{"data":{"id":14568,"title":"Design Notes: New Damage System","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/engineering\/14568-Design-Notes-New-Damage-System","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/14568","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/14568","channel":"Engineering","category":"Development","series":"Design Post","images":[{"id":3237,"name":"Figure14.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/iv87768rqlz33r\/source\/Figure14.jpg","alt":"","size":175939,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-03-06T18:32:30+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3237","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3237\/similar"},{"id":3238,"name":"Figure1.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/moj4y0qyqzp4ur\/source\/Figure1.jpg","alt":"Figure 1 - Surface damage we'd like to replicate","size":213771,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-03-06T18:31:44+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3238","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3238\/similar"},{"id":3241,"name":"Figure3.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/u82efjmzfcof9r\/source\/Figure3.jpg","alt":"Figure 3 - Diagram showing the damage model we simulate","size":57628,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-03-06T18:31:51+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3241","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3241\/similar"},{"id":3242,"name":"Figure4.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/mr49xn8tk7j68r\/source\/Figure4.jpg","alt":"Figure 4 - One of the textures showing the unwrapped Gladius that we use to determine where a ship will take damage from a specific hit. Each colour represents a part of the ship that can move independently or detach","size":68486,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-03-06T18:32:00+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3242","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3242\/similar"},{"id":3243,"name":"Figure5.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/qdgjicqvfaoldr\/source\/Figure5.jpg","alt":"Figure 5 - No damage","size":104966,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-03-06T18:31:56+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3243","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3243\/similar"},{"id":3244,"name":"Figure6.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/455a80te6nsdgr\/source\/Figure6.jpg","alt":"Figure 6 - Burn colour","size":107672,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-03-06T18:32:02+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3244","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3244\/similar"},{"id":3252,"name":"Squibship.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/r2c91q5pdeow6r\/source\/Squibship.png","alt":"","size":572800,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2015-03-07T00:49:31+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3252","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3252\/similar"},{"id":3254,"name":"Figure12.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/sji9qyzab90pwr\/source\/Figure12.jpg","alt":"","size":85153,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-03-06T18:32:28+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3254","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3254\/similar"},{"id":3255,"name":"Figure13.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/hqtf31dposf21r\/source\/Figure13.jpg","alt":"","size":102380,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-03-06T18:32:30+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3255","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3255\/similar"},{"id":22561,"name":"Mining-Icons.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/0llcdzbsihzqbr\/source\/Mining-Icons.png","alt":"","size":5154,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2015-02-21T01:01:26+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/22561","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/22561\/similar"}],"images_count":16,"translations":{"en_EN":"Greetings Citizens,\nAs some of you may have seen from the recent sneak peek on Around the Verse or the Foundry 42 monthly updates, we\u2019ve been hard at work for some time to improve the damage system on the ships. We\u2019ve already shown in Arena Commander our very powerful and flexible system for controlling the damage on your ships, which combined with some awesome artwork gives some great results. But your ships are such a big part of the Star Citizen universe we felt we had to go several steps further.