Inside Star Citizen: Project Mercury | Fall 2020

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

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   What I think makes a fan favorite ship is it's that ship that people in their head kind of see in a fantasy sci-fi world. It's that blockade runner, that cargo runner, that smuggling ship that the company who makes it may not think smuggling. But that's the purpose people start using it for. The Mercury is a fan favorite because I think a lot of people initially attached to what it looks like. It has some cool features in it, right? So it it I think the deck is kind of stacked in its favor. You can haul cargo, you have multi-crew gameplay, you've got scanning, you've got data running. It's kind of a one-size-fits-all that you'd want if you were only going to buy one ship. So the exterior on this ship, the default version will be white, black, and red. That white area on top is basically

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   where all of the tinting gets applied for the ship. Asymmetry is just something different then. So it's a little bit surprising, right? When somebody looks at something and they don't see the same thing on the other side, uh then there's always like a little bit of wonder maybe. So it's kind of cool because it's kind of like when you get a white SUV, but it's like dual tone and you have the bottom half of the SUV is kind of like the black plastic. It's that's sort of the way we're treating all of these Crusader ships. When you first walk into a Mercury, basically the feeling should be of sort of open possibilities, right? So the cockpit has these cool retracting seats that travel all the way to the front and they kind of give you this nice little ride. And then we also have all these physicalized buttons where we actually mapped out all of the buttons

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   that we're going to need for the ship and then add the functionality to those buttons as we implement the gameplay associated with them. The visibility is really good. It's got this open canopy that you can see pretty good in all directions. And you also get a little bit of downward direction, so when you're landing you can see the ground. The server room. When data running comes online, this is going to be one of the busiest hubs of this ship. You're going to see a split between the server section and also where you get into the turrets. So, the server room is kind of a place where you walk into and then kind of decide what direction you're going to go in and what exactly

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   you're going to do. It's going to have a lot of little busy bee activity going around, changing out the server racks, trying to get the data that you're specifically looking for. To me, what you really see in the server room is many opportunities and options for what to do next. Rec room is one of my favorites. This is just due to A, we can play chess. I worked on that for quite a bit, but we we got it there. And B, it's that room where players can get a kind of group up before a mission, talk about what they're going to do, uh how they're going to approach it, and then execute. The have room, uh again, you know, we kind of want to convey a little sense of like relaxation or a little bit more calmer. You kind of want to be able to relax and, you know,

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   and lay down and just kind of chill out. Habitation, you'll see sort of a long hallway and then built into that hallway you'll have several different stations, your toilet, your sort of desk where you can do your midnight reading, as well as uh some access to the sub level. The maintenance sub level is kind of cool because it's this just like these ventilation shafts that you can walk around in and you can kind of see the inner workings of the ship and you can kind of sneak around a little bit, but we'll you'll let you discover that on your own. Engineering is very compact. You have a bunch of component housings surrounding you the moment you walk in. This is where you'll most likely have to run to to make repairs when things start to hit the fan. The scanning room's going to be really,

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   really, a really neat room. Players when they go in there right now, they function as a support seat. So, you need somebody else to run extra radar contacts or whatever, you can see it from that seat. But, in the future, the gameplay of that room is really going to come alive. Cargo bay is very exciting in this in the Star Runner in that we were able to increase it. So, the Star Runner is running a little bit more cargo. It also went through probably some of the largest amount of redesigns of any ship that I've worked on so far, and that was to be able to fit the Ursa and Cyclone inside of it and make all of that junk kind of geometry work. Making this ship was pretty rewarding in

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   the end. The thing I'm hoping players find a lot of joy with is that element of players kind of getting into that ship and and having fun doing what they really want to do as a designer is really what will make me really happy to kind of see it used for those purposes. The Mercury Star Runner is the first ship to arrive for manufacturer Crusader Industries, and the success in bringing it to life was the effort of artists, designers, technicians, and more from almost every studio here at CIG. Now, on this our special Thanksgiving edition of Inside Star Citizen, I'd like to do something a little different and give thanks not only to the folks that you always see on videos, either today or in the past, but to those folks who work

