This is a little more unit-specific, so I'll break it down into Fighters/Corvettes, Frigates and Capital Ships.īecause Fighters are so small, they don't require such nuanced damage modeling, but we wanted to make sure that a player can see what condition they are in regardless of distance. As you can imagine, this system can be resource intensive so we prioritize it on larger units and Capital ships, where the effects are most noticeable and striking.īattle ScarsLet's switch gears and talk about ship damage. What's even cooler is that we can gradually transition damage as it increases in severity, going from surface scars to devastating hull breaches - all while showcasing secondary hot spots and burn marks. Now, each ship has its own dynamic damage texture, which will procedurally add damage to the surface of the ship. The advantages of this Splat Damage model don't stop there. Each combat encounter will leave scars that, over time, tell the story of that particular ship. We did this because we wanted the wounds sustained by your fleet to persist from mission to mission, and to give you "at a glance" information if a specific ship has been through combat before. (This early prototype of Splat Damage warps the hull with dynamically-generated impact points.) A decal gives you the mere impression of damage, but with Splat Damage you seehow an incoming salvo rips through the armor of your precious Destroyer. With Splat Damage, we're not slapping impact stickers on your ship but creating dynamic impact points that directly alter the surface geometry and properties of the hull in the exact area hit by a specific weapon type. Thanks to the efforts of our Tech Artist, Francisco Múrias, and Engineer Viktor Solbay (not to mention plenty of other team members), we have developed a whole new solution for displaying damage on ships. But we saw an opportunity to do so much more. Decals were used in the previous installments of Homeworld and always did a darn good job of showing damage.
It's a simple effect, but it gives you a basic idea of who shot your ship and with what type of weapon. You can think of them like a sticker you slap onto the surface of an object. In the above example, you can see how each weapon leaves a unique impact "decal".
(Here we see how different weapon types can create unique impact craters on ship hulls.) I'm sure you can already imagine how each damage type would affect a ship hull, but we wanted to go further and add to the realism with realistic lighting and fluid-based simulations. The Homeworld 3 Design Team needed us to produce four distinct damage types (Kinetic, High Explosive, Energy, and Ion) - each with their own visual treatment and effects on units. The prospect of reliving that experience even if I may be a lot more time limited (!) has massive appeal.Brace for ImpactLet's start with weapons. Time acceleration wouldn’t appear until the sequel but I was kept mesmerised by the almost balletic display of fighters, frigates, destroyers and carriers taking on their enemies and so the hours passed away faster than I would realise. A couple of missions literally kept me going for over hours non-stop as I wanted to get my fleet safely through and stocked up on resources. Though I got my fair share of RTS action previously with Command & Conquer it was Homeworld that really grabbed my attention and it chewed through an insane amount of my time when it was first released. Paul Ruskay will also return to compose for the game which is fantastic news because the music and audio from Homeworld has always been a major factor in setting the right tone for the series. The CEO of Blackbird, Rob Cunningham, was the art director of the original games while studio concept director Aaron Kambeitz was the lead artist so you know they’ll nail the look of the new game easily. With so many of the team working on it being involved in the past games (including Deserts of Kharak and the Remastered Collection) there is no disputing the pedigree is as good as you’re going to get and this is a great way to celebrate 20 years since the release of that first game.
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