Welcome to a new developer diary series that will be running over the next several weeks in anticipation for the next major release of Star Sonata!
Today, however, we wanted to share some updates to a mundane yet striking visual element that will be part of the next universe reset – celestial rings!
The previous ring system for celestial bodies was originally designed for Saturn during the conversion from C1 to C2, and was later expanded to be added to random celestial bodies during universe generation. They were essentially a textured plane bisecting the planet, with the texture depicting the full ring. It worked well for smaller objects, but any larger bodies stretched the limits of the system, as seen in the image below. Additionally, they looked pixelated and objectively horrible on lower graphics settings because of the severely reduced texture resolution (more than any other game object.)
The old style of rings scaled up to mega rings poorly, even on high settings.
Ryan and Zynoa have devised a new way to render these rings, with a focus on making them both more consistent across graphics settings as well as scaling better to larger sizes. Instead of a full ring texture slapped on a plane with a ton of dead space used for transparent bits (like the hole for the planet), the new method utilizes some special made models for the rings and the entire texture is dedicated to just the ring itself. Because this increases the effective resolution of the rings (without increasing the technical resolution), the new rings maintain their appearance well across graphics settings and sizes.
Additionally, we’ve departed from some of the more organic and earthly palettes and went for a more vibrant color pattern that we feel strikes a balance between grounded and cartoony visuals for the Star Sonata world.
We hope this and other upcoming graphical changes will make for a more vibrant and engaging universe.
*Note: rings are shown on every celestial body in images for demonstration purposes. In the actual universe, rings will still appear at the same rates they currently do.