Hello, this is a new progress update of our game Alen Ark.
We want to have random generated planets to explore in the game. To create interesting landscape we are using our own tool called
Opus that we will release with the sources of the game. This tool comes with a handy editor that combines noise functions and store the results in chunks.
In this video every height value of a mesh is represented by a rectangle in the mesh. To create a connected surface we improved the mesh creation algorithm. In the next video we can see that the surface is now a grid of connected triangles. The normals of every vertex of a triangle is pointing to one direction (instead of calculating the average of the neighboring triangle normals). This leads to a non smooth shading look.
We also alter the topology of the grid in some cases to achieve a better looking mesh.
We are also experimenting with the style and colors of the game. The following concept was made to find the right look. Do not expect that the final result of the planet screen will look exactly like this concept :)
Stay tuned and visit Nuke The Moon and follow us on twitter