Star Citizen Live: VFX Team

12 March 202101:02:061,754 linesWatch on YouTube ↗

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

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Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Star Citizen Live, the VFX team. I'm your host Jared Huckaby. And if you've never seen Star Citizen Live before, it's where we take about an hour out of the end of our week and chat with some of our developers, uh get a feeling of what they work on, sometimes what they don't work on, and take questions from you, the Star Citizen community. So, let's jump right into it. Uh no more me. Everybody get Everybody in the group here. The VFX team. Hello, gentlemen. Welcome. Hi. Uh it's been a while since we've done kind of a a a a round table uh Q&A, so let's let's take a few minutes now, introduce everybody cuz every show is somebody's first show. We're going to start with We're going to start with you, Jacob. You go first. Who are you and what do you do? Hello. I'm Jacob and I'm a VFX technical artist. I'm CG.
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What does a VFX technical artist do? Uh so, I mostly specialize in a software called Houdini, despite the title. So, what I do, I always focus on VFX-related stuff, and I'm kind of just anything relating to the software, I kind of tackle and handle. Like most tech artists. I think. Yeah, I think Yeah, last one I did was for the character for the character tech art team, so Yeah. We're kind of all around everywhere. I I find that tech artists generally bridge a gap between artists and like programmers and and stuff. It's uh making tools and and stuff like that to help other other people do their work. Am I wrong? life easier. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Save you time from having to do repetitive things.
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Okay. Uh Leo, who are you and what do you do for Star Citizen? Hello. I'm Leo. I'm a VFX programmer. I program VFX. Um yeah. Basically, I make sure that the VFX are being triggered at the correct time in game. Make sure they're running like optimized. Like the performance is isn't too bad. Um yeah, things like that. How does a How does a programmer work with artists? Uh what's what's what's that relationship like? Um so usually uh VFX artists come to me with like we want to bring this to life, like this this certain effect. And then we have a discussion about like how to implement
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it, how to make sure that like it fits in like the performance requirements and uh like that we have the required tech as well to to actually do it. Um when I go to them, it's usually when there's a problem when they made a mistake in the data and then I go to to them and then tell them That's what I was made a problem. Please fix it for me. That's what I was waiting for. Uh Teo, how often does Leo tell you no, you can't do a thing? Um I actually work uh a lot with Leo. Um I'm a VFX artist, so uh we some sometimes I come to him with something I'd like to do um and vice versa. But yeah, I I often times it's him telling me that I've made a mistake, so
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yeah, he shows he helps me uh to fix it. Fair enough. And uh Mike, who are you? What do you do for Star Citizen? Yes, well Mike, I'm the VFX director. So the VFX team is is run by me, basically. Um so yeah, all of all of the stuff that the guys have just said, I sort of I'm the umbrella with which all that is underneath, I guess. I mean, there's a fair amount of tense there, I guess. I definitely go to Leo a lot saying, "Leo, can we do this?" And uh and then he'll say, "We'll do that." Then I say, "But really, can we?" You still get it you still get in there and get your hands dirty once in a while. I just yesterday I do yeah. Just yesterday on ISC we showed the the dying star lightning doodle. That you were working on.
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Yes. Yeah. Yes I did that yeah I I did that. I think you said it it was an artist did it in a meeting. So yeah I was I was just in another meeting and I had the editors open as as we tend to do. Obviously with the with the sort of world situation we're all we're all online in meetings a lot but we we're still sort of working in editors. So yeah I was messing around with the the lightning regions. And the the reason for that there was a I was legitimately doing doing work. I wasn't just playing. We we're kind of revisiting the lightning with a with a view to a future release. So yeah I I just doodled with some effects and they they looked okay. Right. So if you've never seen Star Citizen Live before we take questions from the Star Citizen community. We take them from one of two different places. If you're watching live right now on Twitch you can submit your question with the
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word question in capital letters surrounded by brackets. That's going to help our community management team pull it out of the chat and send it along to me. We also put up a thread earlier in the week on Spectrum the communication platform up on robertsspaceindustries.com where we collected questions and let people vote up which questions they wanted to see answered most. As usual uh a portion of the questions were for teams other than the VFX team. So if if if you're auditing the broadcast and you see that we're skipping some questions that were voted up chances are it's because they were for a different team other than the VFX team. But right off the bat we are going to start with the most voted up question. The most voted up question was a question for another team but we went and researched some of the answer for you anyway. So we'll start right off. What is our progress on planetary in
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atmosphere volumetric clouds? Jump in straight with that Connor. So I mean just just to illustrate what I just said, we we aren't actually directly working on that. That is that is another team who's who's working on the the planetary clouds themselves like the creation and composition of the clouds. I can say that I've seen some fantastic progress recently over the last few months, I guess things have really picked up there. I know that like Teo for example um also excited about the clouds. Um yeah, looking really good. We will come into that process at a later date. So, definitely the effects will will play a large part of of making clouds work in the game. Our role there will be very similar to what we do with the gas clouds. So, all the kind of internal effects that that are in gas clouds or
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will be in gas clouds, that's kind of going to be similar with planetary clouds um and and gas giants and things like that. Obviously with with clouds, it's a very specific type of effect. So, it's it's just helping with the sense of motion. So, it'll be very misty and damp and and and the wetness, I guess, of clouds. So, I think that's probably where our our work will kick in. I know Leo will will be heavily involved in that from a from a code and side of things. Yeah. What is the team that's currently working on clouds? Is it gra- It's not graphics, it's I guess it's just core tech isn't it? Yeah. core engine. It's It's Balti's team, isn't it? It's It's Well, it's under It's Marco's Marco's. Overall, it's Marco's team, isn't it? Yeah. Core tech group. Well. I I've been trying to get Marco on a show for years. We'll see It might It might happen someday.
