Final Designs Of Navigation Screens

This is the final design for the Solar Systems Navigation screens. From this layout the player will instantly know which areas are Allied or Foe controlled by the use of the coloured mists.

Navigation Makeover!

Navigating more than a Billion Billion Solarsystems

Well here are some early pictures of the Navigation screens.

The above shows the zoomed out nearby solarsystems view.

When the player Zooms in, more details appear...

Zooming in even more or clicking on a planet will take the player to an even more detailed view of that sector!

Update on progress!

Well, not been updating the Blog or Forum much recently.

We are at a stage where we can now almost fly directly from one solar system to the next. As we enter the next system, all the new planet data is created. First off is to determine if the system has a local Star/Sun. If so then create upto 50 planets in the system, set the Sun type and colour too.

We also have the Final scale of the players universe finally established. This was impossible to calculate until we had finally decided on Scale Down factors and alike. So basically 1 computer unit = 1 tenth of a km. ie 10units = 1.0km. Therefore our game universe = +/- 1 x 10^35km

ie +/- 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 km

To get an idea of this HUGE size, consider the distance of Earth from our Sun, see below...

= 152,100,000 km Distance To Earth From Sun
= 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 km Distance Across Game Universe

Now consider that the player can move in increments as low as about 10cm per frame, it would take many life times for the player to go from one end to the next at this slow speed! :-)

Luckily for us there is a technology in the game world call M.E.H.O.D (Mass Event Horizon Oscillating Drive) drives which run off Tasnium Cystal Cells as their power source. The Tasnium Cystals can be degraded to pure energy converting almost 100% of their Mass to Energy. This much power allows the creation of small Warps in Time/Space to temperally connect two nearby points in space/time A+B together, which the players ship then travel through. Although each Join in Space/Time is only in the region of upto 1km and is a Micro join and invisible to the naked eye, through the use of the Oscillating drive thousands of these Warps are created per second allowing the players ship to effectively seem to travel Faster Than Light (FTL).

Start At A =A+B+C+D+E+F+G+H+I+J = Destination = 10km in a millionth of a second! Although the actual ship still only moved at Less than light speed therefore obeying the laws of relativity and alike.

I hope this all made sense to you all, I will post more technical details at a later date. This is just a teaser to give you an idea of the propulsion system employed by Space Unlimited Space Ships.

Large Tanker Scale Demo.

Planet Testing Video

Latest Pictures.

Internal cockpit views have been added by request. You can use camera controls to look out of the windows to the left, right and above.


Added a basic star routine and increased the ship routines complexity to allow for more flexible options later on.

Version2 - The Re-write Underway!

Well after the quite major decisions of the last week, Space Unlimited re-write and re-design are fully underway and going well.

Join our forums now at SpaceUnlimited Forums to have your say in the new re-design questions categories!

New Number System
The re-write has allowed me to reinvent my Big Number System. Where as before I was using a Grid like system to hold the really big numbers needed. Where each grid section is between +/- a set amount and each represented an area of space ie Local, Sector,Solar,Galaxy.
The New Big Number System just uses Really big numbers instead, still based on storing them in a grid form, but now each grid section ranges from 0-value and only as a +ve value, in addition to the grid values of 0 to +ve I now have a Sign values which states if the number is + or -

example: +1,000001,000000,000500,000000,00021.5f
or -1,000000,006000,002000,000000,00001.0f

Although this has ment that I must write my own routines to add,sub,multiply,divide these Big numbers I think it will work well in-game.

New Physics Code
The new Physics routines now mean that instead of stating how fast you want a ship to go, you know state the Engine Thrust in Newtons(N) this is then related to that ships Mass to produce an Acceleration vector, which in-turn alters that ships Velocity Vector. The velocity vectors are then damped out to produce some nice inertia routines. This has also been applied to the Rotation Vectors, in addition to the Thrust vectors. I will be working on a simple collision routine that will actually make ships bounce off each other during collisions with approx. true forces & velocities.

Time For A Complete Re-write!

Well with the Prototype looking and sounding good it`s time for a re-think.
I have decided on two main actions in this next stage of development.

