Weekly Update #74

Hey everyone it’s time for your weekly update. Unfortunately, last week Flavien was still caught up trying to fix some bugs with our new networking code. The issue revolves around a problem in motion interpolation that is causing jittering. For example if two ships are flying at the exact same velocity, meaning relative to each other there is no motion, they will perceive each other as jumping around slightly. This problem did not manifest itself in Flavien’s R&D tests so it’s proving to be quite tricky to figure out.

Pre-rendered image of the land base hangar building

On my end the implementation of colors and gradients in the path rendering has been completed. Insofar as the Alpha is concerned all R&D on path rendering is finished – though I still have some things such as stroking, post-processing, and arbitrary clipping that will likely need to be supported for final release. Path rendering has been fully integrated into the UI system and I’m currently working on building some additional low-level UI subsystems for styling before I start on text rendering.

A piece of station geometry in the editor

Not much new to mention on the art side as work continues on the land base, station materials, and the destroyer. Due to the unexpected amount of time it’s taking to resolve the last few remaining issues with the new networking code the next patch probably won’t be released until at least early September. As we’ve mentioned before the networking is critical for a good multiplayer experience so it’s something we’re taking as much time as is needed to get it right. As always we appreciate everyone’s patience and we’re working diligently to get the next patch out as soon as possible. That’s it for the last week, until next time!

Another in-editor piece of station geometry

21 Likes

Those station pieces do look nice.

1 Like

If this jittering is small enough to be only perceived as a minor annoyance, I would have suggested to fix it later.

Still, keep up the good work :slight_smile:

1 Like

Unfortunately it is definitely beyond the point of minor annoyance :stuck_out_tongue:

4 Likes

From what absolute speed dios the jiterring become noticable?

In the current available version it starts at several thausand m/s. Although that was kind of fake as the position wasn’t really correct.

I hope it’s just some weird bug in the system that would prevent such jittering altogether. Even if it is not I wish all the best to Flavien in birthing this, arguably, most important System.

3 Likes

i do agree

glad to hear specifics on the netcode progress. it’s probably the feature im most looking forward to right now :stuck_out_tongue:

4 Likes

We appreciate the work that goes into these updates. Anybody who’s tried to keep a blog or journal going will understand how much work it takes to keep publishing updates every week.

6 Likes

[quote=“Lomsor, post:7, topic:5676”]
From what absolute speed dios the jiterring become noticable?

In the current available version it starts at several thausand m/s. Although that was kind of fake as the position wasn’t really correct.[/quote]

It depends on the distance you’re viewing the ship at, but if you’re close to it ( ie it “fills” the whole screen ), then it can be pretty low, like 100 m/s. When the ship is only a hundred pixels big on screen it’s hard to notice at around 500 m/s. In the netcode experiment I made, there was no jittering even at 10 km/s. Unfortunately the “real” game code is an order of magnitude more complex so figuring it out takes a long time. I’m currently suspecting the order of operations being wrong ( some updates being done in the wrong order ).

15 Likes

Our program, who art in memory,
called by thy name;
thy netcode run;
thy function be done
as it was in the experiment.
Give us this day our daily spaceships
And forgive us our jittering,
as we forgive those who
jitter against us.
And lead us not into frustration;
but deliver us from bugs.
For thine is the algorithm,
the computation, and the solution,
looping forever and ever.
Return;

11 Likes

If I remember correctly, the jitter started after the interceptor was integrated.
I’ve been watching videos from last year and none of the shots have jitter, when we just had the bomber.

For me the jitter started after the interceptor patch and happens when I use match velocity in close proximity.

6 Likes

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWHrKRgl_ZQ/?taken-by=otirdip

2 Likes

Moo. :cow:

1 Like