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Speaking of clouds, let's go to rain. It's a bit dry in the verse right now. Can you help? It's literally what the question is. It's a bit dry in the verse right now. Can you help? People want more rain. What can we tell them? Yeah, I mean this kind of follows on from what what I just said, I guess. So, once once we're in a position where the clouds are are are in and and and those hurdles have been overcome, then absolutely rain is going to be a consideration. You know, rain's going to come from clouds, so you can't do rain until you got the clouds. Uh again, like um Leo, you know, that's that's something we chatted about recently, isn't it? That there's there's that that have rain, there's going to be other considerations other than just the markup of the actual cloud, but you know, the I remember you mentioning we're going to need to sort of understand that you're underneath
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the cloud for the for the markup for the rain, aren't you, as well? Yeah. Yeah, so for the clouds, we'll have to basically need to get access to to the density of the clouds. Um and from there, we'll have to to kind of write systems that that that know like where are you compared to the to the clouds? Um Are you underneath clouds? Like is it is it a rainy cloud? Is it like uh not all clouds have have rain. So, we'll we'll have to kind of make a weather system as well that that that takes into consideration the the pressure, the temperature, the humidity. We We have some basics already in for that, but like with clouds that it will get a lot more complex. Um uh that that's like one of the things
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that we'll need uh for for rain to appear, but like at the Another thing that we'll need is is like rain is isn't just like raindrops falling. Um everything needs to look wet as well. Um so, all surfaces need to look wet. We We We do have the visor and the canopy shaders that where like raindrops uh appear on on your visor. Um and that will like help a lot with with the feeling of rain, but like there there are still uh quite a few things that will need to be done uh for before rain actually gets in. Are you looking forward to the days when you get when you have to tackle this, or are you dreading it? I'm looking forward to it. It's It sounds like a really exciting like project, and especially with with the
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Um yeah. So, we're getting a lot of tweets. Yeah. Uh we're getting a lot of questions in general about uh various weather effects. So, why don't we just do kind of a kind kind kind kind of a catch-all topic on on weather here. Um Mike, what are current intentions as best as you know them as you know realizing that this is a system bigger than just VFX. So, as you're aware of them, what are our current intentions uh for weather in Star Citizen? How far are we looking to go? Well, uh with it with with CIG being CIG and with the project that we're working on, we we want full weather systems eventually, don't we? Um we want we want all of that. We want it to be You want to be able to see it when you're on the planet or the moon. You want to be able to see it from space as well. So,
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obviously, we've got fantastic real-world reference and footage of of these phenomenons, and we want to get as close to that as we can in in real time and you know across a server. We want You want to be able to have Europe in in space. You're looking at your at the planet down there, and you can see this giant Let's just say a hurricane or or a giant rain formation. Um You want to be able to see that from a distance, but there could be someone that's right in the middle of that, right in the thick of it, you know, in a in a storm. And it's it's those two extremes and everything in between as always for for our game but for the VFX in particular. So, yeah, sandstorms I've seen people asking questions about sandstorms. I feel like yeah, just every everything that you would expect from a weather system, we we we want to support that in in the future, for sure.
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Okay. And it it's Well, my my my my button to switch you back doesn't work. There it goes. Uh so, yeah. So, obviously, we are at very ambitious game, and we are we are going to pursue uh to pushing this tech as far as we, you know, possibly can. That's not the same as us sitting here saying we're not Mike's not saying here today, there will be hurricanes in the game. He is saying that we want we absolutely want to pursue that and every other weather system, whether they make that in, whether they can be done with other necessities and other priorities for the game, uh that's one of those things that time will tell, but uh we definitely have the drive here. Yeah, and the reality is that it wouldn't just be a VFX thing anyway, cuz yeah, the VFX team would would create thing that looks like a hurricane, but if it if we're talking about weather systems, then, you know, that that's a much that's much higher up the chain.
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That that's that's a very fundamental game system there. Yeah. And we've already seen a lot of the groundwork, like Leo just said, that's there. Uh the the the planet uh content team has gone through and all of their different planetary revisions, like now all the different biomes are set with humidity zones and stuff and temperature zones and stuff like that. So, so we have they've found foundation for something like that already in place now through the work of the planet planet content team. So, it's definitely something we're moving towards. what kind of visual effects can we expect with future stars and suns? Right now, we've only got the one sun at the at the center of uh the Stanton system. have you guys started prototyping other
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kinds of stars, other kinds of suns? I know someone who could could answer Are they here? So, yeah, we did I did a a quick experiment kind of mostly regarding my work with uh gas clouds where we needed to start simulating magnetic fields to try to create a bit more organic kind of feel and give a bit more detail and life into things. And it's actually we can actually use that tech and did try using it to create uh the details and vector fields to help move particles to try and simulate the movement as with with the sun. So, you would get the the surface movement as well as uh some of the the corona flares kind of coming out. It was a good kind
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of test uh initial test. It was good highlighting where we might need to improve on in the future and where we could definitely add um add to it. It does have a lot of potential to just look absolutely awesome. Does Does it Does that kind of thing extend to something like an aurora borealis in the in the atmosphere of a planet or something? Potentially. It does create uh that kind of aurora borealis kind of you know, it's partly due to uh positive ions kind of hitting the atmosphere, which is a magnetic field and it you get that movement because of the magnetic field. So, um you inherently get that movement from it. So, yes, it it can be used to generate the vector field required for it, but I know Mike has also done tests uh way back in the past to uh show off the whole
