Dyson Worlds

In the latest LiveStream, Steven and Tim showed off progress on the metal planets. I was really impressed by how intricate the boolean subtractions could be, like the angular trenches and holes with bridge meshes placed over them:



This gave me an idea, that you could carve out the entire interior of a planet creating a hollow shell, and then cut additional holes and trenches through the wall of the planet. With a shell, you can also trim the top and bottom off creating a Dyson structure.



The red block volume would be subtracted out of the planet.

Here are a few examples I made using simple shapes at first, and then adding some finishing details.









Some of them would have the playing area on the outside, other's on the inside, and maybe some with both sides playable. The 'Clock World' example would have the playing field on the outside, because of all the inner details would make it too obstructed, while the Dyson World example could have both sides playable, it would be neat if there were a unit portal that teleports them from side to side.

I tried a cone instead of a cube to subtract volume, to get a better looking inner edge:





The pièce de résistance, a microdyson sphere with some holes cut in it:







You could play on either side, maybe even fly down to the core if there is one.

This isn't related to the other stuff, but I had an idea that some metal planets could be 'War Worlds', which are just like metal planets with a sea mine motif and lots and lots of guns:





Let me know what you think! I think this is possible using the same subtractions that are currently in game.

I'm curious to hear what the art department thinks of these; they certainly look interesting. My only concern is that perhaps the many different directions these seem to be going in might be a little too far from the concept they're clearly aiming for. Still, there's nothing wrong with keeping ideas like these on the shelf until there's time to develop them later.

There was a thread about this a long time ago, about HALO rings and hollow worlds, etc. They said they want the planet editor to be able to do that eventually but it probably won't make initial release.

Great models though. Would love to play on some of those worlds.

Yeah, I can't comment on the feasibility of your ideas, but I love the models!

Playing on a clock world with spinning rings would be very cool .

I presure that if you do deep craters on such worlds, it ends up making a hole. Pretty interesting.

Considering that units don't conform to gravity right now, and rather conform to the normals of the face they are currently on, it is entirely possible to make worlds with impossible geometry. The question is, would the Camera and Gameplay follow suite?

There is also an issue that gravity is assumed directed toward the center of the planet, least there was. You have to figure out how to do gravity if you want to play on the inside wall of something.

I have some crazy ideas though... time to ponder.

I'm no expert, but I would guess that the way the editor has been specialised to perform CSG on a sphere (bending the brushes) to make playable planet surfaces the end product kinda precludes them working like this to create hollow worlds.

Actually there are 3 settings for the CSG brushes, they don't *have* to be bent around the sphere. Dyson spheres would be easy to do.

love it!

The sphere with holes cut in it would probably be easiest to get working, and could be visually stunning! It's functionally not that different from a normal map.

Wauw how cool is that, i love the idear. And well done on the models!

Um, wow. Yes please.

I love the look of these, I'd love even more to see how it could be pushed in other ways. Work in some swirls and it's golden.

Fascinating.

All these shown planet types should be perfectly possible with the engine, maybe even as it is right now. (Except that the procedual decal generators won't be able to deal with the shape yet.) Navmeshes can be generated for every type of planet, even if it was shaped like a Möbius strip.

What might be an issue though, is the camera. Playing on the outside? That's perfectly fine, but actually playing on the inside of a Dyson world requires completely different (completely inverted) camera controls.

Yeah, I figure that if you want to play on the inside surface, the planet needs to be relatively narrow without any large details on the inner surface, like a Halo ring, OR, be large enough to fit the camera inside without colliding with the opposite inner wall.

Swapping from inside to outside could be a toggle key.

I can never seem to catch a livestream in progress. If any of you have an opportunity to ask the devs about this, please do!

Should I be posting this here? The livestream was available to everyone, and none of this stuff is particularly top secret or anything.

If there are any mods here, please move this thread to the general discussion forum.

I think at least the camera would be fine. I would assume that it rotates around the center point of whatever object is is targeted on. The planet may be an odd shape, but it's center point in its model is the same.

Or not.

g = -9.82

You'd need to do something like that, but you also have to define what regions have which gravity. The idea for the solution is simple, but the implementation of said idea may not be.

In the previous livestream, they showed that actual gravity was too buggy to be used in the system editor, so it probably won't be used by default. Units will just conform to normal faces, which can be in any direction.

I just want to know if terrain features like mountains, forests, and bodies of water can be on the inside surface of a planet the same way they can be on the outside. I think they can using the same code on the outside surface.