\n\nSo we took a top down look our damage system to review what we could improve, and although there is great satisfaction in peeling off each part of an enemy ship when they take major damage, we felt we could better represent the specific location and type of damage inflicted. Whether it be a projectile weapon, an energy weapon, an explosion or scratching your ship after a dodgy landing, we want you to be able to differentiate them just from looking at your ship. We felt this was going to be especially important in our game as we want each ship to tell a story of what\u2019s is been through.\n\nTwo other areas we wanted to improve on were the time it takes our artist to create the numerous damage states for each part of the ship, and the hefty memory cost these meshes come with, which could prove to be a problem as we scale up the game. The reason the damage states are so labour intensive is that each ship has over ten main parts, and each of these requires five damage states to represent the different levels of damage, then each of these requires up to five simplified meshes that we use when they\u2019re further from the camera to save performance. This equates to over 200 meshes per ship!\n\nWhen you examine the current damage states in Arena Commander you\u2019ll notice that the first two damage states tend to just contain minor dents, some burn damage, and perhaps a few panels that have been blown off exposing some internals. It\u2019s only when you get to the 75% and 100% damage states you start seeing major silhouette changes, however the earlier damage states still carry the same memory cost. So our goal was to try and achieve the minor damage without having to create whole new meshes, saving both memory and artist time. To do this we decided to record the impacts on the ship within an extra set of textures that wrap around the entire ship, and to then use these in the shaders to dynamically add the dents and burn in precisely the location your ship took the damage. However rather than just opting to blend in a simple damaged texture in these areas, we instead chose to model the type of damage much more accurately by recording four different quantities:\n\nTemperature The current temperature of the hull Burn The maximum temperature the hull has been burnt with Thickness How much of the outer hull remains. Paint comes off first, then the underlying metal Deformation How much physical force the hull has taken to bend and distort it Using these four damage values we can make the hull glow with heat, make paint burn and bubble, peel paint off to expose the underlying metal, dent and deform the surface, and even cut holes through the hull to expose the internal wiring and mechanics. Rather than the internals of the ship only being modeled in specific locations we now model the internals under the vast majority of the hull. You might expect this would involve a lot of work for the artists, but they\u2019ve come up with several methods of adding these internals very efficiently and the overall damage state setup is now significantly quicker than before.\n\nYour ship\u2019s life story\nThe really interesting thing about us having access to four different measures of damage is that these can be imprinted on your ship in a pattern and strength that is unique to each weapon, explosive or type of impact. So while lasers will cause your hull to light up for several seconds leaving burnt paint and exposed metal, a powerful ballistic might tear a hole straight through your hull. We\u2019re just scratching the surface of how far we can go with this system, and we plan to soon upgrade the weapon\/ammo code to expose more unique and physically realistic damage behaviors.\n\nWe\u2019ve trialed this tech on the Gladius, and you\u2019ll see for yourselves in 1.1.0 that the results are great. What you might not see is that the Gladius uses four times less memory than the other ships, and this equates to better performance for the backers. Our artists are happy as this will allow them to make ships more quickly, which ultimately gets this game in your hand sooner! You\u2019ll also be glad to know we\u2019ll be rolling this tech out on every new ship, and also retrofitting the older ships as we go along.