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particle system creating aurora borealis just from particles alone. So, we've got many different ways to do That takes me back. That was That was when we first had the spline spline guide of particles, wasn't it? I think. And Um the the the pyro system actually might um might require that sort of stuff. Uh sun flares mostly. There there was there was talk about it uh back when we did start um CitizenCon. Um so, more tests probably will be made towards that. Yeah, I mean we've had discussions with um with with the with the teams actually regarding solar flares. What one question that I would straight away ask with something like that is like how close can the player actually get to that thing? Because cuz Jake could make an absolutely phenomenally accurate looking
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sun-like creation with with potential for really nice solar flares, but if design it would before that, take a step back. Like if design decided that actually you couldn't get that close because there's there's nothing there's no tech in the game. And this is just purely speculating by the way. But if you can't get close enough to it, then why invest all that time and resources into making it look so detailed? Is it Oh, we'll get to that one later. Let's look at the chat here. Uh how close are we to seeing light uh lightning or anything dynamic inside gas clouds? I I would say we're quite close. Is that is that Is that non-committal? Or What
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I I I actually have a I actually have a I actually have a scale. Uh I was having explained to somebody. If I say um If if if if if if I say in the near future or uh in an upcoming release, I'm talking 6 to 9 months out. If I say across our continuing development, I'm talking 9 or 9 months out or more. Like that. So I have a whole code that I use, but nobody else does. Well, without without putting a timeframe on it, obviously as I mentioned it earlier on like I've been looking at the the lightning effects options that we've got in the game. We we've we must have shown I mean, I know we've shown over the probably over the last couple of years examples of really nice looking lightning. We can do really cool stuff in our engine. What I'm doing at the moment part of my sort of ongoing Q1 task is I'm I'm looking at the tool set
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to to sort of see if it's user-friendly enough to see if it can do all the things that I know we're going to be able to we're going to need to be able to do when we have lightning in pyro locations. Like say in a gas cloud in pyro. Perhaps the art director Ian wants that. Let's just say, for example, I need to make sure that we're able to do that. And then the other side of it, what what we can't currently do what we haven't fully implemented yet is like the systemic uh placement of the lightning. So, um in various cities and towns, actually thinking about it now, we've we've kind of shown what we want to do in the gas clouds. We can currently manually place really really good-looking lightning, but we want to And this is where Leo again would come in and and the other VFX programmers, we want to have a system where the the data of the gas cloud drives those effects. So, maybe
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design one lightning to become increasingly stronger the closer the player gets to an area that that that is dangerous. Or maybe it needs to just be more frequently flaring up and frequently occurring. And whichever design decision gets made there will dictate how Leo implements that um that lightning. So, yeah, it it it's coming along. And I appreciate you kind of these things sometimes take longer than might be expected, but uh lightning is a is a very very powerful thing that we've got in our game. Yeah. And it's really fun to play with this one. It's good good fun. So, basically it's all on Leo. I mean, it usually is, you know. We're we're The artists are just we just And then oh, hey, I want to be able to do this really cool thing. Uh can you go and work out all the
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details, please? No, no, we we we do have like a team of of programmers for the VFX team as well. So, uh we'll share the burden. But yeah, I mean, like the the lightning um it it it again, it's it's one of those interesting projects. I think they're all almost all the projects we do are are like interesting because we we get to do more than just implement the lightning that you place in a location. You like what what we want for our game, like everything needs to be systemic. So, the lightning needs to be dynamically spawned, let's say. And and currently we have the tech to um place the lightning uh just in in a like in the level, but that doesn't really
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work at scale that we're uh that we want to develop the game. So, um for us, like we've had a lot of discussions about this already, and and it will come down to like how do we drive this lightning systemic? So, do you have like some kind of electricity value in the gas cloud, and then different gas clouds can have different uh electricity values. And then if you go into the denser parts of the the gas clouds, you you have more lightning, and then uh like lightning is is spawned in the denser parts, and then for the programmers is it's how do we manage all those lightnings that they are kind of like separate objects? So, how do we manage them? How do we make sure that we don't spawn too many like lightning objects and and those kind of things? So, it's it's it's
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quite interesting to work on these kind of projects. One of the things I I'm sorry, go ahead. Um if you want a visual update on how that might look, uh the if you catch the end of the main CitizenCon 2019 presentation when the ship when the character arrives in the Pyro system, there are some uh some of those lightning uh events happening in the background. Those That's the system that uh we're talking about. Yeah. And you made them, didn't you? I I placed them, yeah. One of the things I really liked about your your doodle that we showed yesterday, Mike, was uh how the emissive lighting system just followed the lightning out as the lightning was as the lightning was growing. The the you could see the you
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could see it you know, emitting light throughout the cloud as it was going and that was that was really cool. Yeah, that's a good point. So, yeah, cuz I was testing two things at the same time then cuz that was a custom build with the with the new particle lighting model that that's underway and then again tail I know you you're a big fan and Caleb our principal has been really putting it through its paces. Uh Simon the lead VFX programmer has been been implementing this new lighting model. And yeah, as you said Jared so so having large-scale sort of um like like dusty cloudy effects traditionally it's it that's really difficult like you know, we we use texture the bigger the thing is that the more obvious it is that you're using a texture and and the less the lighting can affect smaller areas, but this this
