Dogs Of War Vu
Sim/Strategy/War => Games Discussion => Topic started by: Asid on August 15, 2019, 12:24:15 PM
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The world's first science-based photorealistic interactive 3D planetarium that models the entire Universe, using procedural generation for uncharted areas.
Home page (http://spaceengine.org/)
Steam (https://store.steampowered.com/app/314650/SpaceEngine/)
Forum (http://forum.spaceengine.org/)
Steam forum (https://steamcommunity.com/app/314650/discussions/)
Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgGKwE9QggNpg_H5EB5uLMQ)
Manual (http://spaceengine.org/manual/user-manual/)
Single-player
VR Support: HTC Vive, Oculus Rift
SpaceEngine 0.990 - Steam Release Trailer
https://youtu.be/_IXjirybQRw
About
SpaceEngine is a 1:1 scale science-based Universe simulator, featuring billions upon billions of galaxies, nebulae, stars, and planets, all shown at their full real-world scale. Explore Earth and our neighboring worlds in the Solar System, orbit a black hole in a galaxy billions of light-years away, or visit anything in between seamlessly, with no transitions.
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All of time and space are yours to explore cruise between the stars at a million times the speed of light, and accelerate time to watch the orbital motions of a thousand worlds play out before your eyes. Every planet you encounter in your journey will feature procedural 3D terrain with detailed textures. Everything you see in the sky stars and galaxies, planets and moons, asteroids and comets, black holes and neutron stars, star clusters and nebulae are yours to explore at the press of a button.
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Spacecraft with Newtonian physics and pilot-assist autopilot features (in early development but fully usable) are yours to fly anywhere in the universe in the Flight Simulator mode. SpaceEngine is also very friendly for creators of mods and add-ons create your own planets, star systems, even galaxies, import your own spacecraft models, create custom GUI skins, and more, all easily sharable with others.
With SpaceEngine, the possibilities are limitless.
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SpaceEngine Planetarium capabilities:
Astronomy
All types of celestial objects are represented: galaxies, nebulae, stars and star clusters, planets and moons, comets and asteroids. Known celestial objects are represented using data from catalogs: galaxies (NGC/IC), stars (HIPPARCOS), star clusters, nebulae, and planets (Solar System and known extrasolar planets). Regions of space not yet cataloged feature procedurally generated objects: galaxies, stars, star clusters, nebulae, and planetary systems.
Controls
You are free to move around the universe travel seamlessly between any object and any distance, from surface to orbit to interstellar and intergalactic space. Moving through space is as easy as "click and go", as well as game-style free flight using the WASD keys or a gamepad. Also, time travel is possible: you can accelerate, decelerate, or reverse the flow of time, and jump to a specified date. Detailed interactive tutorials will familiarize you with the controls.
Graphics
Volumetric 3D models of galaxies and nebulae with interstellar dust clouds, and 3D landscapes on planets and stars. For many Solar System bodies, actual data from space probes is used, with huge, high-resolution texture packs available as free DLC. For unmapped and procedural planets, the surface is generated procedurally using your computer's GPU. Other features include realistic atmospheric scattering, eclipse shadows, animated auroras and comet tails, and physically-based light warping near black holes and neutron stars, with animated accretion disks and jets.
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Physics
Realistic and physically-based generation of procedural objects (galaxies, star systems, planets) and their physical properties (mass, radius, temperature, atmospheric parameters, etc). The orbital motion of planets, moons, and stars in multiple-star systems are accurately calculated and displayed. Realistic space ship design concepts and physics: orbital motion, atmospheric flight model, and Alcubierre warp drive physics.
Virtual reality
SpaceEngine supports HTC Vive, Oculus Rift (via native library), and Windows Mixed Reality (via Steam VR). Support of VR controllers is partial: you can select objects with one controller and move around with the other one. Please note that VR support is still a work in progress, and new users should become familiar with the program in 2D before trying to use VR.
Sound
Original background music tracks made by many authors, with context-sensitive playback. Sound effects for planetary environments and space ships are in development.
Tools
Built-in tutorials will help you start using the Planetarium. Search for celestial objects by name and search for the nearest star systems. Browse the cosmos using a scalable Universe map and planetary system chart. Saving, exporting, and importing of locations is supported, which can easily be shared between users. The program keeps an automatic journal of objects you have recently visited. Learn every detail about the objects you find using the built-in Wiki info system, with additional hand-written descriptions of many known objects. Display the orbital paths of celestial objects, labels and markers, constellations, and other informational tools.
Multi-language support
Currently SpaceEngine is available in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, Croatian, Czech, Polish, Russian, and Catalan languages. Many new localizations are under development. Only localizations which are 100% complete are displayed on the Steam store page, but you can enable others in-game.
Modding
SpaceEngine supports creating and importing user add-ons: catalogs, models and textures for deep space objects, planets, and space ships. Spacecraft models, representing both real and fictional designs including from popular sci-fi franchises are commonly imported and shared by the community, both here on Steam and on the official SpaceEngine forum.
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Update 0.990.37.1720
30 Aug @ 10:39am - SpaceEngineer
Fixed crash on new NVidia driver (436.15). Sorry for inconvenience!
Build 0.990.37.1720
Added "Spanish - Spain" localization, old Spanish renamed to "Spanish - Latin America"
Updated localizations
Fixed Carina nebula model
Fixed crash with NVidia driver version 436.15
Fixed points counter in the camera path editor tool
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Updade 0.990.38.1730
Fri, 20 September 2019
Todays build 0.990.38.1730 is released in the beta branch. Changelog is below, more info and screenshots can be found in our blog http://spaceengine.org/news/blog190920/
New Titan textures by retro-visor
Gamma correction for planet textures: parameter in catalog scripts and slider in the editor
Adjusted gamma of Jupiter and Io textures
Adjusted photometric properties of Jupiter and the Galilean satellites for increased accuracy
New music by Lokijar
Fixed bug with selection of wrong screenshot file format at startup
Fixed displaying of incorrect axis tilt for procedural planets
Fixed generation of too many extremely tilted procedural planets (pending for for 0.991)
Updated localizations
Updated exoplanet catalog (September 10, 2019)
Added comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) and other minor bodies
Added names for 5 recently named satellites of Jupiter
Added ability to specify a threshold for the bloom effect
Solar system browser: fixed empty (globe) previews in the very long list of satellites
Fixed model of the galaxy ESO 510-G13
Fixed bug with displacement and flickering of star lens flares in fish eye/cylindrical/cube modes what happened in distant galaxies
Fixed bug with displacement of autoexposure metering zone
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Update 0.990.38.1750
Thu, 7 November 2019
Patch
I am presenting a new update. Nothing serious this time, but I am working on Steam Workshop support. SpaceEngine will have a launcher where you can enable/disable installed workshop items. This is more convenient for temporarily disabling addons than using the Steam interface (because uninstallation deletes the addon from your computer). Another feature that the launcher will provide is the ability to upload your own addons to the Workshop. Valve does not provide a convenient tool or web interface for that, so I had to create it myself.
