Following up on the procedural question, will there be underground caves to explore?
TL;DRPlanets use 2D height maps so caves and overhangs can't come from the terrain; they would be placed as modelled assets, and better tech might follow if they become important enough.
And overhangs and things that we didn't answer before. So will there be? I can't tell you for sure how we would do it. We could do it. But everybody's got to realize, too, as soon as you get into 3D, as soon as it's not a 2D representation anymore, things get a lot harder, because that is why the CryEngine had a voxel system before. We had a voxel system in the CryEngine where you would define an area, it would copy the terrain into a voxel, and then all of a sudden you'd start sculpting caves, and it was a really cool sort of process. The planets are not voxel. These are planets using height maps. So to be able to represent anything in 3D on a 2D height map is not really possible. That's not something that we can do super easily. So things like overhangs, caves, anything that goes beyond that 2D isn't really built into that system. Now, will there be? Because to make these things, you do it the typical way that games have done it in the past, where you actually make the models of this stuff. And it's not an odd thing, and I don't think it's a cop-out either by any stretch of the imagination where you model those objects, because we put tech in place so that those models now look far more part of the terrain, and it's pretty hard to tell already. Like in the Homestead demo, it's hard to tell which ones of those are actual assets that have been placed with the distribution system or if those are actual terrain features. It's tricky to tell, but a real easy way is if it's going to be a cave or if it's going to be an overhang, probably a model.
So it's not that they won't be in the game, it's that they have to be created.
Right, they're not going to be created from this current planet system.
It's more of a question of what system drives it, right?
Right, and how important is it after all?
I think you start with the art, right? You get the art in there, and then if the importance level gets higher and higher and higher, then you start figuring out better tech solutions, because you find out that it's a good use of time to go that route. But again, prototype it, get it in there, and let's see how it works. But yeah, with art you can do pretty much caves, you can do whatever you need, so cool stuff.