\n\nNew tools\nAdditional tech needed to be developed for placing our Particle and Squib Effects to complete the look of our new damage pipeline. When a part such as a Wing detaches from the ship, Squibs and Particles detonate along the edge of the separation. The Squibs, when detonated, specifically cause holes and burn damage to appear on the skin of the ship, revealing the \u2018guts\u2019 of the ship underneath so that the piece of the ship looks like it was torn away from the body. Particles also fire off as pieces break off from the ship, adding dramatic smoke, explosions and sparks. A specialized art tool, developed by Matt Intrieri, was created to convert helper objects in 3DSMax into XML code to add the effect in-game. CIG\u2019s Effects Artist, Mike Snowdon, used the tool to add the Particles and Squibs to the ship along the edges of each part of the ship, creating dynamic and realistic effects based on the ship\u2019s systems at each location.\n\nNext Steps\nBut this isn\u2019t the end of the road for this tech, there\u2019s still several major features we\u2019re working on. One of these is particle effects that are created, simulated and rendered entirely on the GPU, and this gives them two huge advantages. The first is performance, we can spawn 10-100 times more GPU particles than CPU particles for the same cost. The other benefit is that they tie in perfectly with the precise damage you\u2019ve taken, so as the hull burns you\u2019ll get glowing embers falling off, when it takes physical damage you\u2019ll see shards of metal fly off, and when you blow out a large section of the hull you\u2019ll see space littered with the debris. We\u2019re also working on some major optimizations using to the damage system using DirectX 11 features to ensure that it\u2019ll still run fast when there\u2019s twenty fighters attacking a capital ship!\n\nThe first thing we did when we got this system working was to have some fun and write our names into a ship with a Gatling gun! Now it\u2019s your turn to have a play and we\u2019re keen to hear what you all think of this new tech so please let us know on the forums.\n\nThe Future\nWith our new damage technology now in place, we continue to strive for even more realistic and efficient methods to push our graphics in all areas. We\u2019ll be adding more effects under the skin of the ship as gaping holes are revealed, adding touches like sparks on damaged equipment under the skin. Several lighting and particle setups are being prototyped to take our ship interiors through Healthy, Damaged, Critical and Flatline states that will inform and immerse our players during battle. Our new state machine being developed called GOST, will determine the healthy (or unhealthy) flow of energy around the ships systems and will have a big impact on our multi-crew interactions and the effect of ship damage on them. Given the complexity of our largest ships, that are really like floating levels, big questions remain about hull breaches and how to portray critical damage in the vacuum of space and how this will affect players inside. And optimizations in all areas will allow us to add more and more players simultaneously to create massive multiplayer battles. We are very pleased and excited to be releasing this first iteration of our newly optimized damage technology and hope the players feel the same.","de_DE":"Gr\u00fc\u00dfe B\u00fcrger,\nWie einige von euch vielleicht schon beim letzten Blick auf Around the Vers oder die monatlichen Updates der Foundry 42 gesehen haben, waren wir seit einiger Zeit hart dabei, das Schadenssystem auf den Schiffen zu verbessern. Wir haben bereits in Arena Commander unser sehr leistungsf\u00e4higes und flexibles System zur Schadensbegrenzung auf Ihren Schiffen gezeigt, das in Kombination mit einigen gro\u00dfartigen Kunstwerken zu gro\u00dfartigen Ergebnissen f\u00fchrt. Aber eure Schiffe sind so ein gro\u00dfer Teil des Star Citizen Universums, dass wir dachten, wir m\u00fcssten noch einige Schritte weiter gehen.