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lighting model is looking really promising. It's it's very physically based. that's I'm sure Simon's rolling his eyes as I just say that, but it's like there's there's a there's a there's a much more authentic sort of lighting set of rules that it adheres to that that makes it harder for us to break basically which which is is important because with the scale and and amount of effects in our game like it's the rules the way that the lighting behaves has to be consistent otherwise it can become yeah, our effects can just break and not hold up in different lighting settings. Systemic systems have to be at the heart of so much otherwise it just it it runs the risk of getting away from us. Yep. Yep. Uh let's talk about the new shield reworks. Uh we saw the first version of
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STF shields in 3.12 uh one I guess technically when the when the Idris and the Javelin came out with the uh the the XenoThreat event. Uh we know in 3.13 that you know, now you know, the the rest of the ships the ships that players can own and fly and stuff like that are all being converted to SDF shields. Okay. With the new shield reworks, are we going to be able to see better when front shields are being hit? I know that this is a particularly valid talking point that we've had internally. I've I've seen you in meetings specifically about finding ways to improve that visibility. 100% yes. I mean that that was that was very high upon the list when we when we did the
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the the shield rework using the SDFs. Definitely, I was I was conscious that the sort of the current existing effects are just too intrusive on the on the win, you know, on on the on the cockpit view. So, that was 100% at the top of the list for for things that we need to improve. So, yeah, we've we've done that. Um it it's it's going to be Yeah, you're not going to get as annoyed, hopefully, um by the by the impact effects. It's tricky cuz you got to find a balance cuz you still need to to acknowledge that it's like that part of the shield is getting hit. You can't just cheat and just not have anything draw cuz then from a gameplay point of view, you know, you've lost that re-ability. So, um it's just a it's just a balancing act that the artist has to to strike to to make sure that the effects still work from the exterior view and still adhere to all the gameplay requirements there,
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i.e. changing color to to reflect the weakening of the shield. But, yeah, I mean it's it's one of it's one of my pet peeves, I'll be honest, when when an uh especially with testing all the weapon effects, as I was doing a lot last year, getting that shield just just covering the screen all the time. Yeah, it's uh we're going to improve that. Cool. Uh let's see. Let's see. What else do we got? Um Oh, another very popular one that in chat here. Uh do you plan to update the the quantum travel effects? We do. We do plan to do that. Yeah, um This is another example, I guess, where it's not just something that the effects team on their own would do, like a a I hope I just don't sound like I'm
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repeating the same thing, but our effects are driven by by other things, so there's a lot of kind of gameplay mechanisms that that that trigger the actual going into quantum travel itself, and our effects are very much driven by that, so there's a lot of factors there. Speed and the spool up and all those kind of things, lots of hooks. I use the word hooks quite a bit. Um for which we can spawn our effects. But yeah, I mean, because now we've got SDF shields as well that came in first with atmospheric entry, and then we use them for shields. There's no reason why we shouldn't be trying to use SDFs on other effects and and quantum travel would be a great example of that, I think. Yeah. Um I'm going to take a I'm going to take a moment here. Uh Sam Citizen Markley, I see Sam Citizen Markley in the chat
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right now, and I want to I want to I want to talk to Sam Citizen Markley. We We used some of Sam's footage in ISC yesterday. You know how we we we we take community footage, and we always kind of attribute who it was. We accidentally attributed his footage to Rexzilla, and we caught it after the episode went live. So, uh Sam, I see you in the chat. I appreciate your footage, and I hope you accept my humble apology for incorrectly attributing your footage to to another Star Citizen. I had the opportunity. I was like, you know, hey. I I just want to say our our backer footage that our backers show is just incredible. I I never get bored of seeing it. It's amazing. Plus us debug a lot of issues that we have in the actual
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Yeah. And and and it was great footage of the upcoming Stanton Seven race. And if you don't know what the Stanton Seven stuff is, check that out. Ask a friend, cuz that looks pretty cool coming up. All right. Is there any chance ships maneuvering VFX will increase in size or intensity in the future? The Carrick, for instance, demonstrates palpable vertical thrust cones when strafing upwards, but most spacecraft produce small candle-like flames representing multiple Gs. What were you thinking? Um, I added I added that last part. Um, yeah, definitely so I just want to make sure I'm not not the only person talking, by the way. I've got a habit of just saying things first. yeah, I mean, I appreciate that a lot of
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the maneuvering thrusters um got that sort of potential for looking a bit like a candle flame compared to the the main thrusters. Sometimes it's just the scale of the actual thruster item itself, you know, if if if if the ship has has a really small uh nozzle, then it's probably going to look even worse if I give it this ridiculously oversized, like, five times longer than the ship effect, you know what I mean? It's it's it's not always going to work, so it's definitely we're sort of definitely um at the mercy of the of the ship design in that sense. But, there are there's definitely things like I guess relating to that, we we're doing some work at the moment on thruster wind volumes, and it's all sort of what that is specifically is we want to
