Announcing 102: Really beautiful voxels, coming soon

News Announcements
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Today we’re sharing what will be in release 102, and that it’s coming soon!

We’ve previously mentioned we’re working on multiple updates, not just the first crafting release. The fruit of that parallel development is… ripening. Ripening into a delicious, juicy update that turns our beautiful voxels into really beautiful voxels.

The next release of Oort Online (102) will focus on a complete overhaul of (almost) every texture in the game.

t1.jpg1920×1080 488 KB

These aren’t just standard, boring textures though. We wanted our voxels to look unique and exceptional, unlike any other voxel game. And it was no small task…

Our art lead, Jason, painstakingly created the new textures at a very high resolution – over 4x the pixel density of the current textures. Each block is created as a highly detailed 3D surface, which is then baked into up to six separate textures per block: colour (shape/tone), normal (3D detail), specular (highlights/shininess), emissive (glow), alpha (transparency,) environment (reflection effect). In addition to that, blocks can also have another layer of texture called a decal that can also have those individual effect textures.

On top of these techniques, blocks also now have a new advanced texture blending technique. Grass blends and creeps onto stone, sand scatters over timber. As well as that, we have a shaded blend that makes the blocks look solidly embedded into the environment.

That’s a lot of textures! For example: the new tree trunk block has:

  • Colour - 4 side textures, 1 top texture, 1 decal
  • Normal - 4 side textures, 1 top texture, 1 decal
  • Specular - 4 side textures, 1 top texture, 1 decal
  • In total, thats’s 18 individual textures just for the tree trunk block alone.

The new stone block has:

  • Colour - 4 side textures, 1 top texture
  • Normal - 4 side textures, 1 top texture
  • Specular - 4 side textures, 1 top texture
  • Total: 15 individual textures

We don’t think anyone has attempted create anything quite as beautiful, or quite as crazy (!), as these textures in a voxel game before. As you can probably tell, we’re really proud of them. We can’t wait to show them to you in-game… very soon.

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whats 3d detail? Is it bump mapping or something else? please enlighten me @ben

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Sounds awesome!
Let the hype train begin ~

And about the reflection effect - is it just for water or will we have mirrors? will metal blocks have a reflection effect? :o

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Bump mapping, pretty much (technically it’s normal mapping). Basically, blocks react to the light around them in an really immersive way, picking up touch highlights, shadowing themselves realistically based on the angle of the sun, all that.

Every bit of light information in the current textures is essentially fake. It’s always coming from a 90 degree angle, as the sun moves they don’t change. It makes the surfaces of the blocks look totally flat. The new textures look weighty, solid and much higher resolution :slight_smile:

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And about the reflection effect - is it just for water or will we have mirrors? will metal blocks have a reflection effect? :o

It’s a reflection effect. You won’t see your characters face, but it feels and responds as a reflective object does. It looks great, 99% of the effect but without the actual reflection (which is quite complicated and expensive to do, hence why we only have it on really large bodies of water at the moment).

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Awesome! I’m so looking forward to this :wink:
you guys are the best!

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Remember to take new pictures for steam when it comes out :slight_smile:

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uh uh uh uh… i want to take pictures of the new blocks for the steam page, atleast one XD

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Urgh, don’t remind me :wink: maybe we’ll employ some help…

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Awesome. Can’t wait to check it out and see how it looks with my GTX 970 :stuck_out_tongue:

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Will I get banned if I respond with this gif to such posts as this one?

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Awesome! I’m really looking forward to seeing this. And here I thought nothing could draw my interest away from Terreria…

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Even without pictures I’m still excited for this :smiley:

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points at self

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Hope I would not lag… once I can play Oort Online :open_mouth:

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Awesome work guys. i like it

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All Aboard!!!

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http://boards.420chan.org/po/src/1399522070126.gif

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We got to get this hype train up to 88 mph!!!

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