Destructoid Takes a Dive - Subnautica

SystemSystem Join Date: 2013-01-29 Member: 182599Members, Super Administrators, Reinforced - Diamond
edited May 2014 in Subnautica General Discussion

imageDestructoid Takes a Dive - Subnautica

Hamza from Destructoid stopped by the Unknown Worlds office recently to talk to Charlie about Subnautica’s development. Are there enough hyperlinks in that sentence for you? No? Good – Because here’s the important one: Destructoid Gameplay Interview Charlie and Hamza touch on lots of different gameplay topics and details that we haven’t discussed publicly before! Enjoy! And be sure to leave your comments and thoughts at the bottom of the article: We are reading them with interest!…

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  • HughHugh Cameraman San Francisco, CA Join Date: 2010-04-18 Member: 71444NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts
    Bump to force the silly robot to make a comment thread. When will you learn, robot!
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  • WakelaggerWakelagger Join Date: 2012-11-14 Member: 170906Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
    I noticed that it mentioned a targeted release in August. Is there any information if this will be a full release, beta or alpha? August seems pretty soon.
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  • Laosh'RaLaosh'Ra Join Date: 2011-12-09 Member: 137232Members
    Nice interview, gave me a nice overview how this game will probably turn out.
    It definately sounds like an appealing concept & approach and since NS2 has shown me what awesome stuff UWE can do I'm now really looking forward to this game.
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  • SteveRockSteveRock Join Date: 2012-10-01 Member: 161215Members, NS2 Developer, Subnautica Developer
    August, if we hit it, will definitely be Early Access. Meant for enthusiasts that want to support us, help us beta test, etc.
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  • moultanomoultano Creator of ns_shiva. Join Date: 2002-12-14 Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
    Kinda bummed about the move away from procedural generation. Is it actually easier to have artists build out areas than to come up with a semi-stochastic function to do the same thing? Maybe this just reflects my personal skill set, but building things by hand always seems so difficult and tedious compared to writing something to generate it. :)
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  • Soul_RiderSoul_Rider Mod Bean Join Date: 2004-06-19 Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
    @moultano‌ They are not making this change for ease of use, it is for the fact that the set-pieces in the game look far better than the procedural landscapes, and apparently the visual difference is jarring. The are going to visual fidelity over the easier coding method.
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  • SteveRockSteveRock Join Date: 2012-10-01 Member: 161215Members, NS2 Developer, Subnautica Developer
    edited June 2014
    moultano wrote: »
    Kinda bummed about the move away from procedural generation. Is it actually easier to have artists build out areas than to come up with a semi-stochastic function to do the same thing? Maybe this just reflects my personal skill set, but building things by hand always seems so difficult and tedious compared to writing something to generate it. :)

    You know of any procedurally generated 3D games that aren't stylized like Minecraft, or a series of connected rectangular tiles? Tiled games, IMHO, are most successful when the game is mostly focused on the systems rather than exploring vast, interesting spaces. Cuz the actual spaces end up quite boring and non-organic. Diablo is not a game about its environments - it's about the random loot drops. Most tiled games are also pretty 2D-feeling, if not completely 2D, which would be a shame for us given you have total movement freedom underwater.
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  • moultanomoultano Creator of ns_shiva. Join Date: 2002-12-14 Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
    edited June 2014
    SteveRock wrote: »
    moultano wrote: »
    Kinda bummed about the move away from procedural generation. Is it actually easier to have artists build out areas than to come up with a semi-stochastic function to do the same thing? Maybe this just reflects my personal skill set, but building things by hand always seems so difficult and tedious compared to writing something to generate it. :)

    You know of any procedurally generated 3D games that aren't stylized like Minecraft, or a series of connected rectangular tiles? Tiled games, IMHO, are most successful when the game is mostly focused on the systems rather than exploring vast, interesting spaces. Cuz the actual spaces end up quite boring and non-organic. Diablo is not a game about its environments - it's about the random loot drops. Most tiled games are also pretty 2D-feeling, if not completely 2D, which would be a shame for us given you have total movement freedom underwater.

    I was thinking that maybe there's a middle ground between the two, where areas are designed by artists in concept art, but then programmers work with a variety of tools to try to construct areas similar to those. For instance, one of the concept pieces shows a castle-like structure made of lava tubes. You could randomly choose castle spots, then randomly choose tube locations, then construct blobbly randomly-curved cylinders coming out of the castle bulge for the tubes.

    You'd have to move away from defining the world as a level surface of some global random function. The world would be generated in a much more hierarchical deliberate way. It's a lot more like modelling it directly than most world generators. It's like placing trees, except you place the trees, then place the branches, then place the leaves, and have a generator for each. You'd have to start by thinking of the things you want in the world and then write generators for each one. You could still have the final curve be a level surface of a function to ease blending, but the function would be a lot more complicated.

    This might be too much work per scene to tweak it to get it right, but seems like you could get better results.
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  • SteveRockSteveRock Join Date: 2012-10-01 Member: 161215Members, NS2 Developer, Subnautica Developer
    moultano wrote: »
    SteveRock wrote: »
    moultano wrote: »
    Kinda bummed about the move away from procedural generation. Is it actually easier to have artists build out areas than to come up with a semi-stochastic function to do the same thing? Maybe this just reflects my personal skill set, but building things by hand always seems so difficult and tedious compared to writing something to generate it. :)

    You know of any procedurally generated 3D games that aren't stylized like Minecraft, or a series of connected rectangular tiles? Tiled games, IMHO, are most successful when the game is mostly focused on the systems rather than exploring vast, interesting spaces. Cuz the actual spaces end up quite boring and non-organic. Diablo is not a game about its environments - it's about the random loot drops. Most tiled games are also pretty 2D-feeling, if not completely 2D, which would be a shame for us given you have total movement freedom underwater.

    I was thinking that maybe there's a middle ground between the two, where areas are designed by artists in concept art, but then programmers work with a variety of tools to try to construct areas similar to those. For instance, one of the concept pieces shows a castle-like structure made of lava tubes. You could randomly choose castle spots, then randomly choose tube locations, then construct blobbly randomly-curved cylinders coming out of the castle bulge for the tubes.

    You'd have to move away from defining the world as a level surface of some global random function. The world would be generated in a much more hierarchical deliberate way. It's a lot more like modelling it directly than most world generators, but still allows direct control. It's like placing trees, except you generate the trees and then generate the leaves on the trees and so forth.

    This might be too much work per scene to tweak it to get it right, but seems like you could get better results. You'd have to start by thinking of the things you want in the world and then write generators for each one. You could still have the final curve be a level surface of a function to ease blending, but the function would be a lot more complicated.


    Yeah you could probably do it, but the two concerns were 1) computation time on the user's end (collision checks for props could be really expensive), and 2) R&D time during production. I can easily see this sort of algorithm development being a full time job, especially given all the different environments we have, and we don't have that many programmers. We do have 3 level designers though :)
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  • DestherDesther Join Date: 2012-10-31 Member: 165195Members
    The article says a target release date in August. Is that alpha/early access or final product?
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  • Squeal_Like_A_PigSqueal_Like_A_Pig Janitor Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 66Members, Super Administrators, NS1 Playtester, NS2 Developer, Reinforced - Supporter, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Developer
    Desther wrote: »
    The article says a target release date in August. Is that alpha/early access or final product?
    Early access.
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  • Cannon_FodderAUSCannon_FodderAUS Brisbane, AU Join Date: 2013-06-23 Member: 185664Members, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    Sweet early access. Can't wait.
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