Under The Hood — Volume 1

11 min readSep 23, 2024

Work In Progress

ABOUT

We’re excited to introduce “Under The Hood,” a new forum dedicated to sharing WIP (Work in Progress) content, including images, videos, and audio, on a weekly basis. This space will give you a behind-the-scenes look at our development process, much like a DVD featurette. You’ll get to see ideas and concepts in their early stages, some of which might evolve or be reworked as we progress, and we’ll explain these changes as they happen.
It’s important to highlight that “Under The Hood” won’t replace our sneak peeks, which will continue to focus on more polished and finalized content. The WIP posts are designed to foster an open dialogue with our community, allowing us to discuss our development journey and gather your valuable feedback.
Keep in mind that most of the content we share is from earlier stages of development and does not reflect our current progress goals. The purpose of this forum is to create an interactive AMA environment where we can collaborate and refine our project together.

Visit “Under The Hood” forum

Week 1 — Hover Craft: Concept to 3D

The Hover Craft is one of the versatile vehicles we offer, fully customizable with user-selected attachments. We began with an early model but quickly moved to a redesign to align more closely with the artwork, focusing on enhancing details, curves, and overall flow to ensure it fits seamlessly into any believable setting.

Once the basic frame was perfected, we turned our attention to the interiors, considering how best to showcase them visually. This led us to explore innovative ways to slice the glass, allowing for unique customization options and adding a touch of personal flair.

Following the glass customization, we introduced interiors for both single and dual seating configurations, enabling modular setups that cater to both single and dual-player racing, as well as casual drives with a friend.

Week 2— Cargo Hauler: Concept to 3D

In the realm of interplanetary transport, a vehicle designed to haul massive loads across space and land is a vital necessity. The Cargo Hauler was born from this need: a large-scale vessel built to transport materials, infrastructure, and vehicles across planets and between locations. Capable of establishing infrastructure frameworks, it doubles as a transport vessel and a mobile construction platform.

The development of the Cargo Hauler began with a basic vision: a powerful vehicle that could support interplanetary logistics with interchangeable cargo containers. These containers, which are central to its design, allow for flexibility, holding anything from resources to vehicles and building materials. The containers are fully detachable, offering versatility depending on the mission or situation. But before diving into the advanced features, we first needed to block out the base design.

The early phase of development focused on getting the proportions right. The goal was to achieve the perfect balance between function and aesthetics, ensuring that the hauler was both practical for large-scale transport and visually aligned with the concept.

Once the initial block-out was complete, we moved into refinement. We evaluated the model for any potential conflicts with the original concept, focusing on aspects that could enhance the vehicle’s functionality. During this process, we encountered several challenges. One of the most significant issues was the inconsistent spacing along some of the edges, which caused minor alignment problems. Additionally, the rear fins were notably taller than in the concept, creating an imbalance that required adjustment.

These discrepancies were addressed and fine-tuned, bringing the model closer to the intended design while maintaining the cargo-centric framework.

A major topic of discussion during the design phase was the vehicle’s VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) capabilities. This feature would allow the hauler to navigate difficult terrain, enabling landings in confined areas without needing conventional runways. We explored three distinct VTOL designs, each presenting different structural and mechanical benefits.

After considering the pros and cons, we ultimately settled on a more compact design. This choice allowed for greater maneuverability while preserving the sleek, functional form of the hauler. The compact VTOL design fits seamlessly into the overall aesthetic, aligning well with both the vehicle’s interplanetary mission and its land-based operations.

The original Cargo Hauler concept, while promising, was more rigid and fixed in its design than we anticipated. While we adjusted the model to better suit our current needs, the initial concept may return in future projects. With some changes and improvements, the fixed design could serve a different purpose, bringing another dimension to the vehicle’s legacy.

The development of the Cargo Hauler from concept to 3D has been a journey of refinement, problem-solving, and creativity. As the project progresses, we are confident that the vehicle will serve as a cornerstone for interplanetary logistics and planetary infrastructure deployment.

Week 3— Moon Fish: Concept to 3D

Creating aquatic life for a moon-based fantasy world required a departure from traditional designs. The goal was to develop fish that not only fit the unique environment but also stood out with vibrant, unconventional colors like orange, purple, green, and blue. These colors would make each species visually interesting and enhance the overall aesthetic of the game world.