\n\nAlso nahmen wir einen Top-Down-Blick auf unser Schadenssystem, um zu \u00fcberpr\u00fcfen, was wir verbessern k\u00f6nnten, und obwohl es eine gro\u00dfe Befriedigung gibt, jeden Teil eines feindlichen Schiffes abzusch\u00e4len, wenn es gr\u00f6\u00dferen Schaden erleidet, waren wir der Meinung, dass wir den spezifischen Ort und die Art des verursachten Schadens besser darstellen k\u00f6nnten. Ob es sich nun um eine Projektilwaffe, eine Energiewaffe, eine Explosion oder ein Kratzen Ihres Schiffes nach einer fragw\u00fcrdigen Landung handelt, wir m\u00f6chten, dass Sie sie nur vom Blick auf Ihr Schiff unterscheiden k\u00f6nnen. Wir waren der Meinung, dass dies in unserem Spiel besonders wichtig sein w\u00fcrde, da wir wollen, dass jedes Schiff eine Geschichte dar\u00fcber erz\u00e4hlt, was durchgemacht wurde.\n\nZwei weitere Bereiche, die wir verbessern wollten, waren die Zeit, die unser K\u00fcnstler ben\u00f6tigt, um die zahlreichen Schadenszust\u00e4nde f\u00fcr jeden Teil des Schiffes zu erzeugen, und die hohen Speicherkosten, die diese Netze mit sich bringen, was sich als ein Problem erweisen k\u00f6nnte, wenn wir das Spiel vergr\u00f6\u00dfern. Der Grund, warum die Schadenszust\u00e4nde so arbeitsintensiv sind, ist, dass jedes Schiff mehr als zehn Hauptteile hat, und jedes dieser Schiffe f\u00fcnf Schadenszust\u00e4nde ben\u00f6tigt, um die verschiedenen Schadensh\u00f6hen darzustellen, dann erfordert jedes dieser bis zu f\u00fcnf vereinfachte Netze, die wir verwenden, wenn sie weiter von der Kamera entfernt sind, um die Leistung zu erh\u00f6hen. Das entspricht \u00fcber 200 Maschen pro Schiff!\n\nWenn du die aktuellen Schadenszust\u00e4nde in Arena Commander untersuchst, wirst du feststellen, dass die ersten beiden Schadenszust\u00e4nde in der Regel nur kleine Dellen, einige Verbrennungssch\u00e4den und vielleicht ein paar Panels enthalten, die weggeblasen wurden, wodurch einige Einbauten freigelegt wurden. Erst wenn Sie die 75% und 100% Schadenszust\u00e4nde erreichen, sehen Sie gro\u00dfe Ver\u00e4nderungen der Silhouette, aber die fr\u00fcheren Schadenszust\u00e4nde haben immer noch die gleichen Speicherkosten. Unser Ziel war es also, den kleinen Schaden zu beheben, ohne ganz neue Netze erstellen zu m\u00fcssen, was sowohl Speicherplatz als auch K\u00fcnstlerzeit spart. Um dies zu tun, haben wir beschlossen, die Auswirkungen auf das Schiff in einem zus\u00e4tzlichen Satz von Texturen aufzuzeichnen, die sich um das gesamte Schiff wickeln, und diese dann in den Shadern zu verwenden, um die Beulen dynamisch hinzuzuf\u00fcgen und genau an der Stelle zu verbrennen, an der Ihr Schiff den Schaden erlitten hat. Anstatt sich jedoch nur f\u00fcr eine einfache besch\u00e4digte Textur in diesen Bereichen zu entscheiden, haben wir uns stattdessen daf\u00fcr entschieden, die Art des Schadens viel genauer zu modellieren, indem wir vier verschiedene Mengen erfasst haben:\n\nTemperatur Die aktuelle Temperatur des Rumpfes Verbrennung Die maximale Temperatur, bei der der Rumpf mit der Dicke verbrannt wurde, wie viel von dem \u00e4u\u00dferen Rumpf \u00fcbrig bleibt. Farbe kommt zuerst, dann die darunterliegende Metallverformung, wie viel physische Kraft der Rumpf aufgewendet hat, um ihn zu biegen und zu verformen. Mit diesen vier Sch\u00e4digungswerten k\u00f6nnen wir den Rumpf mit Hitze zum Gl\u00fchen bringen, Farbe zum Brennen und Blasen bringen, Farbe abl\u00f6sen, um das darunterliegende Metall freizulegen, die Oberfl\u00e4che zu verbeulen und zu verformen, und sogar L\u00f6cher durch den Rumpf schneiden, um die interne Verkabelung und Mechanik freizulegen. Anstatt die Einbauten des Schiffes, die nur an bestimmten Stellen modelliert werden, modellieren wir nun die Einbauten unter dem \u00fcberwiegenden Teil des Rumpfes. Man k\u00f6nnte erwarten, dass dies f\u00fcr die K\u00fcnstler viel Arbeit bedeuten w\u00fcrde, aber sie haben sich mehrere Methoden ausgedacht, um diese Einbauten sehr effizient hinzuzuf\u00fcgen, und der gesamte Schadenszustand ist nun deutlich schneller als zuvor.\n\nDie Lebensgeschichte deines Schiffes\nDas wirklich Interessante daran, dass wir Zugang zu vier verschiedenen Schadensmessungen haben, ist, dass diese auf Ihrem Schiff in einem Muster und einer St\u00e4rke aufgedruckt werden k\u00f6nnen, die f\u00fcr jede Waffe, jeden Sprengstoff oder jede Art von Aufprall einzigartig ist. So, w\u00e4hrend Laser Ihren Rumpf veranlassen, einige Sekunden lang zu leuchten und verbrannte Farbe und freiliegendes Metall zu hinterlassen, k\u00f6nnte eine leistungsf\u00e4hige Ballistik ein Loch gerade durch Ihren Rumpf rei\u00dfen. Wir kratzen nur an der Oberfl\u00e4che, wie weit wir mit diesem System gehen k\u00f6nnen, und wir planen, den Waffen-\/Ammocode in K\u00fcrze zu aktualisieren, um ein einzigartigeres und physikalisch realistischeres Schadensverhalten zu zeigen.