Also I am working on Valve Index VR controllers support. Valve released a completely new SDK for it, so adding support is tricky. Binding controller buttons/sticks is now done using the SteamVR configuration tool rather than in the game, but I want to preserve the old binding method (through SE settings menu), because the native Oculus Rift software still uses its own controller support system.
This patch is in the public beta branch, and will be released to the default branch in a few days.
Changes:
- Initial Steam Workshop support (WIP)
- Addon config file with ability to enable/disable Steam Workshop addons
- Fixed bug with rendering of grayscale-alpha textures of ships
- Ability to select objects by mouse click from the cockpit view in the ship
- Disabled clouds rotation for tri-axial planets (example: WASP-12 b)
- More transparent atmospheres on hot gas giants
- Experimental subsurface scattering for clouds on terrestrial planets
- Updated exoplanet catalog
- Updated catalog of binary asteroids
- Multiple fixes in binary stars catalog
- Added parameter MassJup to planet and star catalog scripts
- Support of UTF-8 names of objects in catalog script (but not recommended, localization database must be used for localized names)
- Updated localizations
- Fixed bug with switching of pressure units on the Wiki Hydrosphere info page
- Export localizations to JSON format (needed for online translation services)
- Fixed object diameter filter in the Chart mode
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Steam Workshop, Valve Index support, VR improvements
Fri, 6 December 2019
Update 0.990.39.1760
Update 0.990.39.1760 introduces Steam Workshop, native support of Valve Index and WMR controllers, and some VR improvements. The update is available in the beta branch, and will be released to the default branch soon.
We also have a new launcher application called LaunchPad, which can be used to manage subscribed or created Workshop items.
For more information about this update, LaunchPad, and how to use Steam Workshop with SpaceEngine, read the full blog post on our website http://spaceengine.org/news/blog191206/
Enjoy!
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Changelog:
Shorter cache file paths
Fixed broken rendering/style settings after starting SE by clicking on se:// url
Russian localization: changed names of planet temperature classes to better match the English localization
Removed Chthonia planet class from the Star browser (this class is not implemented in the engine anyway)
Changed atmosphere generator so it produces more blue Earth-like atmosphere models
Fixed crash on updating atmosphere model
Added models of (486958) Arrokoth/2014 MU69 (ex Ultima Thule), (25143) Itokawa and (433) Eros (by Mosfet)
Fixed blurry nebulae and galaxies on skybox export
Fixed blurry nebulae and galaxies on video capture when Set graphics to maximum is chosen
Fixed initialization of the the video capture tool with incorrect screenshot file format listed
SteamVR Input (native support of Valve Index and other controllers)
Default binding configuration for HTC Vive, Valve Index, WMR and Oculus Touch controllers
Pressing menu button on VR controller brings up side screen toolbars instead of opening the main menu
Main menu VR help texture changes based on the currently active VR controllers
Smoothed VR laser ray movement to reduce shaking and increase selection precision
Added travel time counter when using the Go to command
Go to in VR quickly rotates view so that target object is centered
Import localizations from CSV format (needed for online translation services)
Added Turkish localization
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Build 0.990.39.1775
Mon, 6 January 2020
Korean localization and bug fixes
Build 0.990.39.1775 is being released to the default branch (was previously available on the beta branch).
Added Korean localization
Fixed errors in tutorials
Fixed bug with UI overlay in Steam VR on AMD/ATI graphics cards
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Update 0.990.40.1805 (public beta branch)
Sun, 19 April 2020
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Overhaul of Autoexposure and Video Recording, New Team Member
Hello everyone, we finally have a new update for you! But before we talk about it, we would like to apologize for how long it has been since the last update. Though the delay was unavoidable, we still could have done a better job about finding ways to issue at least minor updates for you during that time. We are currently working on creating a firm release schedule, so that releases will come regularly, and you will know what kinds of changes to expect in each one. We will make an announcement about that as soon as the schedule is finalized.
But back to the update! Initially being released to the public beta branch, it includes some important and much-requested overhauls to autoexposure and video recording, as well as additional fixes and improvements. The major features are described below.
NEW AUTOEXPOSURE
The old and rather buggy autoexposure system has been overhauled. Watch the video below to see it in action.
https://youtu.be/Ld2IeG9TIKY
The new system is histogram-based.The histogram samples points around the entire image and analyzes their brightness distribution. Large areas of a given brightness will generally be selected as the exposure target over smaller areas of a different brightness. Areas near the center of the screen will also generally be given priority over areas near the edge. The system has many values that can be adjusted in the config file and the console to change its behavior.
NEW VIDEO RECORDER
The old and very limited AVI video recording system has been removed and replaced with a much better ffmpeg-based system. The following output formats are available:
H.264 hardware encoding, MP4 container
H.265 hardware encoding, MP4 container
VP9 software encoding, WEBM container
The H.264/5 encoders use hardware acceleration and are very fast. If you have a supported GPU, it will significantly improve your video capture times. If you dont have a supported GPU, you can still use the VP9 encoder. Its too slow to use for real-time interactive capture, but SpaceEngines video recording tools arent meant for that anyway.
NEW TEAM MEMBER
We are excited to announce the addition of a new team member! Andrew is a programmer, and he has already contributed a lot to development; the new video recording system was his work! He also helped to optimize the engine by implementing uniform buffer objects. He is continuing to work on new and great features, and we will no doubt be sharing many exciting new developments in the future thanks to him!
CHANGELOG
Build 0.990.40.1805
- Histogram-based auto exposure
- Replaced AVI video capture with new built-in ffmpeg video capture
- Optimization of the engine (implemented uniform buffer objects)
- Changed orbital lines rendering to a new method (artifact-free)
- Fixed black body colouration options
- Ability to define a state vector instead of a planet orbit in the catalog and export it (WIP)
- Debugging menu
- Updated localizations
- Added Ukrainian and Romanian localizations
- Some fixes in catalogs
- Fixed bug with first upload of an addon project in LaunchPad
- Fixed SE window not appearing when launched from LaunchPad
- Fixed discontinuty bug in quaternion interpolation
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Update 0.990.40.1810, Important Note for Intel Graphics Users
Sat, 9 May 2020
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Autoexposure and Video Recording Overhaul Update Leaves Beta Testing, New Branch for Users of Old Intel IGPs
Hello everyone! The latest update, which overhauls autoexposure and video recording, and which you can read about here http://spaceengine.org/news/blog200419 , is now out of public beta testing and is being released to everyone, along with a few additional changes and fixes.
