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The tech underpinning Star Citizen looks mighty impressive in new trailerLook at that space man sweat
Look at that space man sweat
Image credit:Roberts Space Industries
Image credit:Roberts Space Industries
There’s a quote about early computer animation, which I can’t track down now, that before Pixar came along everyone was using it to swoop cameras through outerspace and up a gnat’s ass. Or perhaps it was a fly’s butt?
I’m glad Pixar used computer animation to tell great stories, but in watching the 24-minute trailer for the technology underpinningStar Citizen, I have come to realise: swooping the camera through outerspace and up to a man’s sweaty brow, at least, is actually pretty cool, too.
Here’s the video:
The Future of Gaming: StarEngine (4K)I’m talking Pixar, but that conducter introduction is right out of Disney’s Fantasia.Watch on YouTube
The Future of Gaming: StarEngine (4K)
The StarEngine is the tech that Star Citizen andSquadron 42are being being built within. The trailer above is captured “in engine as one continuous shot without loading screens.” In real-time? It doesn’t say, but what follows is a lot of swooping: from deep space to snow planet surfaces, city interiors to multi-crew interactable spaceships, subterranean mining operations to floating cloud cities.
Recent games have alsonotdone the seamless transition from space to planetary surface, so you can potentially read all of this as a big middle finger flashed towardsStarfield.
Of course, thoughts of Starfield just bring me back to the original meaning of that half-remembered Pixar quote. To my mind, Bethesda struggled to fill all their space with interesting stories. I like watching the video above, but I remain skeptical that Roberts Space Industries can fill their large, visually impressive, seamlessly streamed galaxy with interesting stories or activities.
