{"id":3789,"date":"2019-07-11T15:26:06","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T22:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/universesandbox.com\/blog\/?p=3789"},"modified":"2021-05-20T11:31:30","modified_gmt":"2021-05-20T18:31:30","slug":"surface-grids-status-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/universesandbox.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/surface-grids-status-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Surface Grids & Lasers | Dev Update #7"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nGIF: Lasering away the ice on Earth.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s our round seven update on the development status of Surface Grids and Lasers. If you haven\u2019t seen them yet, check out Dev Updates #1<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>#2<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>#3<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>#4<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>#5<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>#6<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

We hope you\u2019ve been enjoying the new galaxies we added in Update 23<\/a>. We still have another round of improvements and bug fixes planned for galaxies, but we\u2019re proud of what we released and we\u2019re shifting our excitement back to Surface Grids & Lasers.<\/p>\n

A primer on Surface Grids for anyone not familiar:
\nIt\u2019s a feature we\u2019re developing for Universe Sandbox that makes it possible to simulate values locally across the surface of an object. In effect, it allows for more detailed and accurate surface simulation and more dynamic and interactive surface visuals. It also makes it possible to add tools like the laser, which is essentially just a fun way of heating up localized areas of a surface.<\/p>\n

Keep in mind this is a development log for a work-in-progress feature. Anything discussed or shown may not be representative of the final release state of Surface Grids. Read: Surface Grids & Lasers are not yet available in Universe Sandbox!
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Gotta See It to Believe It<\/h2>\n

In the past few weeks, our graphics developer, Georg, has been taking the visual foundation that was built into the last version of Grids and plugging it into the new model.<\/p>\n

This includes 1) getting the basics down for the shaders<\/span><\/a> handling different materials and phases, from water to snow to molten silicate 2) getting all of Earth\u2019s vegetation in the right spots 3) adding lighting, including effects for diffusion and specular and rim lighting for solar and atmospheric effects 4) and adding normal mapping<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The normal mapping creates the effect of bumps and ridges, or in other words elevation changes for things like mountains and crater rims. For a lot of visual effects, we often start with more exaggerated settings then dial it back and tweak it until we reach a more realistic appearance. In the screenshots below, the bumps are very pronounced and make for surface features that wouldn\u2019t be discernible when viewing from space. While it\u2019s not realistic and we plan to tone it down for the default setting, we are considering exposing this value and letting anyone set it to however they prefer.<\/p>\n

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\nPlease note that you can safely ignore the incorrect water levels right now. We\u2019re well aware that Europe is completely flooded and we\u2019re working on a fix (even if it may be an accurate representation of what human-caused climate change will do to Earth…).<\/p>\n

This visual foundation now works for planets with known heightmaps, but it will eventually be applied to all procedurally generated objects. So whether you\u2019re lasering Earth or a randomly generated rocky planet, you\u2019ll see the nice lighting and normal mapping.<\/p>\n

Graphics for Surface Grids are definitely still incomplete, but everything is coming together nicely. The screenshot below shows a tidally-locked, near-Sun Earth that is frozen on the far side and molten on the near side (note: it looks especially \u201cclean\u201d now because it doesn\u2019t yet include additional visual noise from blurring, blending, and randomness).
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Lasers!<\/h2>\n

We haven\u2019t shared much about lasers yet, so let\u2019s fix that. Before, lasers were hooked up to the data side of things, so you could see its effects in the data map, but that was about it. Now that we have the visual foundation described above and can see the effects of temperature on the planet itself, playing around with lasers just got more interesting.<\/p>\n

We recently added a radius setting that multiplies the area of effect (the laser visual itself is not yet affected by this). So whether you want to melt the whole ice cap or you want to carve your name, you can do it.<\/p>\n

In the case of the GIF shared at the top of the post (and maybe I\u2019m just hungry right now), this reminds me most of decorating a cake. Especially the part at the end where I do away with careful decoration and just throw a bunch of icing (er, lasering?) on the top.<\/p>\n

We often see debates in the Universe Sandbox community about these lasers — some say they\u2019re unrealistic and not a good use of development time, and others will stop at nothing to get their hands on them.<\/p>\n

To the first, naysaying side we say this: Yeah, lasers like this don\u2019t exist (at least, not yet). But\u2026 what if they did? Universe Sandbox has always been about realistic simulation of fantastical scenarios, and we think this fits very nicely into that. As for development time, lasers are a tiny fraction of the larger work on Surface Grids. They\u2019re essentially a nice side-effect of having a system like Grids that can simulate localized surface properties, much in the same way Grids will allow us to add basic life simulation in the future as well.<\/p>\n

And to the laser fanatics we say this: Yeah, they\u2019re fun. Thanks for your patience!<\/p>\n

What\u2019s Next<\/h2>\n

There are a few higher-level things we want to get working, like being able to locally deposit water and having vapor flow connected to axial tilt. And then there are some must-fix issues like proper water level on Earth and proper phase-handling for Venus (it shouldn\u2019t look like it\u2019s covered in liquid water, right?). There\u2019s also more visual work to do with blending materials and phases and handling procedurally generated objects.<\/p>\n

So we\u2019re a long way from the starting gate, but we\u2019re not quite in the final stretch yet. It may be fair to say we\u2019re at the point that was described all the way back in the second dev update: \u201c… often times the longest and most challenging part of development comes later, when we\u2019re tweaking, polishing, finding and fixing bugs, and making sure all the complexities of the fully fleshed out model play nicely with each other and the rest of the simulation.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re definitely interested in making experimental builds available to the community in the future, before we\u2019re ready for a full release. We\u2019re not ready to say when these will come yet, but we hope they\u2019re not far away.<\/p>\n

As always, thanks for your patience and support while we work on this next big, complex feature for Universe Sandbox!
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