NOTE FOR INTEL GRAPHICS USERS
A side effect of the implementation of uniform buffer objects in the latest update is that SpaceEngine now requires OpenGL 4.4 support to run. This does not affect any user whose computer already meets the published hardware requirements (having an Nvidia or AMD GPU), but does affect users of integrated graphics on some Intel CPUs from around 5-7 years ago; Intel did not program OpenGL 4.4 support for these processors on Windows (despite them being able to use later OpenGL versions on Linux). This means they will not be able to run this and future versions of SpaceEngine - attempting to do so will result in an error about an obsolete OpenGL version.
If you have one of these old Intel CPUs and are using integrated graphics and you see this error, opt into the 0.990.39 "beta" branch on Steam (read here about how to opt into branches). This will revert you back to the last version of SE before UBOs were implemented (build 0.990.39.1775), thus allowing you to avoid this and future updates and keep using the program.
While it is unfortunate that this will affect some of you, I must stress that IGPs (integrated graphics processors), including and especially those by Intel, have never met the minimum hardware requirements for running the program and have had a long history with problems and glitches with SE. We do not recommend, and have never recommended, that anyone purchase SpaceEngine without having a discrete GPU meeting the minimum listed requirements.
CHANGELOG
Build 0.990.40.1810 (today's update)
- Updated blackbody color systems
- Changed cloud Hapke value generation for improved realism on fully cloudy worlds
- Added ability to automatically compute orbital elements for binary catalog objects using their masses and separation
- Updated star catalogs with some recently discovered objects
- Fixed some catalog issues
- Fixed bug with checkbox states getting stuck
- Fixed clouds not fully covering a planet when coverage is set to 1.0
- Fixed minimum OpenGL version to allow OpenGL 4.4 devices to run
- Fixed controller ray direction on Windows Mixed Reality
- Fixed issue with SDL errors with some game controllers
Build 0.990.40.1805 (April 19 beta release)
- Histogram-based auto exposure
- Replaced AVI video capture with new built-in ffmpeg video capture
- Optimization of the engine (implemented uniform buffer objects)
- Changed orbital lines rendering to a new method (artifact-free)
- Fixed black body colouration options
- Ability to define a state vector instead of a planet orbit in the catalog and export it (WIP)
- Debugging menu
- Updated localizations
- Added Ukrainian and Romanian localizations
- Some fixes in catalogs
- Fixed bug with first upload of an addon project in LaunchPad
- Fixed SE window not appearing when launched from LaunchPad
- Fixed discontinuty bug in quaternion interpolation
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Patch 0.990.40.1813, note to AMD GPU users
Mon, 8 June 2020
Build 1813 fixes some issues related to UBO shaders, which affected many AMD GPU users
This patch fixes a few issues, mainly related to the recent implementation of UBOs, which many users of AMD graphics cards reported issues with. Everyone who had such issues and who has tested this update reported the issues to be resolved, so any non-Intel users who reverted to version 0.990.39 after the last update are encouraged to switch back to the default branch since it should work for you now.
Anyone who does have major issues with crashing or other significant issues should make a post on the troubleshooting forum, including your log file. It really helps us figure out what issues exist and how to solve them, so we can make the program better for everyone.
Changelog
Added checks and logging for UBO initialization
Added checks and logging for video recording failures
Fixed unexpected behaviour of slider value edit in the settings and other dialogs (again)
Fixed Venus solar day length info
Fixed displaying of non-printable object name ($) on the navigation toolbar
Updated localizations
Some fixes and updates in catalogs
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Steam Launch Anniversary, Development Updates
Fri, 12 June 2020
Reviewing the past year, previewing the future
One year ago, on June 11, 2019, SpaceEngine was released on Steam. Since then we have released many updates, but haven't implemented many new features - this is because we were focused on fixing bugs and improving stability. Among the more noticeable features that were added were more languages (including Chinese and Japanese), improved VR support, a new video recording system (based on ffmpeg), and improved auto-exposure. We also have 2 main programmers now, plus a couple more contributing programmers, and we are working on many new features. Unfortunately we haven't had time to assemble all this awesome work together into an anniversary update, but we will release them one by one in the coming months as they are completed.
Probably the most impressive feature in development is 3D clouds, which being developed by Andrew and Duke. It is also the most complex thing being worked on right now, and is still in a very early stage of development.
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HarbingerDawn has been working on fuel and thermal systems for ships. There will be two or more types of expendable resources, depending which type of engines a ship has: propellant (reaction mass, the substance which the engine expels to produce thrust) like hydrogen, and fuel (used to accelerate the propellant and/or produce electricity) like deuterium, uranium, or antimatter. Implementing limited fuel is easy; more complex is integrating this into gameplay. We will eventually need fuel depot stations, harvesters, and infrastructure like that. The first beta releases may have fuel stations with infinite fuel orbiting some icy worlds - good enough for gameplay testing. Mining and processing will be added later.
https://youtu.be/A8r5m1XJPN4
Very early fuel test video
Another important ship mechanic to model is thermal management. Reactors and engines, electronic systems, and even passengers on a ship produce heat, and this heat must be removed from the ship, otherwise the crew will die, electronics will overheat, and the ship could even melt. Since space is a vacuum, this means using radiators. The engines and reactors of advanced starships produce enough heat to cause their radiators - and of course engine nozzles - to glow in visible light. The temperature, and thus glow brightness/color, of these elements depends on the power and efficiency of the engines/reactors, and how long they are operated for (the amount of heat stored in the radiators will increase until they reach thermal equilibrium or the engines/reactors are powered down).
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/d8ba44331ddcee282edf91c6a7d0c6fb45022b7f.jpg)
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/55e0e9495fd2ff5dacdedbd8637305f1eaab2162.jpg)
https://youtu.be/1WLvSHYGRLY
Early radiator test video
In the upcoming SE game(s), ships designed in the editor must properly account for heat management - you can't have 1 petawatt of power onboard and use only a few small radiator panels, even if your ship has a magic reactor/engine with 99.99% efficiency. This is a major challenge with any realistic ship design, and even in SE the engines of large ships will most likely accelerate them very slowly, like 0.05g - any faster and the amount of heat generated by the engines will vaporize the ship. Reality is harsh! Fortunately, this will not be a problem in a single player game, because you can speed up the flow of time. Other types of engines than what SE has now, as well as adding additional operating modes to the engines, can also allow for higher acceleration in some cases.