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make sure that the effects match the physical volume that these thrusters generate, cuz I think it came in Did it come in into 2.12 or we got the the thruster volumes, Tayo? Can you remember? You're the force, like, uh Yeah, the physical force. force. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so so we we actually need to make sure that our effects properly match the physical force itself. Um, so yeah, we're doing some work on Leo, I guess you you got some knowledge on on that system if it if it's it is worth us talking about that a bit. I mean, yeah, I feel like um there are different things that we could do. But, for example, like increase like at a separate strength value or like have some kind of dynamic behavior based on if you're in the atmosphere. We
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already do something similar for shock diamonds on the main thrusters. So, potentially we could do like use like that data we do have anyway to to do something special with those like the the smaller thrusters if if necessary. I mean, the ground effects uh as you mentioned with like the the uh per thruster volume state, I think they will help quite a bit as well to give more punch to to the thrusters, especially if you're close close to the ground. Yeah, cuz cuz that's the thing cuz it's not necessarily that that we want like to have a really hot emissive long thrust effect that that you can clearly see hitting the floor if you're sort of high up. And and there's enough coming from a smaller thruster that it's that it's displacing all that snow or that sand or whatever the surface is, then I think
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that will help as well for sure. And that and that's definitely in the works. You You mentioned You You mentioned that your work on the thrusters is directly dependent on the work that comes before you, which is the size and placement of the thrusters themselves. A lot of what you tend to work on is this is this is this is similar of of the VFX team as well as teams like the audio team tends to be downstream of so many other teams. Is that a good thing uh uh Be honest here. Is this Is this a good thing for you guys? Is this a frustrating thing for you guys? Is this just one of those things that has to be that way in video games? Uh I mean, I
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It can be I guess it can be frustrating, but it's it's not I it it it is the way it's got to be, you know, and audio are the most downstream, I should add as well, cuz any effects that we make then audio got to like provide the audio that matches the thing we've made, but it's just part of the process, you know. As you say, like we use the you said downstream, and that is a phrase that that everyone hears a lot in CIG. It affects the scheduling, you know, like we we can't make a thruster's effects until the thruster exists. Um so, maybe maybe from a scheduling point of view, it makes things more complicated cuz there's more It's a bigger web, isn't it? There's more things that need to come into place. I don't think it's frustrating in the sense that it we get frustrated with other people at all. It's Yeah, it's just the nature of the pipeline, isn't it? It's all part of the
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pipeline. Somebody has to be at the end of a pipeline. That that is the virtue and nature of a pipeline. And and it's it's not us, it's audio. It it's yeah. Yeah, so, basically, everybody pour one out for the audio team, Epstein chat. They're the they're the they're the ones with the biggest struggle, but we we absolutely appreciate them. But, we work closely with with them as well, you know, like we we we've got a good relationship with the audio guys. Um so, yeah, it's all good. Well, yeah, because you could do all the work you want to make a cool thruster, but if when people players get it, they just hear this That's a great point. That's a really good point. You know what? It's like sometimes the audio can make an effect look better. I think I might have said that in the past, but it's it's really true, you know, the the weapons in particular. We did a big pass on improving vehicle weapon effects
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um through throughout the sort of latter half of last year, and without Darren, the audio director, and and his team making the weapon sound better, it it it it would have made my life more difficult, so it's it's a great It's a great sort of collaboration process. Yeah, we love Darren and Phil and Graham and everybody on that team, and and this isn't my attempt to get them to come back on the show. Um I I want to add to to what Mike said that we're not always downstream either. Um like in in some cases like some projects we're actually the driving team almost or we're in quite early that we become a driving team. For example, the weather effects or the the planetary effects that we have on the planets right now, we
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were quite early with like starting to add those things. So so you were in charge of actually implementing wind and we we needed the wind for our effects and other teams have started using the same kind of wind system that that we added added because like if we have it like they they can use it just as well, right? Um and there I mean there are like some other examples like the fire that we're kind of working on right now that like it's again like a system that's very VFX heavy but it will affect quite a lot of gameplay as well. No, yeah. Um another one is is is like
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atmospheric pressure was something we already had but like VFX team has been like implemented them on planets, gas clouds, like the the support for plants and gas clouds because we needed them on like the the pressure value because it drives a lot of our effects. Um so we just added it on on planets and on gas clouds and and now like a lot of gameplay systems also use that same pressure that we've been adding. So it's it's not like I think it's it's it's part of our company as well because we're quite a big VFX team. I think we're kind of like in a special place where we can actually drive projects as well as the downstream team. That's really well said. I I Thank you, Leo.
00:34:41
since planets and moons have different atmospheric composition, do you plan to design different re-entry VFX VFX effects based on the gas being burned and the temperature it reaches on compression? I think it's a really nice idea. Uh it's it's it's it's definitely something that I I think that would be worth looking into for for the future, definitely. Um it's I think it's feasible. It's definitely feasible and again, probably Leo will be able to talk talk a bit about the the way that our that those effects are set up cuz again, it's it's a great example of of a of a a set of a system that's driving the effects. So, yeah, I mean, for me, it makes a lot of sense. It it it's entirely typical of our game, isn't it? You know, it it it's
00:35:29
it's it's a it's a it's a visually nice feature, but it's also going to give sort of readability to the player from a gameplay point of view as well, so very important visually and from and for gameplay, too. But, yeah, I in terms of the setup, I I I suspect that that's perfectly feasible. I I actually I don't I don't know if you remember Oh, sorry, Leo. Go ahead. No, no, no, no. Go Go ahead, you. Um I I don't Actually, I I I don't know if you remember when I was working on on the atmospheric entry effects, I actually picked different colors based off the That's a very large jug. Oh, but my camera was turned off. They couldn't see it. Um yeah, different I actually wanted that to to be in the first release, but it didn't really make sense cuz first of