\n\nWir haben diese Technologie an der Gladius getestet, und Sie werden in 1.1.0 selbst sehen, dass die Ergebnisse gro\u00dfartig sind. Was Sie vielleicht nicht sehen, ist, dass die Gladius viermal weniger Speicher verbraucht als die anderen Schiffe, und das bedeutet eine bessere Leistung f\u00fcr die Backer. Unsere K\u00fcnstler sind gl\u00fccklich, da sie dadurch schneller Schiffe bauen k\u00f6nnen, was Ihnen dieses Spiel letztendlich fr\u00fcher in die Hand gibt! Sie werden auch froh sein zu wissen, dass wir diese Technologie auf jedem neuen Schiff einf\u00fchren und auch die \u00e4lteren Schiffe nachr\u00fcsten werden.\n\nNeue Werkzeuge\nZus\u00e4tzliche Technologien f\u00fcr die Platzierung unserer Partikel- und Squib-Effekte mussten entwickelt werden, um das Aussehen unserer neuen Schadenspipeline zu vervollst\u00e4ndigen. Wenn sich ein Teil wie ein Fl\u00fcgel vom Schiff l\u00f6st, explodieren Knall und Partikel am Rand der Trennung. Die Knallfr\u00f6sche verursachen bei der Detonation insbesondere L\u00f6cher und Verbrennungssch\u00e4den auf der Haut des Schiffes und enth\u00fcllen die \"Eingeweide\" des darunter liegenden Schiffes, so dass das St\u00fcck des Schiffes aussieht, als w\u00e4re es vom K\u00f6rper abgerissen worden. Partikel feuern auch ab, wenn St\u00fccke vom Schiff abbrechen und dramatischen Rauch, Explosionen und Funken erzeugen. Ein spezielles Kunstwerkzeug, entwickelt von Matt Intrieri, wurde entwickelt, um Helferobjekte in 3DSMax in XML-Code zu konvertieren, um den Effekt im Spiel hinzuzuf\u00fcgen. Mike Snowdon, der Effektk\u00fcnstler der CIG, benutzte das Tool, um die Partikel und Knallfr\u00f6sche dem Schiff entlang der Kanten jedes Schiffssegments hinzuzuf\u00fcgen und dynamische und realistische Effekte basierend auf den Schiffssystemen an jedem Ort zu erzeugen.\n\nN\u00e4chste Schritte\nAber das ist noch nicht das Ende des Weges f\u00fcr diese Technologie, es gibt noch einige wichtige Features, an denen wir arbeiten. Einer davon sind Partikeleffekte, die vollst\u00e4ndig auf dem Grafikprozessor erzeugt, simuliert und gerendert werden, was ihnen zwei gro\u00dfe Vorteile bringt. Das erste ist die Leistung, wir k\u00f6nnen 10-100 mal mehr GPU-Partikel als CPU-Partikel zu den gleichen Kosten erzeugen. Der andere Vorteil ist, dass sie perfekt mit dem genauen Schaden zusammenh\u00e4ngen, den Sie erlitten haben, so dass Sie beim Verbrennen des Rumpfes gl\u00fchende Glut erhalten, die abf\u00e4llt, wenn es physischen Schaden nimmt, werden Sie Metallsplitter davonfliegen sehen, und wenn Sie einen gro\u00dfen Teil des Rumpfes ausblasen, werden Sie Raum sehen, der mit den Ablagerungen \u00fcbers\u00e4t ist. Wir arbeiten auch an einigen wichtigen Optimierungen f\u00fcr das Schadenssystem mit DirectX 11-Funktionen, um sicherzustellen, dass es auch dann noch schnell l\u00e4uft, wenn zwanzig K\u00e4mpfer ein Gro\u00dfschiff angreifen!\n\nDas erste, was wir taten, als wir dieses System zum Laufen brachten, war, etwas Spa\u00df zu haben und unsere Namen in ein Schiff mit einer Gatling-Pistole zu schreiben! Jetzt sind Sie an der Reihe, ein St\u00fcck zu spielen, und wir sind gespannt, was Sie alle von dieser neuen Technologie halten, also lassen Sie es uns bitte im Forum wissen.\n\nDie Zukunft\nMit unserer neuen Schadenstechnologie streben wir weiterhin nach noch realistischeren und effizienteren Methoden, um unsere Grafiken in allen Bereichen zu verbessern. Wir werden weitere Effekte unter der Haut des Schiffes hinzuf\u00fcgen, wenn klaffende L\u00f6cher aufgedeckt werden, und Ber\u00fchrungen wie Funken auf besch\u00e4digten Ger\u00e4ten unter der Haut hinzuf\u00fcgen. Mehrere Beleuchtungs- und Partikel-Setups werden prototypisch entwickelt, um unsere Schiffsinnenr\u00e4ume durch die Zust\u00e4nde Healthy, Damaged, Critical und Flatline zu bringen, die unsere Spieler w\u00e4hrend des Kampfes informieren und eintauchen werden. Unsere neue Zustandsmaschine GOST wird den gesunden (oder ungesunden) Energiefluss um die Schiffssysteme herum bestimmen und einen gro\u00dfen Einfluss auf unsere Wechselwirkungen zwischen mehreren Besatzungen und die Auswirkungen von Schiffssch\u00e4den auf sie haben. Angesichts der Komplexit\u00e4t unserer gr\u00f6\u00dften Schiffe, die wirklich wie schwimmende Levels sind, bleiben gro\u00dfe Fragen \u00fcber H\u00fcllenbr\u00fcche und wie man kritische Sch\u00e4den im Vakuum