Speaking of speeding things up, Vladimir is currently working on some improvements in the engine core, one of which is moving physics to parallel threads to utilize multiple CPU cores, which everyone has now. The first part is almost done: calculation of planet and ship lights and eclipse shadows is now working in parallel to rendering, freeing some 3 to 10 ms of main thread CPU time. This was a large bottleneck, especially in VR; when you could see a distant a gas giant with dozens of moons, you would notice a significant FPS drop. The next step is moving orbital motion and ship physics simulation to threads as well. The main thread should only do rendering.
Finally, here are some other things which are being completed as separate tests and awaiting integration into SE:
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/c1beb702709351af456b8c1ca00eecf134c71a92.jpg)
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/19f9a23d804f8ddf6fd19405848a9632d677762e.jpg)
New Earth texture with sea ice
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/9871e3cdd88119f5dd9bf094a574389e2b348ac6.jpg)
New Pluto texture
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/9d8e29f869cb88684ebf42e97dfdd6866815cac1.jpg)
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/10e78fb37a475205b873df88c08fd461e7fa8e37.jpg)
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/15726e0948c96038d221d949227e2503767c940d.jpg)
Volumetric accretion disks
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Small Update: Added Comet NEOWISE
Wed, 15 July 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/f777854f39a54f806b2a39cca545b18b83d847d4.png)
This small update adds comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) into the program
Hello everyone! As most of you probably know, there is a bright comet visible from the northern hemisphere right now: C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE). It is the brightest comet visible from northern latitudes since comet Hale-Bopp in 1997, and is best viewed with binoculars and cameras for now due to being partially faded by twilight glow, but it is visible to the naked eye during late dusk/twilight. It was previously best viewed before dawn, but it is now moving into a part of the sky that makes it more visible after dusk. It will be visible higher in the sky after sunset over the coming days and weeks, during which time it will be much easier to observe, but will also get dimmer as it moves away from the sun.
To celebrate this great comet display, we've added it into the program in a mini-update. Enjoy!
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0.990.41 Public Beta Release
Sun, 2 August 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/b4fc074b80a8baf4b84049b33796812d213c6e19.png)
Optimization and performance improvement update released to public beta branch users
Today we have a significant update being released onto the public beta branch. This update primarily aims to improve performance through optimizations and moving some significant tasks to parallel threads. Lighting and eclipse shadows are now calculated on multiple CPU threads, reducing a major performance bottleneck in some cases.
Sprite sorting in galaxy and nebula models is now also multithreaded, which can slightly improve performance when a model with a lot of sprites is displayed, but significantly improves performance when flying through dense galaxy clusters (galaxy models load in much faster and with less impact to performance). However, multithreaded sprite sorting can cause issues in cases where multiple galaxies with the same sprite model are resolved on screen at the same time, such as in dense clusters of catalog galaxies. If you see strange issues with the appearance of galaxy models, you can revert to the old single-threaded behavior by entering AsyncSpriteSort in the console, and switch back to the new method by entering it again.
Ship engine effect shader definitions have been moved into their own file, so they are now modular and new ones can be added without affecting the main ship engine effect shader file (this means spacecraft addon makers can add custom engine effects without worrying about compatibility issues with vanilla updates and other mods).
The comet shader has also been modified to increase the realism of cometary dust tails (work in progress).
Build 0.990.41.1824
Lighting refactoring and optimization
Multithreaded update of lighting and eclipse shadows
Optimized performance of Star browser
Customizeable ship engine effect shaders
Ability to speed up time to more than 10,000x in Flight Simulator mode when using the cheat code TARDIS
More realistic comet tail appearance (WIP)
Updates in catalogs
Multithreaded sorting of sprites with galaxy and nebula models (see description above for known issues)
Optimized video memory consumption by PBR environment maps
Optimized loading performance of large sc catalogs
Optimized rendering performance of large comet catalogs per planetary system
Fixed some bugs with comet tails
Fixed some bugs with the Chart mode
Fixed some bugs with the Star browser
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0.990.41 is out of beta!
Fri, 14 August 2020
Optimization and performance improvement update now being released to all users
Version 0.990.41 has now finished public beta testing and is being released to everyone! This update primarily aims to improve performance through optimizations and moving some significant tasks to parallel threads. Lighting and eclipse shadows are now calculated on multiple CPU threads, reducing a major performance bottleneck in some cases.
Sprite sorting in galaxy and nebula models is now also multithreaded, which can slightly improve performance when a model with a lot of sprites is displayed, but significantly improves performance when flying through dense galaxy clusters (galaxy models load in much faster and with less impact to performance). However, multithreaded sprite sorting can cause issues in cases where multiple galaxies with the same sprite model are resolved on screen at the same time, such as in dense clusters of catalog galaxies. If you see strange issues with the appearance of galaxy models, you can revert to the old single-threaded behavior by entering AsyncSpriteSort in the console, and switch back to the new method by entering it again.
Ship engine effect shader definitions have been moved into their own file, so they are now modular and new ones can be added without affecting the main ship engine effect shader file (this means spacecraft addon makers can add custom engine effects without worrying about compatibility issues with vanilla updates and other mods).
The comet shader has also been modified to increase the realism of cometary dust tails (work in progress).
Build 0.990.41.1824
Lighting refactoring and optimization
Multithreaded update of lighting and eclipse shadows
Optimized performance of Star browser
Customizeable ship engine effect shaders
Ability to speed up time to more than 10,000x in Flight Simulator mode when using the cheat code TARDIS
More realistic comet tail appearance (WIP)
Updates in catalogs
Multithreaded sorting of sprites with galaxy and nebula models (see description above for known issues)
Optimized video memory consumption by PBR environment maps
Optimized loading performance of large sc catalogs
Optimized rendering performance of large comet catalogs per planetary system
Fixed some bugs with comet tails
Fixed some bugs with the Chart mode
Fixed some bugs with the Star browser
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0.990.42.1830 and 0.991 Public Beta, Ongoing Work
Fri, 13 November 2020
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/b94f394ffb3e900df6aafa03add7b507ebc445df.png)
Updated exoplanet catalog, updated Solar System textures, other fixes and improvements, and 0.991 beta branch available
A new update, version 0.990.42.1830, is now available for public beta testing (how to join the beta). It features new exoplanets discovered since SE's initial release on Steam, new/updated textures for Mars, Pluto, and Iapetus, and some fixes and improvements.
