The Perfect Storm - Thunder & Lightning!

[DuskWolf]

This is amazing! This will make the game feel so real.

[lucadeltodecso]

fyi: the ‘epic’ render distance is 1024m (aka blocks), but when it comes to the lightning, it will be rendered no matter how far away it is

[Havok40k]

Interesting, I had no idea how powerful the graphic engine really is. I must not have spent long enough loading chunks when testing that

[james]

@KuroKuma

mean you can hear and see a thunderstorm independently from the render distance?

Yep. The simulation of entities is managed differently and has it’s own idea of LOD compared to the world geometry. For example, we simulate creatures up to a radius of 100m around the player. But we render the world up to a radius of 1km. Likewise, we simulate (and render) the storm entity no mater the distance from the player. It’s an entity that isn’t removed based on distance. Different entities fall into these different groups.

So it doesn’t matter how far away the storm is in a world, or how big the world is, we still present it to all the players.

@Havok40k

Finally, a game that breaks away from global weather effects! That’s EXTREMELY cool!

At the moment (I’m sure you’ve all noticed that) the weather is simply on a timer for each world. This was a quick placeholder to add some variety to the game. However we have plans to expose weather selection into the world builder, so the likelihood of weather patterns within biomes is user controllable. So it will definitely not be global.

@KuroKuma

… do you know exactly how far the maximum render distance is?

As above - global entities are independent of render distance. Current maximum render distance is 1024m.

@Havok40k

In a word, yes. I’m just working on the assumption that about 500 is the furthest you can effectively see. It seems to me that it would be unnecessary to play audio ques further away than the accompanying visuals, as they would not provide any useful information. Therefore, there is no point in audio rendering further than the visual que, and you can save a little bit of performance.

We have some other global entities that will make sound independent of your visual range. (But still taking into account your position for the sound timing / volume and distortion if you’re underground / underwater.

[KuroKuma]

That answers all my questions and you amazed me once more^^

[alexanderyou]

I noticed in the video that all the lightning stuck in a fairly small area, and nowhere else. Was this just part of the testing for storms, or a coincidence?

BTW oort weather best weather, maybe we can set up weather tracking stations to give advance warning for big storms

[james]

@alexanderyou

I noticed in the video that all the lightning stuck in a fairly small area, and nowhere else. Was this just part of the testing for storms, or a coincidence?

Not sure how @ian had the storm configured - but it can definitely move around the world.

@alexanderyou

BTW oort weather best weather, maybe we can set up weather tracking stations to give advance warning for big storms

Jeesh - just think how long the weather forecast would take for all the worlds.

[Havok40k]

Will weather systems react to the biomes they are over? Ex, will they avoid desert biomes? Build up over mountain ranges? Turn to snow in cold regions?

[james]

@Havok40k

Will weather systems react to the biomes they are over? Ex, will they avoid desert biomes? Build up over mountain ranges? Turn to snow in cold regions?

We’re unlikely to run a simulation. Rather respect the weather configuration provided via the WB. You may be able to mock up the features you describe.

[Squaremunch]

Yes, and we should also get the option to have our own weather forecasts and then the game could be oort weather simulator! (but on the real: I think that would only be a reasonable feature if the devs made it so that weather events are major game impacting things, and not just cosmetic effects.)

[james]

@Squaremunch

(but on the real: I think that would only be a reasonable feature if the devs made it so that weather events are major game impacting things, and not just cosmetic effects.)

This is absolutely the target. Obviously today the weather is purely visual, but the ambition and plan is to link all the weather to gameplay.

[drthmik]

Pretty sure what the guy is asking about is over-the-shoulder 3rd person like what you have in Zelda games, MMOs etc… in which case it is NOT in the game.
And while I can’t remember where I’m pretty sure a Dev has said that it won’t be, that Oort is meant to be played in 1st person

[Squaremunch]

May we have natural disasters like floods/ earthquakes / hurricanes / tornados / what have you?

[G-Sage]

I think hurricanes and tornadoes, would be the only thing that will look good in Oort. But I think it should be something a little different, fire tornado,or a block hurricane.

[dave]

Yup, I agree. This is the first pass sound. We have some bugs at the moment with the max volume (I want it much louder!). I like your example.

[HappyMaskSalesman]

ok @james we got a thunder storm but for the desserts will there be sand storms as well. and if so can you say how long tell that will be?

[Tahru]

I saw this first hand. It was really awesome. Not to diminish the awesome of other MMO weather implementations, but the sound and video extremes were above and beyond!

[G-Sage]

Where did you see this?

[Zouls]

He paid 5000 dollars to have monthly chats with the devs and as far as im aware he have also visited them, so either in the dev build or the actual studio.

[james]

@HappyMaskSalesman

ok @james we got a thunder storm but for the desserts will there be sand storms as well. and if so can you say how long tell that will be?

There is a list of weather effects coming. We’d definitely like to include something for deserts.