![](\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/GJzhI5W.gif\")
\nVideo: Saving an object and its Surface Grids data then adding it to the simulation.<\/p>\n
\nVideo: Saving an object and its Surface Grids data then adding it to the simulation.<\/p>\n
Surface Grids & Lasers are not yet available in any official Universe Sandbox releases. But they are now available in the experimental version of Universe Sandbox! Learn how to take an early look at Surface Grids & Lasers<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you haven\u2019t seen them yet, check out the previous Surface Grids DevLogs #1<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>#2<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>#3<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>#4<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>#5<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>#6<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>#7<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>#8<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>#9<\/span><\/a>, #10<\/a>, and #11<\/a>. Keep in mind these DevLogs document a work-in-progress feature. Anything discussed or shown may not be representative of future versions of Surface Grids.<\/span><\/p>\n What is Surface Grids? It\u2019s a big, complex feature still in development. It simulates the surfaces of planets, moons, and other objects, adding much more detailed, dynamic, and accurate visuals. And as a bonus, it makes it possible to add tools like lasers, which are essentially just a fun way of heating up localized areas of a surface.<\/p>\n Since we released the first experimental version that included Surface Grids, we\u2019ve released a few updates that have made a lot of improvements and bug fixes. Below are some highlights from the three major areas of the new Surface Grids feature, the interface, simulation, and visuals.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We moved around some buttons, turned others into drop-down menus, cleaned up some settings, and added a brand new color legend for all that wonderful data.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A lot of the individual simulation improvements, tweaks, and fixes can be harder to notice, because if everything\u2019s working well, then they don\u2019t draw much attention to themselves. Instead, they just work. But if you\u2019ve been following along, hopefully you\u2019ll notice that the surface simulation has been getting smoother and smoother.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Isn\u2019t Earth looking georgeous<\/em>? (…that\u2019s what we call gorgeous things created by our graphics developer, Georg) On top of all of the visual beautification, which you can see with random planets as well, we\u2019re pretty happy with how coastlines are now looking (these latest changes are not yet in the experimental build). They may not be as accurate as our real life home planet itself, but after lots and lots of tweaking and experimenting, we now have coastlines that are fairly accurate and work well with changing water levels.<\/p>\n Beyond the changes we\u2019ve listed above, we\u2019ve also added support for saving & loading objects, including retaining all of the Grids data (see video at top of post), performance improvements, and dozens of tweaks and bug fixes.<\/p>\n In the last update we also added a short, 15-second performance test that you\u2019ll see pop up when you first run this version of the experimental build. Please run this test so we can learn more about how Surface Grids performs on different hardware!<\/p>\n If you want to stay up to date on the latest changes to the experimental version, join our Discord<\/a> and check out the #experimental-build channel. We make announcements there whenever there\u2019s an update.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As we continue to update the experimental build, we get closer to the official release of Surface Grids. Like before, this part of development is about balancing our work between continuing with all the other improvements and fixes we\u2019ve had in mind and addressing community feedback as more and more people check it out \u2014 please let us know what you think!<\/p>\nImproving the Experiment<\/h2>\n
1. Interface improvements<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/universesandbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Grids-DevLog-12-Map-Interface-650x366.png\")
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2. Simulation improvements<\/h3>\n
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3. Visual improvements<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/universesandbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Grids-DevLog-12-Earth-650x366.png\")
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![](\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/UGMgjqs.gif\")
<\/p>\nWhat’s Next<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/universesandbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/New-Planets-1-650x325.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/universesandbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/New-Planets-2-650x325.png\")
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