Updates:
Updated exoplanets catalog
Added new names of 112 exoplanets and their host stars
Updated Mars texture
New Pluto texture
New Iapetus texture and elevation map
New soundtrack by Lokijar
Context music playback config file is updated to the new planet classification, small manual is added to it
Some updates in the Wiki
Added ability to directly specify planet palette preset in a planet's script
Probabilities of equatorial ridge generation are added to the config
Terrain shader mods are automatically disabled if they cause problems with SE startup
Added note to spacecraft manager that ships can be piloted in simulator mode, and a button to switch to it
Added buttons binds and help texture for Vive Cosmos controllers
Fixes:
Fixed giant scarps (cliffs) artifact near rift valleys
Fixed distance to Maffei 1 and 2 galaxies
Fixed a typo in the main config which caused duplication of the VR section
Fixed bug with stars not illuminating other stars in the same system (caused black brown dwarfs)
Fixed saturation of planet shine lighting in real exposure modes
Fixed crash when using telescopic zoom on galaxy clusters
Fixed baseline of subscript text
Fixed broken loading of RLE-compressed TGA files
Updated planet maps
A few new and updated planet textures are included in this update. The surface (diffuse, color albedo) maps of Mars and Pluto have been updated with more accurate versions. The Pluto map was made by FarGetaNik, while the Mars map is the same as the old one, with improvements to color and contrast accuracy. Saturn's moon Iapetus has been updated with a totally new set of textures, created by Kexitt, which combine real data with artistic interpretation for a much more consistent appearance while still being pretty accurate. You can see screenshots below of Mars, Pluto, and Iapetus respectively:
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/b68c7fc63dc8911ef4debdaf29a282d2899829be.jpg)
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/0bdf6e5dc1c144985051b365d22745ffc066acff.jpg)
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/7ab144a4fe9b944c1f258208810933433466b25a.jpg)
Current Work and 0.991 Beta
Some progress has been made recently on implementing 3D planetary rings with rocks ;-) We will make a more detailed post with screenshots in the future. Other important work being done is updating the procedural planetary system generator. This includes fixing issues and bugs, and implementing modern knowledge about exoplanets into the generator. Since this will change the procedural generation algorithms, it will destroy user saves (locations), so it is pending for version 0.991. Speaking of which, a 0.991_beta branch has been added to Steam for those who want to test the new planetary system generator. Note that this, and a fix to globular cluster generation in large galaxies, are the only differences between the current 0.991 beta and today's update 0.990.42.1830.
0.991 changes:
Calibrated mass-radius distribution of terrestrial planets
Calibrated iron core mass distribution in terrestrial planets
Fixed giant-terra-giant-terra meander sequence in procedural planetary systems
Fixed bug with incorrect procedural metallicity of stars
Fixed giant galaxies having no globular clusters
You can opt into the 0.991_beta in the same way as the regular beta branch. Right-click on SpaceEngine in your Steam library, choose "Properties...", and go to the "BETAS" tab. Select 0.991_beta in the drop-down menu:
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/76aea97124ce531d492cd836c7ace080345d14eb.png)
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0.990.42 is out of beta!
Sat, 28 November 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/b94f394ffb3e900df6aafa03add7b507ebc445df.png)
Updated exoplanet catalog, updated Solar System textures, other fixes and improvements
Version 0.990.42.1830 has now finished public beta testing and is being released to all users! This update primarily focuses on updating assets and some bugfixes. Here is the copy of the changelog from the previous post. You can read more details there.
Updates:
Updated exoplanets catalog
Added new names of 112 exoplanets and their host stars
Updated Mars texture
New Pluto texture
New Iapetus texture and elevation map
New soundtrack by Lokijar
Context music playback config file is updated to the new planet classification, small manual is added to it
Some updates in the Wiki
Added ability to directly specify planet palette preset in a planet's script
Probabilities of equatorial ridge generation are added to the config
Terrain shader mods are automatically disabled if they cause problems with SE startup
Added note to spacecraft manager that ships can be piloted in simulator mode, and a button to switch to it
Added buttons binds and help texture for Vive Cosmos controllers
Fixes:
Fixed giant scarps (cliffs) artifact near rift valleys
Fixed distance to Maffei 1 and 2 galaxies
Fixed a typo in the main config which caused duplication of the VR section
Fixed bug with stars not illuminating other stars in the same system (caused black brown dwarfs)
Fixed saturation of planet shine lighting in real exposure modes
Fixed crash when using telescopic zoom on galaxy clusters
Fixed baseline of subscript text
Fixed broken loading of RLE-compressed TGA files
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Public Beta Update 0.990.43.1850
Fri, 2 July 2021
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/716e4d5cb3946b877863cdcb44b966bcb86205c6.png)
Bugfixes and improvements in the public beta version
Build 1850 is a small update focused on completing the current iteration of the 3D rings system and fixing bugs detected during the public beta. By "current iteration" I mean that 3D rings will be updated in the future, but for now I must move on to other tasks. This build (maybe with a few updates) will be released to the main public branch as soon as possible.
I would also like to address a few common feedback items, some of which were already addressed in more detail in the previous blog post:
Rings are
VERY
thin, generally a few tens of meters at most. You must fly into them at a very low speed (like 10-100 m/s, depending on the angle) or else you will fly right through them without ever seeing the inside. In every case where someone joined the public beta and reported that they did not see 3D rings, this was why.
Some parts of a ring system will only have dust with no "rocks"; this is normal.
If ring particles seem to be randomly popping around the screen with every frame (including appearing "ghostly"), it is because your camera is not moving at the same speed as the rings are orbiting the planet. Pause time, bind the camera to a moon inside the rings, or go into the flight simulator and put a spacecraft into a circular zero-inclination orbit within the rings.
