Source
r/starcitizen•
Merminotaur

Impressive Canyons: A Deep Question

DISCUSSION

Many around here agree (and most probably understand) that at-scale planets would be a pain to traverse, but we (pretty much all of us, I assume?) still want crazy looking deep canyons to fly through. ^((I think larger planets would be dope, but that's irrelevant.))

Question: Assuming CIG figure out "deep canyon" tech, would "cool" canyons - with their depth and sheer cliffs and such - look odd at the reduced planet scale?

Planet scale: 1/10th

So, if we look at the Grand Canyon, it's about 6000ft (1828m) deep (at its deepest) and 18mi (28968m) wide (at its widest). That at 1/10th scale is just 600ft (183m) deep and 1.8mi (2897m) wide. Yes, still pretty wide, but at only 600ft deep, and with the more noticeable curvature of the smaller scale, would we even notice it's a canyon? It doesn't have to be that wide, I suppose, which would better the effect. I have abysmal conception of what 600ft means, so I can't quite decide if that's "wow, deep" or not.

But if we make canyons like Mariana's Trench, which would be 6201ft (1890m) deep at 1/10th scale, that would be "wow, deep," I think. Again, though, would it look odd with the more visible/noticeable planet curvature?

Is my logic (or math, most likely) off?

^(This was a comment I made on a 7hr-old thread, but I wanted to see if people have opinions, hence the discussion.)

Posted May 18, 2020, 3:36 AM UTC

69
Nurundil300i•

The general size of the planet is 1/10, but the features of the planet aren’t/shouldn’t. Trees are not 1/10, mountains are not, so I do not think canyons will be.

9
PMaxxGamingTitan•

Unfortunately this is also why some of the moons look really weird from space, since the mountains/ridge lines look way too big from space, and make the moon seem non-spherical.

4
EirikofMidgardavacado•

I think the explanation given for why we dont have deep canyons or tall mountains was due to the ground texture getting distorted after a certain angle of incline/decline. But you do have a point.

2
PMaxxGamingTitan•

Once it hits 90+ degrees it stretches (like a lot of games do) instead of wrapping, since it projects from the top-down; I'm pretty sure I remember a video from a few years back where they were trying to overcome that, but it's very possible I'm thinking of a different game...

1
PMaxxGamingTitan•

I don't think they'll scale the type of canyons you're talking about to 1/10; 600 feet is about the length of my front yard, and it would be way too shallow for a "large" canyon. I don't think they should make anything to the actual scale of the grand canyon, but maybe down to 1/3 or 1/5 or so. 1/10th would look like a small ditch compared to some of the large ships in SC; especially once we get proper cap ships.

2
AGVannbbsad•

The game uses different scales. Astronomical distances are at a 1:10 scale. Moons are 1:4. Planets are 1:5. Features like buildings, trees, rock formations, etc. are not scaled down at all. Features like canyons won't be scaled down.

2
S1rmunchalot:redditgold:Munchin-since-the-60's:redditgold:•

600ft is an average size 50 floor skyscraper... not that deep... it's 100x 6ft tall men stood on top of each other.

The reason they don't have 'deep looking' (steep) canyons right now is because of how they are procedurally creating planetary bodies, the slope angles are shallow. The mountains on MicroTech are high it's just that they rise slowly. When you create terrain using heightmaps, the steeper the terrain the worse the texture map appears. It's about 3D geometry.

This will explain it for you.

Heightmaps stretch the geometry faces (each square gets deformed). Unless you apply very high subdivision - this is called Tesselation, which makes the 3D model very expensive on RAM and CPU then any texture you apply to the surface also gets stretched and deformed. It doesn't look good.

​

Watch this video and look at the straight up and down edges of the map.. see how the texture is stretched on the straight up and down edges? Looks bad huh?

They would have to hand make, and hand place such extremes of geometry/geography the way it is made now, which is doable.. but they do have a solution coming, a kind of tweak to the way heightmaps are created and used. One of the limitations of 3D geometry is that you can't have a detailed part, and a low detail part on the same model. If you want high detail you can have it but the cost to download size, CPU and RAM is very high, you must then have it on the whole planet/moon. This is a waste in areas that don't need high detail.

2
Torotoro74new user/low karma•

Everest on earth is 12.7km high for 12 700km planet's diameter.
Mt Olympus on mars is 21km high for 6 700 km planet's diameter.
Just 2 planets comparison and the ratio is 4x between the 2.

Respecting 'real' ratio mean's nothing because no one knows what's a 'normal' ratio limit is in the universe. Pershaps somewhere in the universe a morel mushroom planet exists !

For the tech, CIG can make steep canyon. To do so, they have to plug giant 3D models of canyon covering the regular height map. They have talked about it but it seem's not easy to implement.

2
GodwinWUniversalist•

Yes well at some point in scale the horizon is just flat and far away. And when you get to that size bigger doesn't make a difference anymore I think. Only from orbit will it look like a giant scar on half the planet versus a normal scar on a small part of a planet, but I would not mind this. There are moons in the solar system with scars over half their size, so.

2