des Weltraums darstellen kann und wie sich dies auf die Spieler im Inneren auswirken wird. Und Optimierungen in allen Bereichen werden es uns erm\u00f6glichen, immer mehr Spieler gleichzeitig hinzuzuf\u00fcgen, um massive Multiplayer-K\u00e4mpfe zu erm\u00f6glichen. Wir freuen uns sehr und freuen uns, diese erste Iteration unserer neu optimierten Schadenstechnologie ver\u00f6ffentlichen zu k\u00f6nnen und hoffen, dass die Spieler das gleiche Gef\u00fchl haben.","zh_CN":"Greetings Citizens,\nAs some of you may have seen from the recent sneak peek on Around the Verse or the Foundry 42 monthly updates, we\u2019ve been hard at work for some time to improve the damage system on the ships. We\u2019ve already shown in Arena Commander our very powerful and flexible system for controlling the damage on your ships, which combined with some awesome artwork gives some great results. But your ships are such a big part of the Star Citizen universe we felt we had to go several steps further.\n\nSo we took a top down look our damage system to review what we could improve, and although there is great satisfaction in peeling off each part of an enemy ship when they take major damage, we felt we could better represent the specific location and type of damage inflicted. Whether it be a projectile weapon, an energy weapon, an explosion or scratching your ship after a dodgy landing, we want you to be able to differentiate them just from looking at your ship. We felt this was going to be especially important in our game as we want each ship to tell a story of what\u2019s is been through.\n\nTwo other areas we wanted to improve on were the time it takes our artist to create the numerous damage states for each part of the ship, and the hefty memory cost these meshes come with, which could prove to be a problem as we scale up the game. The reason the damage states are so labour intensive is that each ship has over ten main parts, and each of these requires five damage states to represent the different levels of damage, then each of these requires up to five simplified meshes that we use when they\u2019re further from the camera to save performance. This equates to over 200 meshes per ship!\n\nWhen you examine the current damage states in Arena Commander you\u2019ll notice that the first two damage states tend to just contain minor dents, some burn damage, and perhaps a few panels that have been blown off exposing some internals. It\u2019s only when you get to the 75% and 100% damage states you start seeing major silhouette changes, however the earlier damage states still carry the same memory cost. So our goal was to try and achieve the minor damage without having to create whole new meshes, saving both memory and artist time. To do this we decided to record the impacts on the ship within an extra set of textures that wrap around the entire ship, and to then use these in the shaders to dynamically add the dents and burn in precisely the location your ship took the damage. However rather than just opting to blend in a simple damaged texture in these areas, we instead chose to model the type of damage much more accurately by recording four different quantities:\n\nTemperature The current temperature of the hull Burn The maximum temperature the hull has been burnt with Thickness How much of the outer hull remains. Paint comes off first, then the underlying metal Deformation How much physical force the hull has taken to bend and distort it Using these four damage values we can make the hull glow with heat, make paint burn and bubble, peel paint off to expose the underlying metal, dent and deform the surface, and even cut holes through the hull to expose the internal wiring and mechanics. Rather than the internals of the ship only being modeled in specific locations we now model the internals under the vast majority of the hull. You might expect this would involve a lot of work for the artists, but they\u2019ve come up with several methods of adding these internals very efficiently and the overall damage state setup is now significantly quicker than before.\n\nYour ship\u2019s life story\nThe really interesting thing about us having access to four different measures of damage is that these can be imprinted on your ship in a pattern and strength that is unique to each weapon, explosive or type of impact. So while lasers will cause your hull to light up for several seconds leaving burnt paint and exposed metal, a powerful ballistic might tear a hole straight through your hull. We\u2019re just scratching the surface of how far we can go with this system, and we plan to soon upgrade the weapon\/ammo code to expose more unique and physically realistic damage behaviors.