Changelog
Added dust self-shadowing in 3D rings
Reduced aliasing of rings while looking edge-on
Reduced aliasing of ring shadows on planets
Geographic grid on black holes, neutron stars, and white dwarfs is warped according to gravitational lensing
Geographic grid color parameter is added to all skin config files
Optimized the Map mode performance near the Solar system and in other galaxies
Anti-aliased lines of constellations and coordinate grids (celestial, geographic and the Map mode grid)
Sharper orbital path lines
Ability to skip building the shader cache by pressing Esc in the loading window
Importing locations from clipboard automatically detects format (se:// URL or script)
Fixed inability to type negative magnitude limit in the camera toolbar
Fixed Wiki display of Hill/influence radius for gas giants
Fixed bug with rings lighting when toggling planet shine
Fixed bug with celestial grid and constellation line colors not loading from the skin config on startup
Fixed incorrect catalog stars clipping in the Map mode
Fixed wrong number of stars rendered in the Map mode
Fixed keyboard zoom speed being framerate-dependent in the Map mode
Fixed multiple errors in printing object names to the log file
Fixed incorrect impostor rendering of distant galaxies after loading some saved locations
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Volumetric Rings release!
Wed, 21 July 2021
The Volumetric Rings update has finished beta testing and is now released to everyone
Volumetric rings are out of beta testing and are being released to everyone! You can read more about this feature and other features in this update in our blog posts here https://spaceengine.org/news/blog210611/ , here, and here. More improvements for rings are planned for the future, but for now I must move on to other high-priority tasks (major bugfixes, other major graphical features, etc.).
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/033235f139c2ac4fe9e8fd2b35dbe3839efdb4d5.jpg)
Changelog of this build (0.990.43.1865) compared to the previous public beta build:
Adjusted brightness of filmic tone mapping functions
Changed sharpness function for volumetrics (galaxy, nebula, comet tail, aurora)
Sharpness of volumetrics and 3D rings is reverse of the global scene sharpness to prevent over-sharpening (ability to switch off this function in the config file or in the debug toolbox)
Overhaul of the debug toolbox, controls are split into several tabs
Added combined satellite mass info to the Wiki
Fixed a bug that made procedural rings too sparse
Fixed a crash that sometimes happens after reloading a planet/system in the planet editor
Fixed bug with stopping of terrain textures loading
Fixed a bug with generation of a double Wolf-Rayet system, where the secondary star has a luminosity hundreds of times greater than the whole system (for 0.991)
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/72df44b24f54c748abc54524a07f789e00436465.jpg)
This update is being published to the main, beta, and 0.991_beta branches. Note that some planetary systems in the 0.991_beta may be different now, because changes in the planet generator code are not final. This must not affect the main branch, so your saved locations must be intact (except of course for rings around procedural planets).
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/7fb5ddf710f881f7b22564e8bc0a68a675d725c4.jpg)
Changelog compared to 0.990.42.1830 (last main branch update)
Added volumetric 3D planetary rings
Updated exoplanet catalog (June 03, 2021)
Support for blackbody thermal glow and temperature maps for spaceships (accurate radiator glow appearance)
Better sharpening algorithm (AMD FidelityFX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening)
Elevation and temperature textures are split into independent arrays (improves terrain LOD capabilities by cost of increased VRAM usage)
Additional security checks in terrain texture cache (improves stability)
Ability to reload a planet or planetary system in the editor without waiting for completeness of terrain generation
Safe (crash-free) change of terrain texture settings (texture compression, detail textures, graphics quality preset) while camera is near planet surface
Geographic grid on black holes, neutron stars, and white dwarfs is warped according to gravitational lensing
Geographic grid color parameter is added to all skin config files
Optimized the Map mode performance near the Solar system and in other galaxies
Anti-aliased lines of constellations and coordinate grids (celestial, geographic and the Map mode grid)
Sharper orbital path lines
Ability to skip building the shader cache by pressing Esc in the loading window (splash screen)
Importing locations from clipboard automatically detects format (se:// URL or script)
Exceedingly thin atmospheres are not rendered in Solar system browser previews
Added reading of physical video memory size from the system registry
FXAA smooths alpha channel in screenshots and previews
Alpha channel is used in Solar system browser previews again
Separately configurable unit for star surface temperature in the interface
Opening the map mode while a star is selected will zoom to show its planetary system
Added support of DEG MIN SEC format for lat/lon in the Goto command
Adjusted brightness of filmic tone mapping functions
Changed sharpness function for volumetrics (galaxy, nebula, comet tail, aurora)
Sharpness of volumetrics and 3D rings is reverse of the global frame sharpness to prevent over-sharpening (ability to switch off this function in the config file or in the debug toolbox)
Overhaul of the debug toolbox, controls are split into several tabs
Added combined satellite mass info to the Wiki
Fixed spin-orbital resonance display for hyperbolic orbits
Fixed bug with debris rings being very rare around gas giants
Fixed missing asteroid belts
Fixed molten comets bug
Fixed non-functional interpolation of variables if the duration is zero or negative
Fixed inability to type negative magnitude limit in the camera toolbar
Fixed Wiki display of Hill/influence radius for gas giants
Fixed bug with celestial grid and constellation line colors not loading from the skin config on startup
Fixed incorrect catalog stars clipping in the Map mode
Fixed wrong number of stars rendered in the Map mode
Fixed keyboard zoom speed being framerate-dependent in the Map mode
Fixed multiple errors in printing object names to the log file
Fixed incorrect impostor rendering of distant galaxies after loading some saved locations
Fixed bug then SE uses less VRAM for terrain textures after change of terrain texture settings than it actually can
Fixed big moons orbiting inside rings
Fixed anti-aliasing (MSAA) on previews in the Solar system browser, the Wiki, and the Locations browser
Fixed bug with modifying a system with a black hole then restoring it in the Planet editor
Fixed bug with reading key combinations with "Numpad -" from keys.cfg
Fixed artifacts in ocean specular highlight on AMD Radeon (everywhere) and Nvidia GeForce (near equator)
Fixed black level of Earth's city lights when texture compression is enabled
Fixed crash that sometimes happens after reloading a planet/system in the planet editor
Fixed bug with stopping of terrain textures loading
Fixed a bug with generation of a double Wolf-Rayet system, where the secondary star has a luminosity hundreds of times greater than the whole system (for 0.991)
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Update 0.990.43.1875 bug fixes and improvements
Tue, 5 April 2022
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/e8875bd397a23317b05866b18d9de1218bfd5614.jpg)
Fixes for a few major bugs, some minor UI improvements, new localization, and a couple of new features
The latest update has finished public beta testing and is now being released to everyone.
Why We've Been Quiet
You may be wondering why we didn't post about any public beta updates even though we released some. In short, it's because things have been very chaotic lately. Vladimir and his family have been directly impacted by both the events in Ukraine and the consequences thereof, which forced us to spend almost all of our time and attention on securing the future of SpaceEngine and making sure that friends and family remain safe. This resulted in development being put on hold for a couple of weeks. While development is now ongoing, it remains possible that future circumstances may cause additional interruptions due to the unstable situation. The crisis also briefly impacted our efforts to expand the development team, and progress has resumed there as well.