The development process began by outlining the basic shapes of the fish models. The focus was on crafting forms that were imaginative yet functional within the game’s mechanics. Building up the models involved careful attention to the mesh structure, ensuring that each vertex and edge contributed to the desired silhouette and allowed for proper deformation during animation.

As the models took shape, several challenges emerged. Ensuring that the mesh topology supported both the visual style and the animation requirements was critical. Issues such as edge flow and polygon distribution needed to be resolved to prevent deformation problems during movement. Adjustments were made to refine the proportions and features of each fish, aligning them more closely with the fantastical concept while maintaining consistency across different models.

With the models refined, the next step was texturing. Applying textures that highlighted the bold color schemes was essential. The textures needed to enhance the unique patterns and details of each fish without overwhelming the design. This involved experimenting with different shading techniques and texture maps to achieve the right balance between vibrancy and cohesion within the game environment.

To bring the fish to life, a simple bone structure was added to each model. The animations focused on essential movements like swimming and idle motions. While the animations were kept straightforward, they were crucial for adding a sense of dynamism and making the fish feel like living creatures within the game world. Care was taken to ensure that the animations worked smoothly with the mesh and did not introduce any visual artifacts.

We’ve successfully created a diverse aquatic ecosystem consisting of 17 distinct species of fish. To add depth and variety to the fishing experience, each species features 3 variants of commonality. This results in a total of 51 unique fish for players to discover and catch on the moon.

Week 4— Custom Looping Moon Terrain Engine (Unity)

The moon lies at the heart of our colonization project. Transitioning from a 2D concept to a fully realized 3D environment is crucial for making the experience more immersive and approachable. Rather than being constrained by the limits of 2D worlds, which can feel disconnected, we’ve focused on creating a looping terrain engine in Unity, built from scratch. While there are existing assets on the market, they lacked the scalability and flexibility we needed, even for basic features like ramps.

Digital worlds face the inherent challenge of requiring structured data for storage and processing. The most common approach is tile-based systems, popular in many open-world games. However, these typically lead to obvious chunking, and terrain systems often rely on heavy decoration to mask overly smooth or awkward transitions.

We initially considered voxel terrain, but after years of Minecraft’s dominance, that approach felt stale. Instead, we turned to hexagons — the “bestagons”. Unlike square grids, hexagons offer a non-traditional, semi-repeating tile pattern with three coordinate axes (XY and XYZ in cuboid space). Hexagons don’t align easily, so we had to develop methods for offsets and grouping to make the system work.

Ultimately, we built our engine from the ground up in Unity, combining elements from existing solutions while introducing our own fresh approach. The core of this system is the hexagonal nodes — each tile having six sides, with a defined north-facing index. We use these nodes to determine conditions on each side (e.g., road, path, river) and then feed this information into a table to generate the appropriate tile. This process is handled by an admin tool and baked into a database, minimizing client-side CPU load.

We also designed the system to support multiple scales, including regional and macro data. Regions consist of larger hexagon chunks, with smaller nested hexagons inside. This allows the terrain to merge seamlessly across regions, providing a smooth and consistent experience without jarring transitions between blocks.

To emulate the feel of walking around a planet, we looped the world map, so you can continue running along the border without encountering any edges. The result is a continuous experience where players can explore for hours without ever reaching an end.

The challenge with creating a planet-like system is the underlying data, which behaves like a donut, not a sphere. Attempts to build a hexagonal sphere always led to problematic singularity points where hexagons couldn’t align. Instead, our solution allows for an dynamic, artistically design, infinite looping world without these issues, while still feeling planetary from a gameplay perspective.

It’s important to note that the assets shown are generated from the editor and concept mockups, and do not represent the final client product. The segments displayed are part of a technical breakdown, demonstrating how hexagons can be positioned and styled based on various conditions — rivers, roads, lakes, waterfalls, and canyons. The final artwork for the client experience is still in development, with all visual elements being carefully sculpted by hand to ensure a polished and immersive environment. This foundation will allow us to deliver a world that not only functions seamlessly but is also visually engaging for all players.

For more technical context: this is what the singularities on geometric shapes are on a hexagon sphere.

There is no way around it, there would always be a set number of pivots this is due to the base shape being a d20 shape.

The same can be seen on the humble cube even when projection rotated 45 degrees for a diamond pattern.

None of these are directly compatible with a database and linear scaling.

The alternative would be to map them onto a curved map of some kind but the process of calculating the offsets and have them reproduceable on a client in a large scale that is also cross client compatible is unrealistic.