Are there any plans to use VFX for small critters, such as insects or fish, like an electric eel or something?
TL;DRSmall creatures like insects already exist in the game, and fish or similar might become possible with particles or a boids system once geometry runs on the GPU particle system, though they stress nothing is promised.
Yes. That would be nice. I mean, we've technically got insects in the game.
Buzzing flies.
Yeah, Caleb did some. And I know it's been talked about, I don't know if it's ever been mentioned, but there's a boids system, which technically isn't particles. I think there'll be some crossover, with particles on a much smaller scale and then boids for, probably not particles for, electric eels.
That would be how they'd be physically flying. I mean, you could do it.
I do think that once we get geometry on the GPU particle system, we might do more animals. I've seen this example from, what was it, inFAMOUS Second Son, I think. They actually had fish driven by particles, and they did something very simple where they passed the position of the player to that particle system. So whenever you were close to the fish, they were pushed away. I think that's doable. Not saying we'll get to it, but why not?
That's the same tech that makes the sparks that fall in the Hammerhead engine room when it's damaged, hit the geometry and bounce off it. The same tech, but make the particles fish so that they swim around.
Yeah, we've got a bunch of different options to do different sorts of movements, and I believe we can mimic the movement of fish, especially since we've got curl noise, which essentially means that lines can never cross each other. That means you can spawn a bunch of fish and they're never going to go through another fish. I can't believe we're talking about fish so much. Which is cool. I like fish. I have an aquarium.