00:36:17
all, we needed um a stable uh visual state for it, but also we didn't have that many different uh atmospheric compositions. So, anyway, that that idea was put on the side, but yeah, as Mike said it's possible and would look cool. Yeah, from a technical point of view, it's it's definitely possible. We we do have all the data available on the ship to actually trigger those effects. Um, it would be kind of more a challenge to to get like a good setup um, that's easy to set up for artists and that's like systemic again. Like we always need everything to be systemic. It's It's necessary because like we want this to work on on like hundreds of planets like all with different atmospheres, so
00:37:05
It's all about the strength curves, Leo. Mhm. Um, maybe color, uh, maybe size, like knows. Um, but yeah, it's it's it's um, like it's definitely possible something like that, so um, for for us it's like the first step we we need is this is kind of like an investigation of what what effects the like what changes would we have based on the atmosphere, so does it affect color, does it affect size, does it affect like is it completely different effect because it's aesthetic or whatever? Um, like those kind of things and then uh, we need to go and or like artists at least will go and like do pre-production and I think Mike Mike can tell more about it, but um, it's it's like artists will tell us
00:37:52
like what do they want and then we go and discuss like options of of like how we can implement it. Yeah, Leo just mentioned pre-production. That's a massive part of the VFX pipeline and it and it it it's it's really just R&D, you know, it it it it By the end if before anyone does any any effects, they have to have done a pre-production pass. For for something really simple or something that we've done a lot of before, let's just say like a muzzle flash, the pre-production still exists, but it's it's probably a very small task like identifying and there's an existing weapon in the game. It needs to look like this. So, there you go. We've we've ticked that box. We know what it needs to look like. Uh but for something exploratory, like what Leo's describing, it's it really is it's just a it's just going through a process of understanding what what it could look like, what it needs to do from a
00:38:40
gameplay point of view. Is it is it performant? Is it going to be just ridiculously complicated to implement? Like is it going to be a year of a programmer's time, etc., etc. Um so, yeah, lots of lots of exploration in pre-production. Um no, I will not be jug-shamed on my own show. If you want to see my extra-large jug, you can turn in tune in to my private streams on the weekend. Uh as a follow-up to that one, uh with the shield effects rework coming soon, uh will we see unique patterns for shield manufacturers and a fusion of different patterns, perhaps when mixing shields? It's it's They want customized VFX, man. They want customized It's entirely feasible and it's
00:39:27
definitely something we talked about. Um the I think that the main thing for me is that I I want to get to a point where the the the the the tech that we've got and the visuals are rock solid initially, like this this this initial release. It's just the one It's the one style. It does It does what the the the designers needed to do. It looks good. It it's it's efficient, etc. But yeah, for sure, like there's there's there's we like to with all our VFX, we like to theme them. We like it we like to be able to make the effects different per manufacturer. We've done that with thrusters um for however many years I've been here, nearly nearly seven. Um So, yeah, I I I think it's perfectly feasible. We're actually I'm think Jake I'm going to ask Jake a question. I'm going to put him on the spot. So, like
00:40:16
3D textures, we we might we we probably would use we've talked about using 3D textures to to put to define the shape like that to give some pattern. And I guess I guess that's the kind of thing where I might go to you uh and say, "Hey, can we how can we use Houdini to to to quickly generate some nice variety of of 3D textures?" I'm not asking I just to be clear I'm not asking you to do that as a task. theoretical question. Uh this sounds like he's making work for you, Jake. I mean I'm not I'm not quite sure how how how do you mean do you do you want me to give you a solution now or No, no, no, no. Should I say yes I can do it? I just want to say yes that's probably possible. in future. Yes, yes, Mike, it'll be possible. There you go. all right. Um
00:41:05
Uh we got still a lot of questions about quantum entry. Um can we expect to see as a third person some kind quantum entry and exit VFX when another ship jumps in or arrives in the future? I know this has been a this has been a long talked about thing. Yeah, this is this is a this is a this is a topic that that crops up all the time um to be honest like it it's something that design will will regularly remind me needs to needs to be a thing. And it's all about the setup again so it it's it it's it's to do with the hooks that we've got from the system from the underlying system and if it if it if it provides us with the opportunity to spawn an effect then then yeah, we'll we'll do it. Um tell you you did you did a kind of a pitch didn't you for for
00:41:54
quantum travel improvements just just just generally so play the part isn't it? Yeah, I mean I I like things to to to to to be clear what's happening um There there's your job, Jared. So, when when ships arrive in your vicinity, um it it it would feel uh it the sound and look so cool if there was, you know, something really punchy there cuz it's it's a it you know, it's it's an aggressive sort of action that's happening. Um so, I would love uh yeah, I mean, for me I I I love all the sci-fi tropes of you know, ships jumping in with like very large flashes and yeah, I I've
00:42:43
tried a couple of things um and I'm hoping to I think I had a task to to to actually work on it and then it it disappeared cuz other things came into priority, but uh Yeah, we've moved it around, I think. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, the the when we first did quantum cuz it's gone through some iterations and when and I mean, the actual underlying setup that the tech the system itself. So, when we first did quantum travel, it was it was in some ways it was a lot more straightforward. It was we just had like very simple timings like the spool up happens now, then it initiates, and then it stops, and we had all those kind of things, but yeah, it was it was primarily we were primarily concerned with the the view for the for the player doing the QT. But yeah, hopefully I've not rambled too much there, but yeah, we we we acknowledge that that's that's going to be a thing. Mhm. So, what?
