Star Citizen alpha 3.0 has been delayed from August to September, and Cloud Imperium Games Director Chris Roberts addressed the bad news in the latest episode of Around The Verse. The clip also offered some gameplay details on holograms too, but much of the technology is still experimental. Before talk of features, however, let’s focus on releases. Here’s a quote from Roberts himself regarding the status of 3.0.
“As many of you know, the team is very focused in completing our 3.0 update for the persistent universe. So 3.0 is a giant leap forward on what’s currently available in-game and, thanks to the dev teams hard work, the majority of 3.0’s new features are almost complete and we’ve shifted into the final phase of production process that focuses on feature and content integration, optimization and bug fixing.
“Now we’re also expecting many new players or people who have been busy playing something else to come back in and log in and play 3.0. So we wanted to make sure the user experience is really good so we decided to spend more time polishing and optimizing than we have in recent releases.”
With this production shift in mind, Roberts reminded his fans that “game development can be an exhilarating and frustrating and unpredictable process” that changes from moment to moment. These release delays have also forced the Around The Verse format to temporarily change to better suit the busy schedules of developers. In the future, a new segment called Burn Down will essentially be a rapid-fire version of the traditional studio update. Backers will receive an in-depth look at 3.0’s progress and the hurdles standing in the way of its eventual release.
Negativity aside, the topic of discussion quickly shifted toward a technology that CIG is referring to as Secondary Viewports. In layman’s terms, it's the mechanism through which players will see holograms and other similar briefings in the Star Citizen universe and Squadron 42.
To accomplish that goal in ways that have yet to be seen in competing space sims, the team is using an emerging methodology called Render To Texture. As its name implies, holograms are rendered as textures first and all other effects are added later. This allows visuals to better mesh with the designed scene, and it can ultimately increase gameplay performance because the entire sequence is only being rendered once.
One of the biggest advantages to rendering as a texture is the fact that everything is streamed live as it happens. In terms of gameplay, for example, that means holograms can dynamically reflect individual character customization options. On an even larger scale, transmissions can also show live snippets of what’s happening in the universe. While there’s still lots to be done in terms of optimization and layering of effects, the base concept is up and running. You can see it in the picture of Ben Mendelsohn’s Squadron 42 character above.
Star Citizen is available in alpha form for Kickstarter backers on PC.
What do you think of the alpha 3.0 release delay? Will all of Star Citizen’s advanced technologies ever be fully realized? Tell us in the comments section!