\n\nWe\u2019ve trialed this tech on the Gladius, and you\u2019ll see for yourselves in 1.1.0 that the results are great. What you might not see is that the Gladius uses four times less memory than the other ships, and this equates to better performance for the backers. Our artists are happy as this will allow them to make ships more quickly, which ultimately gets this game in your hand sooner! You\u2019ll also be glad to know we\u2019ll be rolling this tech out on every new ship, and also retrofitting the older ships as we go along.\n\nNew tools\nAdditional tech needed to be developed for placing our Particle and Squib Effects to complete the look of our new damage pipeline. When a part such as a Wing detaches from the ship, Squibs and Particles detonate along the edge of the separation. The Squibs, when detonated, specifically cause holes and burn damage to appear on the skin of the ship, revealing the \u2018guts\u2019 of the ship underneath so that the piece of the ship looks like it was torn away from the body. Particles also fire off as pieces break off from the ship, adding dramatic smoke, explosions and sparks. A specialized art tool, developed by Matt Intrieri, was created to convert helper objects in 3DSMax into XML code to add the effect in-game. CIG\u2019s Effects Artist, Mike Snowdon, used the tool to add the Particles and Squibs to the ship along the edges of each part of the ship, creating dynamic and realistic effects based on the ship\u2019s systems at each location.\n\nNext Steps\nBut this isn\u2019t the end of the road for this tech, there\u2019s still several major features we\u2019re working on. One of these is particle effects that are created, simulated and rendered entirely on the GPU, and this gives them two huge advantages. The first is performance, we can spawn 10-100 times more GPU particles than CPU particles for the same cost. The other benefit is that they tie in perfectly with the precise damage you\u2019ve taken, so as the hull burns you\u2019ll get glowing embers falling off, when it takes physical damage you\u2019ll see shards of metal fly off, and when you blow out a large section of the hull you\u2019ll see space littered with the debris. We\u2019re also working on some major optimizations using to the damage system using DirectX 11 features to ensure that it\u2019ll still run fast when there\u2019s twenty fighters attacking a capital ship!\n\nThe first thing we did when we got this system working was to have some fun and write our names into a ship with a Gatling gun! Now it\u2019s your turn to have a play and we\u2019re keen to hear what you all think of this new tech so please let us know on the forums.\n\nThe Future\nWith our new damage technology now in place, we continue to strive for even more realistic and efficient methods to push our graphics in all areas. We\u2019ll be adding more effects under the skin of the ship as gaping holes are revealed, adding touches like sparks on damaged equipment under the skin. Several lighting and particle setups are being prototyped to take our ship interiors through Healthy, Damaged, Critical and Flatline states that will inform and immerse our players during battle. Our new state machine being developed called GOST, will determine the healthy (or unhealthy) flow of energy around the ships systems and will have a big impact on our multi-crew interactions and the effect of ship damage on them. Given the complexity of our largest ships, that are really like floating levels, big questions remain about hull breaches and how to portray critical damage in the vacuum of space and how this will affect players inside. And optimizations in all areas will allow us to add more and more players simultaneously to create massive multiplayer battles. We are very pleased and excited to be releasing this first iteration of our newly optimized damage technology and hope the players feel the same."},"links_count":0,"comment_count":322,"created_at":"2015-03-08T00:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"11 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-13 19:56:06","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":14567,"next_id":14569}}