News

Star Citizen trailer shows procedurally-generated planets

Star Citizen is aiming for a scope unlike anything seen and to display that ambition, Cloud Imperium Games has released a new trailer showing off its procedurally-generated planets.

Ozzie Mejia

December 16, 2015 2:10 PM

Star Citizen has been busy just prior to the holidays, recently kicking off its Alpha 2.0. However, Cloud Imperium Games isn't done. As part of its Holiday Live Stream, the studio released the game's latest trailer, this time highlighting its procedurally generated planet system.

Planets are constructed from the ground-up, down to its terrain and its atmosphere. The video walks viewers through what goes into constructing each individual planet, noting that because planets of this level of detail cannot fit in memory, CIG has opted for the procedurally-generated route.

The video below is constructed with full in-engine footage.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?

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Shacknews

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December 16, 2015 2:10 PM

Ozzie Mejia posted a new article, Star Citizen trailer shows procedurally-generated planets
- LoioshDwaggie
  
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  December 16, 2015 2:13 PM
  
  That's some pretty neat tech though right now I would like to see some stabilization on 2.0. I've been unable to get a single solid session in with a friend.
  - [deleted] 355768971
    
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    December 16, 2015 2:14 PM
    
    [deleted]
    - deadbeatsaint
      
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      December 16, 2015 2:21 PM
      
      Yeah, Christmas 2019
  - deadbeatsaint
    
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    December 16, 2015 2:27 PM
    
    Our group (5 including me) - we're all running different rigs (mostly high end to extremely high end) running combinations of Win 7, 8.1, and 10.
    
    None of us can run the game with it either crashing / freezing on start or (like myself) can get to accessing the 2.0 feature, and then having it crash.
    
    We've tried fresh installs of the game, even fresh OS install with newest DirectX and nVidia drivers. If it weren't for the game play videos we'd think the whole thing was some prank of the year.
    
    I think I'll just wait until the game comes out so they can (hopefully) work out the bugs.
    
    Maybe it's because we're all using nVidia cards (970s, 980s, one Titan, one 980 ti) what are you all using?
    - LoioshDwaggie
      
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      December 16, 2015 2:35 PM
      
      I have 2x 980s in SLI. What I was running into was a lot of server instability where the server would have a failure and then cause the client to crash/lock up. We tried for about 2 hours, just 2 of us, and only managed to get together 3 times. Of those, 2 resulted with my client crashing/locking up.
      
      It's really not ready for multiplayer testing. On my own I have much better luck, though it is still very broken.
    - VictoriouSecret
      
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      December 16, 2015 2:41 PM
      
      I've got a group of four with the same frequent crashing and freezing. 970s, 980s.
    - Nighteyes
      
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      December 16, 2015 3:10 PM
      
      I played for like an hour on a 660ti
      
      Explored the abandoned station, flew back to Ollister and logged out. Ran great and was fun.
    - jet-poop
      
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      December 16, 2015 3:17 PM
      
      970, no crashes, but I didn't play it a whole lot.
      
      Seems like graphics quality settings don't actually do anything right now, I don't know if that was the case on previous versions or not, I'm guessing yes? I haven't touched it in a long time.
      - vertdang
        
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        December 17, 2015 3:45 AM
        
        They dont do a whole lot right now, that's correct. The LODs are all the same, texture sizes too. Enhancements and optimizations should come closer to the release of Squadron42.
    - [deleted] 507980749
      
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      December 17, 2015 6:57 AM
      
      [deleted]
    - fire00f1y
      
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      December 17, 2015 7:20 AM
      
      Original Titan + i5 2500k. Works fine for me. In fact, it is working a bit better than arena commander was. I thought they had optimized a bit
    - vertdang
      
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      December 17, 2015 9:17 AM
      
      I'm running a nvidia 670gtx, 18mb ram, an old x58 motherboard and an i7 920 that's about 4 years old (oc'd to 3.6ghz) and on medium settings it runs great, high is pretty good, and ultra is just too much.
      
      Even on the medium setting though, it still looks fantastic.
- [deleted] 1124125937
  
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  December 16, 2015 2:13 PM
  
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- utgaardsloke
  
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  December 16, 2015 2:52 PM
  
  This looks very good, I am really looking forward to land manually on planets!
- [deleted] 355768971
  
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  December 16, 2015 3:05 PM
  
  [deleted]
- Nighteyes
  
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  December 16, 2015 3:11 PM
  
  Actual footage of a guy landing on the planet. Not a cutscene/trailer.
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5XSiww9ZO4&feature=youtu.be
  - daggot
    
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    December 16, 2015 3:19 PM
    
    Absolute coolest part of that whole thing was I didn't see one bit of pop-in. Pretty impressive that we've come so far from Wing Commander.
  - reddwarf_
    
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    December 17, 2015 4:01 AM
    
    That was very cool.
- [deleted] 1462994488
  
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  December 16, 2015 3:17 PM
  
  [deleted]
- vertdang
  
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  December 17, 2015 3:48 AM
  
  If anyone hasn't at least signed up on the site, go here. Yes it's got my referral code. You get 5k in spending money, and I get some hangar decorations and a gun.
  
  https://robertsspaceindustries.com/enlist?referral=STAR-VZ4C-P92W
  
  Alternately, you can manually enter STAR-VZ4C-P92W
  
  Apologies for the whoring... but I haven't got one solid referral AND I WANT MY HANGAR DECORATION! lol.
  - utgaardsloke
    
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    December 17, 2015 4:40 AM
    
    Dude, you are keener to flog your stuff than a space prostitute
    - vertdang
      
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      December 17, 2015 7:45 AM
      
      I want that damned decoration... and havent got a single referral. So yeah, it's being whipped out. LOL
- destroydlc
  
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  December 17, 2015 6:45 AM
  
  Here's Chris Roberts playing his own game: https://youtu.be/ZWq8ynUq7wM?t=23s
  - [deleted] 1220047941
    
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    December 17, 2015 7:09 AM
    
    [deleted]
  - father_crown
    
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    December 17, 2015 8:58 AM
    
    Fuck I'm dying, this is hilarious.
  - ManiacalMoose
    
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    December 20, 2015 8:20 PM
    
    I want to believe this is not a thing that actually happened. But it looks like a thing that actually happened.
- [deleted] 1220047941
  
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  December 17, 2015 7:12 AM
  
  [deleted]
- fire00f1y
  
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  December 17, 2015 7:17 AM
  
  The only part of this that is t super awesome to me is the part where they say "since the whole planet can't fit in memory..." It is generated every time.
  
  This means that they won't be destructible and won't change as, say, you mine them.
  
  But really that's just nitpicking because this is really cool.