Solar System assignment MSU
SOLAR SYSTEM V1.1 by Josep B. Martinez
I strongly recommend to play around with the cameras and speeds for a relaxing experience.
Due to lack of programming skills performance might not be good.
CONTROLS:
SPEED CONTROLS
- Press '1' to '4' to change the simulation speed ( Default is '2' )
- Press '0' to stop the movement
CAMERA CONTROLS
- Press 'c' to switch cameras ( there are 6 )
- 6th has free movement (WASD + Shift + mouse controls )
press "ESC" to exit.
CONTENT
- Full Solar system inspired by the real one but no representative of real scales or speeds
- All current planets with their major moons and their orbits using a prefab called "orbit".
- Saturn and Uranus rings included!
- Asteroid belt using the spawner
- Several copies rotate at different speeds while spawning "rocks". The spawner has a new value to destroy itself after X seconds.
- Pluto´s different orbit attached to an special "fake rotated sun"
- Planet´s trails
- All current planets with their major moons and their orbits using a prefab called "orbit".
- 5 different speeds to chose to observer the system
- 6 cameras
- Camera number 5 moves automatically
- Camera 6 has free movement to explore the system at your convenience using WASD + shift + Mouse
- Music
- UI with the instructions on screen
- Minimap camera
- New or modified assets
- Materials
- Asteroid Material ( using Pluto´s texture ) , removed the Comet Material
- Orbit Material ( using a circle png from the internet ) , I had to play around with it in order to find the values to not makes it too distracting ( specially with Saturn Rings )
- Uranus and Saturn rings material with alpha.
- Prefabs
- Asteroid - I modified the comet prefab to become the Asteroid one. I created several copies because I needed different values for the rotation around the Sun to create the effect I wanted. I can probably be done by code by I don´t have the knowledge to do it quickly.
- Orbit - I needed to create a prefab with 2 planes to show the orbit from the 2 sides. Probably there is a better way using a shader but I didn't find it.
- Scripts
- Fly Camera - used to move the camera number 6 , parts of the code are from the internet.
- Input Manager - used to switch the speeds and cameras, parts of the code are from the internet.
- RotateAround - I modified the direction of the rotation to avoid the use of negatives in order to reflect the real rotation.
- Spawner - I added a destroy in the start method so it stops spawning after X seconds.
- Music
- New music from a friend, he gave it to me years ago.
CREDITS
- Created by Josep B. Martinez
- Music by Marti Ruiz
SOME PIECES OF CODE INSFROM:
- FLYCAM- https://gist.github.com/gunderson/d7f096bd07874f31671306318019d996
- INPUT MANAGER- https://answers.unity.com/questions/16146/changing-between-cameras.html
Download
Comments
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I played this game it is really fun!
Not a bad system. The desire for realism pleases. Do you think there is even a way to make a fun system with natural proportions in size?
Hi, thanks for your comment. My first approach was to make it realistic with natural proportions but soon I realized that it would not be fun. I has several issues:
Because of all of the above I designed it and tweaked to a point where I found a compromise to make it look "realistic" but at the same time "enjoyable".
Making it full realistic at scale is possible but the experience would be completely different., more focused to understand the scale of the solar system instead of having 1 easy quick look as it is now.
Thank you checking my solar system, very much appreciated!
Thank you for the detailed answer!
It feels like you have done a lot of serious work in this project. I came to similar conclusions. In the space theme, realism often interferes with entertainment. We have to make compromises.
But there is another doubt. It seems to me that there are some non-obvious smart solutions that could reduce the number of necessary compromises. These solutions are somewhere in the field of designing the player's interaction with the game. We just haven't invented them yet:)
I don't seem to be expressing my thought very well:)
It is a very different experience, but then you have Elite dangerous which is huge and still can be fun, niche but fun for certain persons ( I am one of those ).
I can´t understand your second sentence, could you pleas elaborate?
I will assume that the second sentence you call the following text:
But there is another doubt. It seems to me that there are some non-obvious smart solutions that could reduce the number of necessary compromises. These solutions are somewhere in the field of designing the player's interaction with the game. We just haven't invented them yet:)
Although I'm not sure about that.I'll try to explain with an example:
Let's say that we are designing a gameplay component of a game in which the player flies from the Sun to some point near the Earth, then flies around the earth and moves towards the Moon.
The simplest thing we can do is to move the camera at a constant speed along a given trajectory.
Here we meet the problem of boring proportions of reality. The first 99% of the way from the Sun to the Earth, the Earth will be just a pixel on the screen. It turns out that the player is forced to observe for one minute an almost static picture of approaching an incomprehensible blue pixel for the sake of half a second of beautiful movement relative to the 3D model of the earth. A similar situation will occur when flying to the moon.
We can increase the fun by changing the proportions between distances and sizes. But we can not change the proportions, but make the speed of the player's camera variable. The speed will be huge at the beginning of the journey, then it will gradually decrease. For example, we can use the formula:
(current velocity) = (current dist to target) * (const coef)
You can also use smarter formulas that provide a beautiful smooth deceleration.
The essence of the example is that the problem is solved by a small modification of the gameplay. I agree that the solution proposed in my example is not good in itself. Better solutions certainly exist. The question is, are there good enough solutions? That is, are there such solutions when we do not compromise with realism, but still get a funny result.
I agree with you about the target audience. Scientific correctness is relevant for a small niche.