Hi Truckers!
As we continue to work hard on our interstellar haulage game we want to make sure we take a little bit of time each month to share some behind the scenes information with the community and give insight into Star Trucker’s production.
This month we thought it might be nice to dig up some old files and footage to show you just how far our big rig has come since the initial days of the project…
Boxed Beginnings
We began messing about with Star Trucker in our spare time way back in 2020. Behold the amazing visual fidelity of the first ever star truck!
For those interested each square block is 1m x 1m. So even at this early stage we knew the truck would be **massive!
During this early phase we had two main goals. Firstly we wanted to prototype controlling a truck with 6DoF. Secondly we wanted to test the feasibility of being able to explore a truck while it spins out of control in space.
This ended up being a fairly complex problem that took multiple attempts to solve. The solution we settled on involves treating the inside of the truck as a totally separate 'physics world' and then using that info to work out the relative positions of objects inside the truck as it flies and spins in space.
Taking Shape
In early 2021 we commissioned the first piece of concept art for the game from our good friend and industry veteran Martin Johnson.
This concept eventually became the basis for our truck greybox and set the tone and style for all things Star Trucker in the years to come!
During this period a lot of time was spent working out scales and the positions of key elements as we moved towards a prototype worthy of pitching. In fact you can see a quick snippet of this below…
The Truck Today
Skipping ahead a couple years brings us to today! As the project progressed we layered in details and worked hard on shaders that give us the flexibility to layer in paint, grime and damage.
Refinements are still ongoing but we’re really proud of how the star truck has evolved since our first block-out and we look forward to sharing more about the truck systems and customisations in the future.
That’s all for now. Next month we’ll dive a little into the job economy and galaxy design so be sure to follow and check back for the latest Star Trucker news.
--Monster Dave
** For reference the current truck is around 27m x 16m x 15m. That makes our truck around 4 stories tall. That’s taller than 2 giraffes stacked on top of each other!?
