3 ms·

I'm curious how gravity will work when tunneling through a planet.

jws 13y ago
I don't know how they plan to handle it. In a similar game I've worked on (unpublished) gravity is handled like our universe, but with a bias toward the three orthogonal axis. This leaves you feeling like a 2d world on the faces, but as you approach to edges you begin to lean into them until you are "standing on the peak of the roof" at the edge, continuing brings you upright on the next face. A coefficient governs the strength of the bias, which I adjusted to trade off the width of the "funny" zones and the gravity direction gradient. At the center of the planets, there is a singularity (which if you screw up the math can catapult you into space, game debugging has lots of fun to it) but is actually a non-issue because the strength of the gravity approaches zero, so the fact that it flips around in directions doesn't really matter, after you debug it.
- Crito 13y ago
  You could probably avoid bugs at the center of planets by simply having an small cube of unmineable material surrounding them (like minecraft's bedrock).
  - zamalek 13y ago
    Or a molten core: one idea I was messing around with for a boxel game I never found the time to make.
deletes 13y ago
My prediction,( the game comes out in two years :s, this will be forgotten ). ( assuming a cube ) The gravity works orthogonal to the side you are on( 6 sides ), no matter your position. There are 4 imaginary planes for every side. You need 3 point to get a plane in 3d space. Those points for the 4 planes are made from the center of the cube and 2 points of the side you are on( the planes are rotated 45 degrees relative to the sides ). So for one plane that would be center of the cube and top-left and top-right sides. For another that would be center and top-left and bottom-left, and so on. If you cross one plane the gravity changes 90 degrees, depending which one you crossed. There are interesting thing about this model. For instance; for larger distances, you don't fall in a straight line towards the planet, but in a sine wave like curve. Orbits will remain circular with inclination changes, so the square orbits in the video are not physically correct. --- Also, you will not be able to reach the center of the planet. At most you will be able to reach about 80% of depth, where the cube sides are still large enough to not constantly switch directions.

jws 13y ago

I don't know how they plan to handle it. In a similar game I've worked on (unpublished) gravity is handled like our universe, but with a bias toward the three orthogonal axis. This leaves you feeling like a 2d world on the faces, but as you approach to edges you begin to lean into them until you are "standing on the peak of the roof" at the edge, continuing brings you upright on the next face. A coefficient governs the strength of the bias, which I adjusted to trade off the width of the "funny" zones and the gravity direction gradient. At the center of the planets, there is a singularity (which if you screw up the math can catapult you into space, game debugging has lots of fun to it) but is actually a non-issue because the strength of the gravity approaches zero, so the fact that it flips around in directions doesn't really matter, after you debug it.

Crito 13y ago
You could probably avoid bugs at the center of planets by simply having an small cube of unmineable material surrounding them (like minecraft's bedrock).
- zamalek 13y ago
  Or a molten core: one idea I was messing around with for a boxel game I never found the time to make.

deletes 13y ago

My prediction,( the game comes out in two years :s, this will be forgotten ). ( assuming a cube ) The gravity works orthogonal to the side you are on( 6 sides ), no matter your position. There are 4 imaginary planes for every side. You need 3 point to get a plane in 3d space. Those points for the 4 planes are made from the center of the cube and 2 points of the side you are on( the planes are rotated 45 degrees relative to the sides ). So for one plane that would be center of the cube and top-left and top-right sides. For another that would be center and top-left and bottom-left, and so on. If you cross one plane the gravity changes 90 degrees, depending which one you crossed. There are interesting thing about this model. For instance; for larger distances, you don't fall in a straight line towards the planet, but in a sine wave like curve. Orbits will remain circular with inclination changes, so the square orbits in the video are not physically correct. --- Also, you will not be able to reach the center of the planet. At most you will be able to reach about 80% of depth, where the cube sides are still large enough to not constantly switch directions.