1: A complete re-write of the game code, from the ground up. Starting with a blank screen and programming all the new features and code from scratch. The main reasons for this is to make the engine far more flexible and easy to use/change. We have better Large number systems and more detailed Physics routines too. With the code looking nicer it will be far more flexible and easy to add new ideas too!

2: Welcome to Luke Stephenson, who is now co-designer on the project. He will be helping with the design process from start to finish as I re-write the game code. Please head over to our Forums at SpaceUnlimitedGame.com where you will see a new forum topic called Design Questions. In here is a whole series of questions about the design process for everyone to take part in.

I will be posting updates and pictures as we re-write the game. This should help all you budding game makers to see a development process. (maybe not the best method, but a method at least!)

Planet Texture Generation Routines

I`ve not posted much recently, but that doesn`t mean that Ive not been thinking and planning new ideas for SpaceUnlimited!

I have great plans for planet texture generation routines, which I am very eager to test out.

I will try to explain...
Basically you have say 10 continent maps (grey scale) X 2sets + 10 Craters/Valley Maps (0-255 grey scale) + 10 surface detail maps (again grey scale)

Final texture for a planet = 2 Random Continent Maps merged with 2 Other Continent Maps + 2 Crater/Valley Maps + 2 surface Details Maps.

using 2 of 10 maps merged = 10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1 = 55 different basic shapes per map set.
ie Final planet texture possibilities = 55 * 55 * 55 * 55 = 9,150,625

ie Over 9 Million possible planets!!!!!!!! Then use a similar routine for the Colour Maps (by using colour gradient charts instead) ie 20 colour maps = 55 * 55 = 3025 colour charts...

9,150,625 * 3025 = 27,680,640,625 or 27.6 Billion different planets. Generated from 40 greyscale Maps and 20 Colour gradients!

Plus I might add some sort of Fractal generation at some point too.

But basically 27.6 BILLION planets should be just about enough! hehe :-)

I hope I explained it well enough?

Anway to give you an idea here is a Work in progress picture to demostrate the princicple...

If you would like to comment then please head over to out Forums at www.SpaceUnlimitedGame.com and have your say in the development process!

New GamePlay Video 7

The latest gameplay video to watch!

Big Ships!

After months in the pipeline we finally start work on the Very Big Ship routines!

Our test model is the Large Space Oil Tanker design.

You can see the scale of this ship by comparing it to the two standard size enemy fighter ships on the left of the picture.

A second ingame screen shot of the Tanker ship being attacked...

Visit the Space Unlimited Forums

The Space Unlimited website may have failed this time. But to make up for it we have now got our own Forums instead.

Please join us and share your thoughts at...

www.SpaceUnlimitedGame.com

Space Unlimited Gets a DOT COM site!

WEBSITE cancelled for now, was not looking good enough!

Video 6 - The Space Wars

A pre-release video as we work hard on the space battle scenes!

Expect the weapons to look bigger and better, and more ship types too!

Concept Art & Models

The 3D model starts to take shape from the 2D concept works.

New Video 5 - Ships get Interia

New Team Member Joins

Welcome to the team Roop Bhogal www.RoopBhogal.com who will be working on concept art.

Current Team:

Stephen Vickers (Me), Design & Programming

Liz Vickers, Assistant Design & Languages

Mike South, Assistant Design & 3D Models

Gilles Ketting, Concept Art (Part Time)

Seth Krueger, Concept Art

Roop Bhogal, Concept Art

PJ @ Full Motion Audio, InGame Music

Luke Stephenson, Additional Game Music

Ships Get Thrusters

Particle System gets its first use.




Currently Blue for goodie ships and Red for the baddies.

Particle system starts to work well as we add thrusters to the ships.

Upto 3000 particles vissible on screen at any time.

Players Ship almost complete

After working closely with my 3d design person (Mike South) we have finally almost finished the players main starting ship.
The model uses various Texture maps, Light maps, Normal maps and Specular maps to create what becomes a great looking space ship.

I have had news from PJ (one of our music guys) that the first ingame score should be finished over the next week.

The music from PJ combined with the model by Mike should add a great deal to the games progress and overall feel.