More Realistic Planet Shapes

[tron1001]

While I generally like the way planets look now compared to when I first played with the disc worlds, I still think they could use some updates. I've done some research on different shapes that better resemble planets and I know that there has been other posts on scaling planets similar to what Space Engineers but that doesn't work for this game. I want to see what everyone thinks of a truncated icosahedron.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

With that many plates, I wonder if the engine would cope. Or my PC.

 

[DukeofRealms]

We're currently working on planets; they will be completely redesigned. We have quite a unique method.

 

[tron1001]

We're currently working on planets; they will be completely redesigned. We have quite a unique method.

I can't wait to see what you all have in store.

 

[Amadeus]

#planethypetrain

 

[Calhoun]

inb4 Cubes.

 

[jstenholt]

We're currently working on planets; they will be completely redesigned. We have quite a unique method.

MY HYPE CANNOT BE CONTAINED NOR MY ERECTION ENSMALLED.

 

[DrTarDIS]

We're currently working on planets; they will be completely redesigned. We have quite a unique method.

I really hope it's truncated blocks that "warp" visually back to square as you get close. (Or discworlds)

 

[Blodge]

With that many plates, I wonder if the engine would cope. Or my PC.

It's not the number of plates that kills your graphics engine, it's the total number of blocks it has to render at once. Provided a truncated icosahedral planet contains about the same number of blocks than the current planets, it should be no-more GPU-crippling.

I would have thought the greater concern would be how many layers deep the plates can be before the edges start to overlap with each other.
tron1001, have you been able to calculate this?
[doublepost=1484053201,1484053163][/doublepost]

We're currently working on planets; they will be completely redesigned. We have quite a unique method.

Could you... elaborate?

 

[TrickyNicky27]

i just hope they make the planets larger. My ships are larger than the planets! Maybe soon we will have large forests to navigate through while trying to seize a planet base. And now that water is non-physical(best change by far), we can actually have semi realistic planets.

 

[dwwojcik]

We're currently working on planets; they will be completely redesigned. We have quite a unique method.

You just made my day. (Two days ago, but whatever.) I bet the new planets are going to be awesome.

 

[Nickizzy]

. Provided a truncated icosahedral planet contains about the same number of blocks than the current planets?

The plates would be so stupidly tiny!

 

[Malacodor]

It's not the number of plates that kills your graphics engine, it's the total number of blocks it has to render at once. Provided a truncated icosahedral planet contains about the same number of blocks than the current planets, it should be no-more GPU-crippling.

A high entity count is far worse than a high block count. A few thousand cores can cripple performance on a machine that runs the game at 120 FPS even near planets.