00:43:35
What's the most impactful VFX that you've done that no one thinks to ask about? There's uh there's a bit of if you do your job right, no one notices in every job, but you know, if you could highlight something, what would it be? I'm sure everyone in this chat's got got something. Does anyone else want to go before I start rambling again? Um I would just say that the the conversion work we did um uh between from CPU particles to GPU particles I think it's something that no one really noticed and nobody really talked about but it had an incredible impact on performance. Um just the other day when I switched some of the distortion
00:44:23
impacts effects I noticeably felt a a reduction in in sort of this kind of like a micro lag. I don't know like it wasn't a drop in performance but it did feel better and yeah that's not talked about a lot and the entire team does does a lot on on on on for that work. That's a great shout. Yeah because yeah a lot of a lot of our even though we've had the GPU particle system for a long time just for the sheer volume of effects in our game that there are still quite a few CPU ones that we we we want to eventually replace with GPU and as Teo said doing that actually provides not necessarily till it's slightly intangible but it it provides it provides a performance boost. It actually in our game
00:45:09
a really small performance boost for one one scenario like that if you think about 20 ships however many ships all firing that weapon in the the the performance gains are big and that that's a huge win for the for the player. Um I've got I guess I've got a kind of a a a similar sort of thing I guess but we got so laser projectiles we had a we when I say we the VFX programmers gave me a a minimum pixel distance option on on project on the projectile shader that we use and what that means is that I can keep that projectile as long as it's alive and it's on screen it it just keeps it at a minimum amount of pixels and what that even though that's a really minor thing seemingly in the field of battle that was absolutely invaluable because it
00:45:57
meant that you could still see them it's just a readability thing it just meant in the in combat it it it's it just made a difference that people probably wouldn't have really thought much of. Anyone else? Yeah, so as a programmer, it's it's it's a bit different. Like the the the small gains that we do is is more for the artists, I would say. It's it's I mean like we do performance improvements and those kind of things, but like the the small things like making the setup easier or or finding like good formula like we have to wingtip fortresses on ships. It's it's all physically based and and as long as like the the the planet and the gas clouds are set up with pressure and temperature and humidity
00:46:44
combinations, it will work with different combinations and and it means less setup for artists. So as long as they make sure the effect is like set up on the on the ship, they don't have to tweak values of like we want this here, this there. It's it's been like kind of long process, but I think we got like some good formulas like physically based formulas and it's it's quite satisfying. Finding those and and and making the future setup for ships and like anything better for artists and easier. Has anybody ever told you look like Obi-Wan Kenobi? No, that's the first. It's the first that you've never heard that before? No, really not. Like I've I've I've been compared to another
00:47:35
uh YouTuber, famous YouTuber, but but never Obi-Wan Kenobi. Can you can you just say, "Hello there?" Hm? Can you just say, "Hello there?" Can you just say, "Hello there?" Hello there. Oh. I don't know. I don't How about you were the chosen one? You were the chosen one. This is too much. So, chat's been having fun with it. So, uh they they they they they they think you look like Obi-Wan Kenobi. Uh which is a good thing, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was just going to say that's that's quite nice. It's better with better than what I get half the time. Leo has a very Jedi-like presence on that one. I think that's probably what lends to it. Probably what lends to it. It's a diversion. Uh gas clouds
00:48:26
currently look great from perspective, but once inside it's very difficult to see their beauty and volume, feeling more like a thick fog. In a recent video you were working on uh in a recent video we saw that uh you were making them react to sunbeams and other light sources. How is that going? Yeah, so for the for the initial gas cloud release that went into 3.12, we actually we did have the effects, the interior effects. And when I say interior effects, I mean all the kind of small high veloci- high high sort of detail noise that gives you that sense of parallax. Uh we had all that working and it was all ready to go, but unfortunately there were just some the some of the hooks like the we were dependent on the Was it it was the pressure value, wasn't it, in of the gas by the room system? That wasn't quite ready to ship because there were some
00:49:15
knock-ons to the to the actor status, I think. so we had to just uh the designers had to just keep the pressure set to zero. Um so, we are working on that at the moment, getting that back in. Everyone in this call actually is is sort of been working on that. I mean, Jacob, yourself, like you you you provide the the method of creating the gas cloud in the first place, don't you, for the artist? Or you you're integral to that process. so yeah, um losing my losing my thought here, but yeah, we're working on it and it it's all it's all it's all happening. It's all going quite well, I think. Theo and Leo got together and and added a really nice new feature. Which is Do you want to Do you want to talk about that? The collision effect.
00:50:01
Um yeah, sure. Um It It's basically in inside the gas clouds, some of them are themed differently. Some of the themes are are um are like uh uh uh asteroid field or mining um themes, and you would expect little rocks or micro asteroids flying about. And when the ship The ships go quite fast, so when they do go quite fast, you'd expect those items to interact with the ship, so the rocks would interact with the ship's hull and and break apart as you fly through the gas Yeah. Um they'll they'll They'll also be some metal bits in some cases, but yeah, all of those will interact with
00:50:48
your ship, and it'll feel really cool. And the audio actually are hopefully going to pizzazz it up and and and add that extra layer. But yeah, it's coming along. Looks really cool. Like quite excited about it. Um the cool thing like from my side was that it's it's using existing tech for the atmospheric entry, so it's it's using the SDF. Um it's it's using the same kind of system for dynamically placing the emitter so that it follows the direction of the ship. Um and kind of it it it was like a relatively quick thing to add on our side that I think will give a lot of like extra nice environment.
00:51:37
Okay. Um We got about We have about 9 minutes left. Uh it's been well over a year, if not longer, since the extremely cool heat haze effect on Daymar disappeared completely. No matter if in cold or really hot conditions, are there plans on bringing this effect back to Daymar? Yes, there are. Um, I want to make a bad joke about it being hot, not cool, but yeah, I mean it was something I think it was just something the the actual effect itself is a is a fairly simple one, but I think it I think it's part of various amazing improvements to the planet tech itself. I think that it kind of just got lost in the way, if I'm being completely honest. Um, but yeah, the the creation of the effects dead straightforward. We just need to figure out the the appropriate way to to to hook them back up again.
00:52:26
And and actually it it'll be it it'll be systemic to use that word again, because it will be, you know, hooked up to the actual uh the the planetary data, the the temperature itself. Uh and probably the the the humidity, I guess, Leo. Does that play a part? Um, potentially. I don't know. I'd have to look it up. Um, what what exactly makes it do that, but That's what I like about Leo. So, Leo, I can again, like I just ask her a simple Well, not a simple question. I ask for something and Leo goes and researches the actual real world um criteria for something for something occurring, so then we get it all we get it all in the game. Speaking of real world criteria for stuff, uh how are the directional rain
00:53:14
and snow effects going in regards to wind direction? Uh when this player strafes sideways in inclement weather, the water seems to still flow as if they're moving forward, regardless of which direction they're facing. What's happening there? It should I I think I I think I'm allowed to say it should be working. It should be like the the the setup that we created for the for those directional effects was incredibly complex, actually, Um, the intricate setup. And it is actually taking the the direction and the wind strength and direction, isn't it, Leo? Yeah. Yeah, so we're using the movement direction, the wind direction, the gravity, I think, as well. Um, they're like it might be a bug where like the we're simulating the the
00:54:03
raindrops on the flat plane. Um, um, the plane is then kind of wrapped around um or like it needs to be wrapped on the different faces of the the canopy and and like the the the glass. Um, so either there is something wrong with like the UVs which map the flat plane to the mesh or it's it's one of the edge cases where where the like because it's simulated on a flat plane, we can't really get all the direction perfectly um like covered and that might be an edge case. So it like we have to see the ship itself and and see like how it behaves and maybe send it to to our team to fix up the UVs or yeah. Could be a few things.
