Did you know planet Verdure has a moon? Its name is Palatine.
The strange similarities between our Earth in the Solar System and Verdure in the Almagest system continue even here. Palatine looks surprisingly close to our own Moon, with its barren surface, crater patterns, and quiet, airless horizon. Maybe that is just a coincidence. The universe is full of circular rocky bodies without an atmosphere, shaped by billions of years of impacts and erosion. But still… the resemblance is hard to ignore.
Seeing Verdure and Palatine together will add another layer of familiarity to the Almagest system, almost like looking at a distant echo of home. And at the same time, it opens up new possibilities for exploration, contracts, and storytelling.
Our Art team is constantly refining our voxel textures – here is the improvement of detailing on volcanic rock.
One of the smaller concepts we have been exploring is Cable Trim detailing for use in our blocks. Right now we are experimenting with different shapes, thicknesses, and attachment styles to see what fits best into the SE2 block family. The goal is to keep the trims modular, lightweight, and easy to combine so players can use them to build their own visual language on ships and stations.
We are also testing face rigging and lip sync for our future cutscenes. This is one of those areas where I feel that even small improvements make a huge difference (the whole uncanny valley thing). When a character blinks at the right moment, or their mouth shapes the words naturally, the whole scene suddenly feels alive. Right now we are experimenting with the basic rigs, checking how well the deformations hold up, and how to sync the mouth movements with spoken lines.
It is still early work, and everything looks a bit strange and raw at this stage, but that is exactly why it is so exciting. These first tests are where characters begin to emerge from static models into someone I can actually talk to.
Bit by bit, this will help us bring more personality and clarity into the SE2 story moments.
What can I show you that you haven’t seen before? Camera and capacitors!
Question to you: What will you build on the Palatine moon?
Full Blog Post: https://blog.marekrosa.org/2026/01/mareks-dev-diary-january-8-2026/
Please join us for Space Engineers 2 Developer Livestream!
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