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   behind the scenes that you rarely, if ever, get to see. Folks who worked on the Mercury like Jen, Josh, Dan, Calix, Arthur, Graham, Daryl, Alberto, Lars, Daniel, Jonas, Matt, James, Patrick, Brian, Colin, Francesco, a second set of Jameses and Joshes, and some folks I'm probably leaving out. So, so let's go ahead, uh give our thanks to them, and then let's jump into a sprint report before I remember who I left out and I start to feel bad. Let's get to it. Up first, let's take a look at the current progress for the Lagrange point clouds intended to come online in the upcoming Alpha 3.12. These particular clouds are designed to add color and texture to the various rest stops found throughout the Stanton

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   system. Now that the parent and child gas cloud tech is ready for implementation, the lighting team is on deck, currently working to dial in the specific palette so that clouds closer to the sun appear warmer, and those that are on the outer reaches present cooler. What you're seeing here is their first pass through many of the Lagrange point stops in the system. And once they've hit all of them, artists will double back and fine-tune each one ahead of their intended release next month. Lighting artists are also currently working to place the various key lights, secondary lights, and shadow casters for the upcoming refinery decks. These tools are often used to add additional texture and detail to any location, or to make

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    them pop, as Ian might say. The challenge here is always the same, to create a dynamic and visceral look that makes a place feel vibrant and alive while not going overboard, so we remain performative for players in the game client. After this work, they'll begin fine-tuning things like smoke and atmosphere from the giant smelters, as well as placing the various fixtures in to match the lighting they've set once that's been locked down. Work also continues on flushing out the docking area add-ons for existing space stations throughout Stanton. With this look at some of the work being done on the interior areas players may find themselves in when they arrive. Now this sprint was all about adding in details like branding, the docking services area, what's behind the docking

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    services area counter where you're not supposed to go, secondary details along the floor like parallax occlusion mapping, and an observation deck where players can wait for their friends to arrive or just watch the big giant spaceships come in. Switching gears for a bit, it's been a while since we've checked in on the pyromaniacs and VFX and they've just completed a sprint focused on the addition of convection propagation where the calculations that determine how a fire spreads throughout a room or across a surface will now include the influence of gravity, wind speed, and wind direction. The cone you see here represents which affected volumes within its path will be affected by convection where it heats up both voxels and entities alike. And then

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    the wind speed, direction, and gravity are retrieved on a per room basis. This is important as it allows the system to pre-calculate some of the values involved, a necessary aspect in making a system that can perform not just for a single player but for everyone in a multiplayer environment. And in honor of IAE going on this week, here's a look at some of the interior progress going on for the Crusader Industries Hercules Starlifter. These images are from the engineering section on the top level. Now that gray box phase is complete for this section, meaning they've validated the location for all components and subcomponents ensuring everything fits as it should, the traversal needs for player characters to get everywhere they need to get, and that no surprises have crept up along the way, this section

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    will begin to transition to final art, where vehicle artists will begin the detail work necessary to bring this area of the ship up to the high standards we expect of Crusader Industries vehicles. Finally, to wrap things up this week, we can announce that the Nova tank, the classic battlefield warrior reimagined for the 30th century by Tumbril Land Systems, has begun its adventure from concept to reality with this look at its first steps into white box phase. The Nova is a massive beast that looks to change the face of ground combat in the persistent universe when it arrives. And we're very proud to announce that it's just taken its first step on its journey through the vehicle pipeline. So, what did we learn this week? Well, we learned that Crusader Industries

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    isn't playing around when it comes to the ever-growing collection of ship manufacturers in the Star Citizen universe. That space is going to become just a bit more colorful when gas clouds come online. And that we're all just one step closer to living that tonk life. For Inside Star Citizen, I'm Jared Huckaby, and for everyone at CIG, happy Thanksgiving everyone. We'll see you next week.