Update 0.990.43.1875
With that out of the way, we can talk about the update itself. This update - version 0.990.43.1875 - mainly focuses on bug fixes and minor improvements. Highlights include:
Updated exoplanet catalog
MP3 music file support
Indonesian localization
Tooltips are now displayed in the Wiki and other tables (viewable by mousing over the cell)
Switching from OpenAL to SDL Mixer X (should prevent startup failures many users have had)
Fix for the crash when visiting the galaxy Centaurus A
New tonemap option (ACES Fitted)
Significantly improved appearance of ray craters
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/3141583ddb08bc2170654b41a9e84f4f8f17e0c9.jpg)
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/1d300e2c878b984462ba3899b5ea1ecd515fbdb1.jpg)
View this post on our website to see interactive comparison images of the updated ray craters and ACES Fitted tonemap https://spaceengine.org/news/blog220405
We also want to share some of the other cool stuff we've been working on lately, which deserves a whole news post unto itself, so be on the lookout for that to be posted in the near future :)
Changelog
Updated exoplanets catalog (March 15, 2022)
Updated localizations, added Indonesian
Optimized performance of the Star browser
Fixed various bugs in the Star browser
SDL library upgraded to 2.0.14
Sound system changed from OpenAL to SDL_mixer_X
Added mp3 support for music files
Tooltips in Wiki and other tables (view by holding mouse over the cell)
Tooltips are rendered on top of the cell, except for some special cases
Tooltips in Wiki displays decimal values for cells with degrees and time
Added BB-codes for date and time (YYYY, MM, DD etc)
Updated credits
New tonemap option (ACES Fitted)
Fixed crash near Centaurus A and (other galaxies created with CubeMap method)
Fixed body axial tilt display
Wiki shows body axial tilt (second column) and obliquity in relation to star (third column)
Fixed incorrect velocity vector of minor moons of Solar System gas giants
Fixed bug with displaying of the system barycenter in the Chart mode in some catalog binary star systems
Fixed/updated craters
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Scalable interface public beta
Tue, 3 May 2022
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/5f9376279da71adeb1a717f7d3190c5d03ce6993.png)
Scalable GUI for 4k+ displays is now open for beta testing
In this update on the public beta branch, we present a feature long requested by users of 4k displays: a scalable graphical user interface! Until now, text and menus were too small to be used comfortably on 4k displays. With this update, however, the scale of the interface is adjustable up to at least two times its original size (read on for details).
The controls for interface scaling are located in SpaceEngine's "general" settings menu. By default, SpaceEngine will detect the scaling amount set in your Windows display settings for the current monitor and upscale the UI by that amount, similar to other software designed for high DPI compatibility; this automatic scaling can be disabled by toggling the "use system DPI" checkbox. You can add additional scaling on top of that by using the slider. SE is able to scale the UI to any value from 100 to 200% in steps of 5% (technically, any
value can be used, but non-integral values like 133.3% may be impractical). It is possible that text and UI elements may look blurry at some scales; this may be fixed in a future update.
Note that the mouse cursor will only be scaled to either 100 or 200%: I found that a giant but sharp cursor looks better than a blurry one. For UI scales below 150%, small cursors are used; for 150% and higher, large cursors are used. We also decided to change the cross-shaped cursor used when selecting objects to a high-contrast white color for easier visibility, especially on displays with poor response times for dark colors (like most VA panels).
For more pictures of the scalable interface, including a comparison showing the old experience at 4k vs now with GUI scaling, please visit this update's news post on our website.
Changelog of this beta (0.990.43.1880)
- Interface upgrades
-- Scalable GUI (!!!) with option for automatic scaling according to display scaling setting in Windows
-- Slider to scale up interface in the range of 100-200%, applied on top of Windows scaling setting if "use system DPI" is enabled
-- GUI textures remade for 4k (200% scaling)
-- Selection cursor (cross shape used for selecting objects) changed to high-contrast white color for better visibility
-- Renamed "Modern" interface skins to "Glossy"
- Calibrated illuminance for auto and manual exposure modes (light sources were previously too dim by a factor of 10)
- Fixed bug with camera position for reflection and warp cubemaps
- Fixed materials for some asteroid models
- Fixed bug with black hemisphere on some planets and moons
- Fixed visibility of details on neutron star and white dwarf surface
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Dev blog - Introducing... Kerr black holes!
Tue, 5 July 2022
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/24591341/4f74ef01622db55610afb13a15fa7410def1733f.jpg)
We've been working on a "massive" update!
We're happy to announce the first look at our next big update, which we are calling "General Relativity", in reference to Einstein's theory of gravity - and their real-time visualisation in SpaceEngine!
We started working on this update much earlier this year. While development is still ongoing, we wanted to take this opportunity to share a bit about what we've been up to, and what you can expect from the next big release.
While the update is going to contain a lot of cool and exciting visual content (And some very cool gameplay content, too!), today we're focusing on one major element: Kerr-Newman black holes.
This type of black hole has charge and angular momentum (they spin!), and as a result they can create some very interesting effects. The technical details are complicated, and implementing them faithfully has been a challenge, but we feel like they're well worth the effort - and we're very excited to finally be able to share what we've been working on with you!
https://youtu.be/mst0BoDTQdo
Above: an extreme example of a Kerr-Newman black hole, rendered in SpaceEngine.
There's a lot more to come, and we'll have more updates for you on this release throughout the month, so stay tuned! As always, be sure to check out our blog for more details, as well as some additional information about what's coming up!
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WARNING: Do NOT use AMD optional drivers with SE!
Mon, 8 August 2022
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AMD's recent 22.7.1 optional drivers break numerous things in SpaceEngine and make it practically unusable
This is a WARNING to users of AMD graphics cards NOT to use the 22.7.1 optional drivers with SpaceEngine! These drivers break numerous things in SE and make it practically unusable. The worst issue is extremely slow loading of terrain textures on stars and planetary bodies. Auto exposure is also broken, as are bloom, glare, diffraction spikes, and any other feature that relies on the same low-res image buffer as those.
The cause for the extremely slow terrain loading (up to 500 ms per tile on a system with a 6700 XT, Ryzen 5600, 32 GB of high-speed RAM, and NVMe SSDs) seems to be that this driver version reports the physical VRAM amount as being the sum of both physical AND virtual VRAM, and when SE runs, data is sent to both physical and virtual VRAM interchangeably, instead of only using physical VRAM until it's full. This means, instead of terrain tiles being stored only in the very fast memory directly connected to the GPU, data is ALSO sent through the PCIe bus to the CPU to be redirected to the virtual VRAM pool, which is dozens of times slower than just using the GPU's dedicated VRAM. The cause of the other issues requires further investigation.
