![]() We often see requests from users that the view from the surface (press “C” when focused on a body) could be improved. Our plan includes completely reworking procedural galaxies, which tend to all look the same right now, and fixing a number of bugs which currently make galaxies a little difficult to interact with. We’ve been saying for a bit now that we’d like to give galaxies some love again, as they’ve been mostly overlooked recently while we work on other projects. Now we’re about ready to add it back in, and once we add some nice visual flair, this will make collisions and explosions even more epic and realistic as planets get completely broken apart. This feature was partially implemented before, but was removed during the physics rewrite. We’ve hit a few snags in fully implementing this, but Jenn, our astrophysicist, has been making good, steady progress. As a whole, this is also a stepping stone toward being able to illustrate stellar nucleosynthesis in Universe Sandbox ². ![]() The model also will now account for mass loss from solar winds, and be able to differentiate envelope from core. The result will be more dynamic and accurate properties for stars, as well as smoother transitions from type to type. The improved evolution model, based on these papers, is primarily a function of mass and age or metallicity, and will work for evolutionary types outside of main-sequence stars. Universe Sandbox ² will support 16 evolutionary star types with the stellar evolution rewrite , versus the previous 5. Stellar Evolution RewriteĪ Hertzsprung-Russell diagram in Universe Sandbox ² using the new stellar evolution model. Our next step, once we’re ready, is to start the crowd-sourced localization process so we can get Universe Sandbox ² running in as many languages as possible. Language LocalizationĪs mentioned above, the rewrite to the user interface will make it a lot easier for us to implement localization. ![]() Technically, we’re transitioning from our own internal system to the new native system in Unity (our 3D engine) that didn’t exist when we started on this project 4 years ago. This is largely an under-the-hood rewrite, but it’s going to make it possible to scale the interface for larger and different-sized resolutions, and also allow for language localization down the road. Our initial efforts are directed at getting it to work with the upcoming Steam VR based HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift. What more needs to be said? Internally we have basic support for this going already, but there’s still a lot of work to do in fine-tuning the experience of reaching out, grabbing the Moon, then hurling it toward Earth. We still have a lot of work to do on these, but you can start imagining things along the lines of space elevators, Dyson spheres, and ring worlds. Using physics based space tethers as the idea behind the basic building block, these structures can come in many shapes and sizes. We’re not ready to give away too many details on this yet… but doesn’t “Space Megastructures” sound pretty cool? The answer is yes, they do sound pretty cool, because they are. The green lines are the current, early rendering which will be improved. The Feature No One Knew They Wanted Until They Had ItĪ megastructure around Earth. This is a very tricky problem with no clear solution, but it’s often requested and we are working toward it. Another component we’ve discussed is atmospheric composition. We’d also like to improve the interactions between radii and compositions, as the results are sometimes a bit confusing right now. We’ve been discussing ways we can include additional materials to this list. Improved Composition SystemĬurrently we support four materials for a body’s composition: iron, silicate, water, and hydrogen. And along with the improved composition system mentioned below, this will form the groundwork for basic life simulation. This will eventually also factor in elevation, making possible more detailed surface deformation and a lot more. ![]() In turn, this will make for much more dynamic visuals. In the example of temperature, this means that collisions can impact values locally, so heat spreads from the impact site rather than just raising the overall temperature. This works by increasing the spatial resolution of data. That is, instead of having one point of data for an object’s property, like temperature, there will now be a 2D grid of data. ![]() Planets in Universe Sandbox ² will be visually more detailed and responsive to interactions, all part of a project which we are internally calling “automata.” ![]()
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