21 OCT 2023:
This week I started looking at my options for making backgrounds in Scrapship.
The main goal is to have a wide variety. Every time you play a level, there should be a good chance that the background will be different.
So far I’ve tried:
- Blender — I can make good planets — if I have good textures to work with. Can’t really get much of a bloom effect though when saving with transparency.
- Unreal Engine 4 — Same as above, but does a better job of creating an atmosphere effect.
- Textures for Planets — Has the ability to make tons of different planet textures — but at a lower resolution.
- Space Engine Pro — Lots of realistic variety and uses transparency, but in some of my testing the resolution is still too low.
- Above is a screenshot with an Asteroid background from Space Engine (jpg format). Looks nice, but the downside to jpg is that it will make it more difficult to create dynamic backgrounds that don’t conflict with different layers. PNG format can fix this, but at an often huge cost in file size.
Currently I plan on working with Space Engine Pro some more to see what I can do, but I am also looking at another option:
GEOGEN!
So JangaFX, the company that creates Embergen (which is what I’m using for explosion effects), just recently announced that they are making GEOGEN which will allow one to make planets and geographical textures. From what I gather, it’s around the beta stage, so I might have to wait a while if I want to try it out. (I am not affiliated with JangaFX btw, but I do like their software).
Currently on a business trip this week and next, so there won’t be much in the way of Scrapship updates, but of course I’ll think of something to post.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
“Ideas are easy, games are hard.” — Rob Daviau (episode 105 of the Game Design Round Table podcast)
(The context behind this quote was if game developers should be cautious about sharing ideas for upcoming games they want to make. In his estimation, one shouldn’t be too worried — even if you have a great idea, actually turning it into a reality is such hard work that it is unlikely that someone would try and steal your idea and beat you to market.)
Thanks for reading and have a great rest of your week!