We still need to investigate and try to discuss with AMD why these issues are happening and how to fix them. In the meantime, do NOT use the 22.7.1 optional drivers, and instead use the 22.5.1 recommended (WHQL) drivers
, which in our testing was actually the best driver for running SE that AMD has released in a long time, and seemed to fix at least 1 major causes of glitches, freezing, and crashing on AMD GPUs.
We will keep you updated on this issue and will let you know when it's resolved.
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[Dev Blog] General Relativity 2: Alcubierre Warp Field and Wormholes
Sat, 13 August 2022
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Todays blog post is the second in a series about our next big update, which we are calling General Relativity. In this post were talking about Alcubierre warp bubbles and wormholes.
View this post on our website for full resolution images and an interactive image comparison https://spaceengine.org/news/blog220812/
Alcubierre warp bubble
SpaceEngine already has a warp bubble effect for ships, but it was a fake artistic effect. Now, with the addition of Morozs GR ray tracer, its possible to render it faithfully, with a realistic, physically-based effect.
The bubble shader works exactly like the Kerr black hole shader described in the previous blog post, with two stages used to help improve performance: low-resolution geodesic tracing, and full-resolution background distortion. The warp metric is also much simpler than the Kerr-Newman one, resulting in improved performance. Since it doesnt have a horizon and is very smooth, it retains good visual fidelity even when the low-res pass resolution is set to 0.1.
https://youtu.be/y-OCBeCO87Y
The video above shows how the warp bubble looks from different points of view. Note that we have one serious physical limitation: this is a slower-than-light (STL) warp bubble. Rendering a faster-than-light (FTL) warp bubble is possible, but impractical in SpaceEngine. While you are piloting a ship, the camera is attached to it, i.e. it moves with the same speed as the ship at some fixed distance from it, and from the point of the camera it appears that we are looking at the warp bubble from the outside. This is okay if the bubble is slower than light, but loses physical sense in the case of FTL, since while the ship inside the bubble can move at FTL-apparent speed (this is why a warp bubble is needed in the first place), nothing outside the bubble can do soincluding the virtual camera. The equations simply blow up, and cant render anything meaningful; as a compromise, the program always renders the bubble as though it is STL.
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However, there are two other solutions which are possible: proper FTL bubble rendering when the camera is located inside the bubble (cockpit view), and when a stationary observer is looking at a bubble flying past it. These features are something we will look at implementing in a future update.
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The warp shader also distorts the image of the ship loaded inside the bubble. This is due to the implementation of the bubble, which is done through screen-space approximation: the engine first renders the ship to the screen as if there is no warp bubble, then passes this image and its depth buffer to the warp shader. This comes with some known limitations (e.g. if part of the ship is beyond the border of the screen, the shader has no pixels to sample and outputs a transparent color), but the effect still looks very cool!
Wormholes
Wormholes are another way to travel faster than light through space. The Morris-Thorne wormhole has a metric which is similar to a Schwarzschild (non-rotating) black hole, but instead of having an event horizon, it connects space to another wormhole with a throat or tunnel (which may have zero length). This means that an observer outside of the wormhole can see another part of the Universe through the spherical surface, which replaces the event horizon. The video below shows an example of passing through a wormhole with zero throat length.
https://youtu.be/MUJe8_paqxo
Although wormholes are not procedurally generated in the SpaceEngine Universe, they can be created as a mod. A famous example is Saturn wormhole in Docs Interstellar mod on the Steam Workshop. Wormholes are traversable both by free camera and by space ships, although in the latter case it may be a bit wonky because, as mentioned above, the 3rd person camera is attached to the ship at a distance. As a result, it has to be teleported to the exit wormholes throat at the same time as ships center intersects the wormhole sphere.
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In the middle of an Earth-Pluto wormhole with zero throat length
A small, human-size wormhole in VR literally looks like a hole in the Universe: while approaching it, the sky background appears like it is drawn on a wall, the wormhole throat looks like a hole in that wall, and the exit of the throat looks like a hollow hemisphere with a (second) sky background drawn on its inner surface. In the center of the zero-length tunnel, both sides of the Universe look like two inside-out spheres attached to each other.
I highly recommend visiting a wormhole in VR and playing with its parameters in the editor (parameters Radius, TunnelLength and LensingWidth)!
The picture below shows a wormhole with a tunnel length of five radii. Light rays can make multiple loops around the four-dimensional tunnel, which is why we see a ringed structure.
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In our next blog post about the General Relativity update we will talk about volumetric accretion disks around black holes and neutron stars. Stay tuned!
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General Relativity Public Beta Test!
StartedMon, 19 September 2022
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The General Relativity update is now available for public beta testing!
Our General Relativity update (which we previously talked about here, here, and here) is being released for public beta testing! If you are not already a member of our beta testing group and would like to be, see the instructions here for how to opt into the public beta branch on Steam.
Please read the list of known issues below before testing or providing feedback!
This update took a long time and effort to make: we worked not only on black holes, wormholes, and warp bubbles, but also made some changes to core engine systems.
For more details, you can read the complete changelog at the end of this post.
Black Hole/Warp Quality Settings
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With all the new changes, we want to provide some additional information about a variety of settings which influence the new GR effects.
Two sliders, Gravitational lensing performance and Volumetric objects resolution/While moving, have already been described in a previous blog post. These can be found at the bottom of the Settings/Graphics dialog, and have strong effects on rendering performance.You can balance quality vs speed by adjusting them manually in the "custom" graphics preset. Note that the second slider also affects performance when flying through a galaxy or nebula.
Read on: https://steamcommunity.com/games/SpaceEngine/announcements/detail/5800096198471371799
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First Anniversary!
Sat, 4 March 2023
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Hello everyone!
Today, we're celebrating Cosmographic Software's first anniversary!
We have some big plans for 2023 and beyond: the full details, as well as some additional info regarding the company and our previous year, can be found on our website https://spaceengine.org/news/blog230304
2022 was a tough year, but we've come through it stronger and renewed, welcoming some exceptional talent and clarifying our goals and vision for the project going forward.
On behalf of everyone at Cosmographic Software and the SpaceEngine team, thank you for your continued support! We're excited by what the future has in store, and looking forward to exciting times in 2023 and beyond!