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Hello everyone! Today we’re taking a closer look at Brittle Hollow, specifically the planet’s visual effects, in this week’s developer update, but first a reminder. PAX West We wanted to give you all a heads up that Outer Wilds will be at PAX West! We will be showing the game for the entirety of PAX at the Annapurna booth. As a little bonus, we will be part of ID@Xbox Pre-PAX Open House event, details for how to register, for the free event, can be found here.  PAX West is August 31st through till September 3rd 2018 in Seattle, WA. Be sure to pick up your tickets here! Next Blog Update Will Be Late Due to the members of our team that put the developer updates together being at PAX West, the blog update that would be delivered on the 31st of August will be delayed to September 7th. Brittle Hollow: Visual Effects (VFX) In our last update we talked about the unusual geological structure of Brittle Hollow: a planet-sized geode bombarded by meteors from its volcanic moon. Because the crumbling nature of the planet is important for how the players interact with the environment, it was important to create feedback for all of these processes in the form of VFX.  The chaotic environment of Brittle Hollow is the result of the relationship between its volcanic moon and it’s fragmented crust. First, meteors launched from Hollow’s Lantern cool in space and heat up on entering the atmosphere, so if a nearby meteor is molten and has a smoke trail, you know it’s on a collision course. When the meteors hit, they briefly explode into physics objects so watch out for debris!  Our meteor shader supports cooling over time and heating up on entry into Brittle Hollow’s atmosphere, so watch out for molten fragments when a nearby meteor explodes! While players may be safe from the deadly meteors created by Hollow’s Lantern while under the crystalline crust, they may still be in danger from the fragment detaching from the crust. To ensure players realize what is happening around them, we created particle systems that outline each fragment that send debris flying each time a fragment is hit. These particles become even more intense when the fragment detaches, like demolition charges exploding on the perimeter of the fragment. Keep an eye out for falling chunks of rock and keep your finger on your jetpack trigger and you might be able to avoid plummeting into the black hole at the planet’s core.  Brittle Hollow’s naturally fragmented structure makes it clear when pieces break away from the crust. Regardless of whether you are on a fragment or not, when it falls it will be consumed by the black hole at the planet’s core. While it isn’t a perfectly accurate representation of a real black hole, we wanted it to be as close as possible visually. The shader of the black hole simulates the way light bends around it, so as you approach the event horizon your field of vision gets increasingly distorted. When the black hole consumes a fragment, it emits a jet of particles so you can tell where the fragment fell through.  Keep an eye out for black hole emissions and you might be able to avoid jumping into the void that used to be a fragment of crust.
What happens to the player if they fall through the black hole and what significance does it have to the story? You’ll have to explore Brittle Hollow yourself to find out! That’s the End of This Update Join us on September 7th for another development update. Have a great weekend everyone! Cheers, Mobius Hello everyone! We’re making our way to Brittle Hollow in this week’s developer update. Meaningful Play Our writer Kelsey Beachum will be presenting a talk at Meaningful Play this year, October 11 - 13th. This talk will address the challenges of writing for an open-world game and in telling a linear story through a nonlinear delivery. This would be an excellent talk to listen to for those who are interested in writing for video games! Details about the event can be found here. Brittle Hollow Brittle Hollow is one of the most alien locations in Outer Wilds. From the outside, it appears to be a rocky planet with glacial poles, orbited by a volcanic moon known as Hollow’s Lantern.  The fragile geode, Brittle Hollow.. As time passes, however, it is revealed to be a planet-sized geode that crumbles to pieces as it is bombarded by meteors ejected from its moon. When a chunk of the planet’s crust takes enough damage, it falls into a black hole at the planet’s core. The interior of the crust is covered in striking crystal formations and a variety of Nomai structures.  Most of Brittle Hollow’s fragments destroyed. Brittle Hollow’s geode crust is made almost entirely from an extensive rock kit. The rock kit is composed of seven different sets, each defined by its size, and within each set there are around eight variations of the rocks, totaling over 50 pieces. All of these pieces add up to a highly adaptable kit that works to support the hand crafted level design.  Top and bottom of one of Brittle Hollow’s fragments. The crystalline portion of the crust uses the same custom BRDF shader we talked about in our previous update, which allows us to give it a unique lighting model that appears to refract and scatter light in unusual ways.Top and bottom of one of Brittle Hollow’s fragments. The crystalline portion of the crust uses the same custom BRDF shader we talked about in our previous update, which allows us to give it a unique lighting model that appears to refract and scatter light in unusual ways.  Under the crust of Brittle Hollow. Other than the modular rock kit that is unique to Brittle Hollow, this planet’s poles are capped with snow. The glacial poles also contain many modular ice chunks, combined with a lot of custom work to carve out their interiors. Using Brittle Hollow’s unique rock and ice kits the team was able to support the complex nature of the planet’s level design. PAX West 2018 Just another reminder that Outer Wilds will be at PAX West! More details in the coming weeks! PAX West is August 31st through till September 3rd 2018 in Seattle, WA.  |
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