RoVerse Development Newsletter #309

Hello everyone! Welcome to the 309th issue of the RoVerse Development Newsletter, where we keep you updated on the progress we've made over the past week.

This week, we've got a new proof of concept for planets, updates to Hyperion's aesthetics, and a sneak peek at the criminal hideout at the Station.

​Using the new deformable mesh feature, Skinny and Idyllic collaborated to create a proof-of-concept for planetary water. We showed off generated wave systems using a deforming mesh in a map intended to be added to the dogfight, however, that only worked on a flat plane, and was rather repetitive. For planets, we need water to be much more randomized, but still look believable as a wave system - though we do have a bit of wiggle room in the sci fi genre and alien worlds. With that in mind, we put together a small-scale, low-res demo.

Using a python script to generate bones, automatic weights to assign the vertices of an icosphere to a bone, and the custom rig importer, we imported a mesh 'sea level'. With a bit of looping and math.noise, which happens to be 3D Perlin noise, we generated a gentle tidal system for a demo planet. Coincidentally, this might be the one instance where having planets be spheres actually made things easier for us than if it was a large flat plane.

At this scale, the waves appear to be tidal in nature, but we're optimistic about increasing the resolution of the sphere to achieve better wave-shapes when seen up close, like you will when you're a character standing on the shore of an alien beach. Also of interest, the number of bones is less than the number of vertices on the sphere, by one level of subdivision, and the wave forms come naturally from the automatic weight of the bone applied to the mesh.

Skinny has taken to 'fixing' up Hyperion Station, which is a monumental task. He has been removing duplicate parts, fixing z-fighting, and fixing up the small details that somehow got overlooked the first time they got built. Making billboards brighter and more readable...

...Fixing particles that clipped through the edges of models when they weren't supposed to...

...Unaligned unions that moved out of place without permission...

...and small building errors no one would ever notice.

And to wrap it all up, he set Hyperion up for Future lighting, to make the most of some of the coolest aesthetic features we have access to.

The rest of the team collaborated this week on the Criminal Hideout, where the kingpin of Hyperion Station holds his court. This dark and dingy bar is an ominous place that those who are good and law-abiding should hope to never see. Kitted out with a bar of its own, holopool table, armory, kingpin's office, and audience room, this hideout has everything the Hyperion Sect needs to wrest control over the Station.

And for the best part, the holopool table is fully functional. You just have to make up your own set of rules for it.

We hope all the Americans in our community had a pleasant holiday, and Canadians too. And hopefully you still have all of your fingers.

Each week we compile a Q&A section here whenever there are any new questions posted on the RoVerse Community group wall or in the Community Discord Server. Be sure to join if you have any questions about RoVerse:

ROBLOX Group: https://www.roblox.com/My/Groups.aspx?gid=2948290
Discord server: https://discord.gg/npxBGwJ

No questions this week - hit us up in #dev_questions if there's anything you'd like to know.

---

You can support us by joining our Community Group or Discord server! So far, the community has been absolutely amazing, supportive, and very friendly. We are very appreciative of all the support you guys show us!

If you want to catch any of our developers streaming, you can always follow our official Twitch channel here!

Remember, we are always looking for new, talented builders, scripters and artists! If you’d like to help us you can always get in touch with us through RoVerse_Official on the ROBLOX website, or by contacting an Administrator in the community Discord! Don’t worry, we don’t bite!