00:54:49
Yeah, when you when you deal with it some of the some of the ships would would probably provide more more extreme edge cases than others, as well. Yeah, it should be working like for most ships and most cases. Report ships that where it is not working to the issue council, if Uh, let's see if we can get one more quantum drive question here because there've been a lot. Uh, can the current Currently, the quantum drive friction effect at the front of the ship is a pre-calculated particle effect. Are you planning to convert it to a more dynamic effect like the new atmospheric re-entry one? Yeah. Yeah, again, I think with earlier on when we were talking about probably making use of signed distance fields for the eventual rework of the quantum
00:55:37
travel effects and it would this would be a great use case for it. If you think about the change we made to the atmospheric entry effects with with with SDFs versus the old one, just think of the same kind of thing with the with the quantum travel. I'm not saying visually but but with the the the use of the the shape of the ship and the the more authentic looking interaction. Yeah, so. Okay, let's see what else we why don't the Carrick's engines have heat waves? The visual heat that the engine flames create, like the Hammerhead or so many other ships. So, I saw this question and I was as I was looking at the question I loaded up the editor and did a little bit of digging into it. It's my favorite ship, Mike. It's a beautiful ship. I was a bit
00:56:26
confused because we should have I thought it was a bug initially. I just thought oh maybe it's just not not working as expected, but it just looks like the settings needed a bit of tweaking. So, that's something I started playing around with that I need to make sure I've got that file checked out cuz I made some changes yesterday to it to get the heat haze back again. So, yeah, that should be that should be coming in a in a future patch. Nice. Um let's see. Okay, let's So, I'm trying to get more in from the live here. do you have any more types of space anomalies like you're working on gas clouds planned? Comets, black holes, anything you're ready to chat about? I I mean
00:57:15
black holes I don't I'm not sure not sure that we've done any research into that so far, but our comments have come up in conversations for sure. I think when we started to show the the the the atmospheric burn up. Tail took a really nice video where there's a there's a ship passing through the atmosphere but it's right off in the distance and it just looks like a a burning up meteor and I you probably in it, Jared, but it was in one of the weekly updates and immediately Ian was talking about I mean yeah, let's get let's great to get loads of comments coming through and then the designers like yeah, but then it's going to land somewhere and then it could be like a new location and there's all these gameplay opportunities. So, Everybody was excited except the level designers. Like everybody was excited and you could just see you just see the just see the level designers that mean just like The guys who have got to make make it
00:58:04
make it a reality. Perhaps the the jump gates the the the wormhole jump gates would be and space anomaly, right? That that'll happen at some point. All right, last question, gentlemen. Uh what's a future system {slash} process {slash} mechanic not yet implemented in the game that you're most excited excited uh to work on? Definitely fire for me. Um fire because it it's terrifying, but it's also really exciting because of not not really even to do with the visuals, but just the the gameplay opportunities that it that it brings um and the sheer game-changing nature of it and how it
00:58:53
how all departments at CIG need to come together to to really take advantage of it, but we've I'm pretty sure we've shown some some videos in in in you know, from from our updates showing the potential showing the possibilities. Uh yeah, Leo obviously you you and you and Pi in particular, but the VFX programmers are creating some amazing setups. Do you want to do you want to talk about that? Yeah, well, of course that's it's it's the big project I'm I'm currently working on, so it's it's it's the same answer for me, Um but yeah, it's it's it's quite nice, like uh we've we've shown like demo and and some videos on ISC, I think. Uh but currently we're we're kind of
00:59:41
working on on getting it working with the rest of the game, so before we had like a a separate kind of like prototype. Um and and now that we're kind of implementing it and integrating it with the with the rest of the game, there are some kind of nice uh situations that that kind of already pop up and like problems to solve, so yeah, it's it's Yeah. I've laid I've I've laid off I've laid off on showing him this quarter. I I I I I show they were my thematic through line for quarter four of last year, and then this quarter has been has been the outposts, you know, following them each week. So I try to I try to lay off so that so that you know, some of the some of the surprise can still be preserved for players to discover in the game. You did some I I think some sometimes people think the job is to spoil everything in
01:00:28
the game in our videos and just to show everything, but we do actually attempt to balance that stuff and preserve some stuff uh for discovery for players, like Xenothreat. So, you know how hard it was not to talk about Xenothreat for 6 months? Um all right, gentlemen, that's it. That's the show. You made it. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Uh uh uh Mike, uh Leo, Teo, and Jake, uh thank you so much. Um we are going to we're going to raid. We haven't raided anybody in a while, and I'm getting a message from from Tyler here that we're going to attempt to raid somebody right now. They have no idea it's coming. It's a Star Citizen streamer who's broadcasting right now on Twitch. Their name is Subliminal SubliminalsTV. Um uh they they seem pretty cool. I watched a stream with them one time couple months ago. Uh they were working
01:01:16
on becoming a full-time streamer if they could. So, I have no idea what they're doing cuz I've been here doing this show. So, uh be sure to wipe your feet before you walk in the door. Uh behave yourselves and say um and and and when you get there in your best Obi-Wan voice say, "Hello there." On behalf of my friend Leo. Uh we'll see y'all next week everybody. Take care. See you.

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