Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: Tartiflette on April 29, 2021, 11:22:07 AM

Title: Add some visual depth to nebulae
Post by: Tartiflette on April 29, 2021, 11:22:07 AM
It's kind of a random 15min experiment, but I added some depth to the combat nebulae and I think the results are promising.

https://i.imgur.com/B7LcwZ0.mp4 (https://i.imgur.com/B7LcwZ0.mp4)

It's light enough to not disrupt combat, but it adds a smidgen of depth so that the nebula do look on the same level as the ships instead of under them. I could potentially see the same effect to be applied to the campaign nebulae too, for the players that try to sneak around especially.
Title: Re: Add some visual depth to nebulae
Post by: Chthonic One on April 29, 2021, 12:23:15 PM
Ironically, at that distance to the nebula, you wouldn't see a thing.

The only reason you see a nebula at a distance is because of how reflected light collects back at you, but at close range, there isn't enough reflected light to even notice.
Title: Re: Add some visual depth to nebulae
Post by: Tartiflette on April 29, 2021, 12:25:26 PM
Furthermore, the particle density of a nebula is damn close to a perfect vacuum anyway so it shouldn't have any impact on the ships performance. Fortunately this is a game, an in a game it would look cool to give them some depth I think.
Title: Re: Add some visual depth to nebulae
Post by: pairedeciseaux on April 29, 2021, 02:10:37 PM
It definitively looks cool in your demo video, very immersive. Though I would be a bit worried game-rendering-performance-wise about having an additional alpha blending pass on every objects (ships, missiles, debris, asteroids) displayed within a nebula, if such an additional visual effect were to be mandatory.
Title: Re: Add some visual depth to nebulae
Post by: Alex on April 29, 2021, 02:23:23 PM
Fun fact: there's a method in the combat nebula rendering that does this but isn't called! IIRC I just ended up deciding against it for reasons of visual clarity and performance.

The campaign nebula rendering actually does something like this but it's extremely subtle, probably too subtle to really notice as anything except for a very slight hazing of the ships. (See: NebulaTerrainPlugin, line 212...) Not exactly the same since it just renders the same thing instead of having some particles on one layer and some on another, though.
Title: Re: Add some visual depth to nebulae
Post by: Gwyvern on May 01, 2021, 05:04:32 AM
Sounds like something you'll have to do in a mod, Tart

"Gas Clouds Galore"

Or something like that.
Title: Re: Add some visual depth to nebulae
Post by: Tartiflette on May 01, 2021, 05:37:30 AM
The very barebone system I used there is available in MagicLib as a plugin you can enable in settings.json.