Reworking the microbe backgrounds

Graphics
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I see a possible solution to the background problem as follows.
First, you need to make several layers. The bottom most one will have the least detail and be more uniform.
The next layer will be the detail layer. For example, if we make an ocean biome, then the bottom layer is something dark blue, and the layer with details is all kinds of small objects, other organisms that just behave like a picture.
The third layer is playing layer. The player’s bacterium floats there, the game itself takes place there. Motion ripples can be made similar to how it was implemented in the game Spore. There’s a pretty simple special effect in the form of a wave. Also we can make bubbles here.

I will create a new scene and will do all sorts of developments there. Smaller results will be posted on Discord, larger ones can be posted here. Or any other convenient place.

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I created a new thread for the microbe background rework as it seems the graphics workflow thread was really about a different topic.

@Deus had a description about what could be done to make the backgrounds different(ly) here: Graphics Tasks/Work-Flow Discussion (the last part of the first post).

Edit: this thread is for this issue: Improve backgrounds · Issue #874 · Revolutionary-Games/Thrive · GitHub

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Apologies for the delayed response; I’ve been tremendously busy the past month or so!

A lot of what I said on the original post linked above by hh are pretty much relevant here. I guess the “ideal” several members in our community point to is concept art from Uniow that was made like three years ago.

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I think the footage that @kochiko shared on Discord a bit ago is pretty much approaching this vision. I will say one important thing to note is that we need to emphasize the fact that the scene is immensely microscopic, so we would probably want very “soft” and large instances of light more than we would want individual ripples and currents (water at the microscopic scale acts a bit more like a slush than liquid, which is why some bacteria appear to move so janky in videos).

Other than that, I think these backgrounds will be improved upon as we see more and are able to react to individual tweaks and progress. It’s good that we have a thread to track our discussions related to a graphics topic rather than just relying on Discord.

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Hello folks, as we approach the completition of the 0.7.0 release i was scrolling down some of the most hardened issues and to me this one stood out the most, Improve backgrounds · Issue #874 · Revolutionary-Games/Thrive · GitHub. As suggested by @Gamedungeon i’m reviving this topic to bring this to everyone’s attention, as i think that enhancing this aspect of the game could significatly improve the game’s visual appeal and be far more immersive too.

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After looking at Spore’s Cell Stage visuals, I’ve recently been experimenting with distortion shaders applied on Thrive’s backgrounds:

https://imgur.com/a/e3YNgIi
https://imgur.com/a/wJGBgQx

And I think they produce a great result.

I wanted to note a few things, both on the distortion, and for some additional effects we could look at - starting with notes on the distortion effect itself.

First, if such a feature was implemented, I think it would be ideal to have the option to vary distortion across patches. You can see in the tidepools, which already has some visual clarity problems, that clouds could be hard to distinguish during the day. And also, being able to alter distortion between patches can create the impression of faster flowing water in certain areas, which would be nice in patches such as the epipelagic.

Second, in some patches, it does seem clear in some areas of the parallax that it is bubbles being visually warped; we might want to disable some layers in patches with a lot of previously static bubbles.

Effects

Looking at the Cell Stage visuals in Spore, distortion is used with other things to create a nice, underwater impression.

  • There is blurring of elements which make it harder to understand exactly what is going on behind you, creating a sense of being miniscule. Besides in-game objects you can interact with being layered backwards, objects in the background are also large to the point of not being clear. For example, in the first few growth stages (2:00 in the video), which has the most apparent background in any stage, even the crystal structures of the asteroid are pretty blurred.
  • Waves appear to be largely conveyed via particles - if there are currents, they are conveyed by numerous short-lived particles floating in the same direction rather than a traditional, lineated wave (look around 8:00 in the video.)
  • Alongside the main background distortion, some smaller scale distortion is applied behind Spore cells to convey the fact that these foreground elements are also in a fluid. This is more obvious around 2:00.

Now for a of where we should try to diverge from Spore’s background. Spore uses things like bubbles a lot. Though they are visually appealing, bubbles technically aren’t very feasible at extremely microscopic scales because of surface tension. If that is an area where we are willing to alter realism a bit for the sake of aesthetics, I’m not entirely against it - but it just goes to show that bubbles aren’t necessary.

Shifting Light Gradients

One other thing which we can include that could spruce up the backgrounds. In Spore, there appears to be fluctuations of light in the background which are largely random (visual around 6:40 in the video). I wonder if we can apply a noise texture and have denser areas of the noise slightly lighten the background. Though the noise itself should be rough enough to result in pretty large areas of the background being lightened at once. That is something I can try to do, but I don’t think I’d make it look good.

Long story short: there are ways to spruce up visuals that don’t necessarily include light sources that constantly shift, such as is seen in Uniow’s concept post.

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