistic metal medallion, we're probably best off rendering the logo in 3D and using actual metal textures / PBR applied to it. Brass or gold / silver or pewter / black oxide treated steel combo or something.
Yup, that would work well.
I like the Galactic Advancement Foundation idea, and I like just using "Neo" as a word that means "new." Perhaps our lore is that Imperator Ivar Messer's tendrils heavily controlled the original Galactic Advancement Foundation, and when Messer's rule crumbled, GAF did with it. From the rubble, a few honest leaders rose up to rebuild GAF to be stronger, more independent, new. Hence, NeoGAF.
Zalusithix
Member
The end of the Messer Era is probably the only notable thing in SC lore that you could play off from for the "new" angle. The use of Neo aside, if we go the foundation route, it looks like we'd have the foundation starting up early on in the spacefaring history of mankind. Sometime relatively soon after 2271 (Jump Points discovered) would probably be the ideal time. That'd be when the first real galactic exploration would be cropping up.
Just trying to flesh out the org and weave it into SC lore a bit with a "real" name and background. Helps to have the group grounded in some way rather than the current nebulous existence. In a somewhat related endeavor, Raticus was looking at the logo/emblem end of things which has remained the stock GAF logo as a quick solution.
Speaking of the logo, there's nothing saying we have to use the GAF medallion as is. We can use certain aspects and drop others, distort proportions etc. It's already quite clear who we are via the SID, so the logo doesn't need to be a carbon copy. I'd say evoking the feeling of the logo is enough.
That said, I did take the logo, vectorize it, and pull it into blender to set basic materials. Extruding it out into a coin/medal shape works well enough with a gold surface looking much like a real polished gold surface would, but the end result would be useless for the mini emblem due to perspective. Going with a flat non-extruded surface with the camera pointed straight on keeps a simple 2D logo that can be sized down well, but the lighting to sell the material differences in reflectivity etc becomes a fair bit more difficult. It's probably going to take some real surface texture/detail, or a detailed environment for the emblem to reflect back to sell it. Simple lights alone on pristine surfaces with no real edges just looks fake. Mind you, working with this sort of stuff is far, far outside of my experience zone.
A cursory Bing search yielded this:
It's originally made by m0dus and he posted it here (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4413748&postcount=229) but he's removed it from its original host.
It might just be an idea for a direction we could go with it, anyway.
It's originally made by m0dus and he posted it here (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4413748&postcount=229) but he's removed it from its original host.
It might just be an idea for a direction we could go with it, anyway.
Zalusithix
Member
A cursory Bing search yielded this:
It's originally made by m0dus and he posted it here (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4413748&postcount=229) but he's removed it from its original host.
It might just be an idea for a direction we could go with it, anyway.
Reversing the lower and mid color profiles, and made spherical as opposed to cylindrical. The sphere is more interesting visually in a 3D sense compared to a medal, and more theme appropriate for the term "galactic" (planets, stars, etc). The sphere still suffers from an emblem standpoint though. Complex shapes don't tend to size down to smaller icons nicely, so the "flat" version will still need to be created.
That said, I do like the color reversal. Kind of gives an iconic sun hemisphere on top and planet hemisphere on the bottom. Both then encapsulate the black void of space in the middle. I could envision an in-universe version with a holoprojected starfield inside a hollow sphere with the top being levitated via antigravity. Not sure how a black center would pan out in 2D form though when projected against a dark background.
Dictator93
Member
The new connie is flat ridiculous guys.
Crazy detail.
Crazy detail.
Zalusithix
Member
I'm more interested in the interiors for the variants at this point. We've seen a lot of the Andromeda model both inside and out now. Even a rough idea on how they plan on fleshing out the interiors of the others would be welcome.
Zalusithix
Member
Since the spherical render was posted, I figure I might as well show what my prototype is like currently. I set it up to have the top emulating metal (gold), the bottom emulating ceramic, and the middle to be a cloudy glass with emissive properties.
One thing I noticed tonight though with the emission from the glass part, is that with the lighting off with the exception of the rim lights, it creates an interesting halo of sorts against the zig zag.
I've exaggerated the effect a bit in photoshop to get the idea across clearer, but it could be an interesting concept to work from for a 2D emblem. Simplistic and stand out at the same time.
Edit: And I'm aware the left side of the top has a flat spot. Error from the vectorization of the logo that'd be fixed for any final renders. This was just a test for materials and such.
One thing I noticed tonight though with the emission from the glass part, is that with the lighting off with the exception of the rim lights, it creates an interesting halo of sorts against the zig zag.
I've exaggerated the effect a bit in photoshop to get the idea across clearer, but it could be an interesting concept to work from for a 2D emblem. Simplistic and stand out at the same time.
Edit: And I'm aware the left side of the top has a flat spot. Error from the vectorization of the logo that'd be fixed for any final renders. This was just a test for materials and such.
When did they show that. ?
I've been the same, i need to get back to posting here again.I need to be more active here and in the org
Absolutely fucking love these.Since the spherical render was posted, I figure I might as well show what my prototype is like currently. I set it up to have the top emulating metal (gold), the bottom emulating ceramic, and the middle to be a cloudy glass with emissive properties.
One thing I noticed tonight though with the emission from the glass part, is that with the lighting off with the exception of the rim lights, it creates an interesting halo of sorts against the zig zag.
I've exaggerated the effect a bit in photoshop to get the idea across clearer, but it could be an interesting concept to work from for a 2D emblem. Simplistic and stand out at the same time.
Since the spherical render was posted, I figure I might as well show what my prototype is like currently. I set it up to have the top emulating metal (gold), the bottom emulating ceramic, and the middle to be a cloudy glass with emissive properties.
Cool! Maybe try polished black marble for the bottom to create some contrast? It plays into the planet-vs-sun motif a bit too. Edit initially said marbled black granite, but it's actually just black marble for the look I was thinking of.
Maybe use a sparse star field as an environment map (or just a few distant point light sources I guess)? Wouldn't want this huge flash reflection of course.
The top's pretty much perfect as it is.
The latest Around the Verse. Here's a video with just the constellation clips:
https://youtu.be/SY2ATSVUvxA
Anton Sugar
Member
Looks great so far, Zalusithix!
This looks cool, but I would be interested to see a couple of variations with different black material. Maybe rock, metal, matte metal, even matte/textured rubber.Since the spherical render was posted, I figure I might as well show what my prototype is like currently. I set it up to have the top emulating metal (gold), the bottom emulating ceramic, and the middle to be a cloudy glass with emissive properties.
One thing I noticed tonight though with the emission from the glass part, is that with the lighting off with the exception of the rim lights, it creates an interesting halo of sorts against the zig zag.
I've exaggerated the effect a bit in photoshop to get the idea across clearer, but it could be an interesting concept to work from for a 2D emblem. Simplistic and stand out at the same time.
Edit: And I'm aware the left side of the top has a flat spot. Error from the vectorization of the logo that'd be fixed for any final renders. This was just a test for materials and such.
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