Special effects are pretty important in video games and especially in a sci-fi world of undeveloped technology. The folks at Star Citizen seem to have this on their mind with this week’s Inside Star Citizen report, which provided a closer look at an improvement to the SFX engine that will help the team render convincing particle tricks in-game.
The way the whole things works is pretty technical, as one would expect, but the new particle system will take more geometry into account when colliding into things for a more believable look to effects. The examples given in the demonstration allowed what I consider to be a ghost very convincingly peeing on a spaceship, as well as a pretty cool effect of a plasma bolt shot bouncing off of a hallway’s walls and degrading into smaller blobs of material.
The video also gave a quick peek at the sound team’s visit to a chemistry lab to record the neat noises made from various chemical reactions and a more dramatic fly-through look at the Banu Defender’s interior. All of that can be found in the embed below.
