Community Update 29

When it comes to iterative game development, a 'paint-over' is a powerful tool that allows artists to take what the game already has and add nuance and detail. The concept artist will take a scene from the game, dip their pen in special pixel ink, and turn it into a target for the developers to aim for. It's something we've done for Rust to gauge what weathering will look like across an entire scene without having to change all the in-game assets. Fan 'residek' has a different approach, creating scenes that are as much art as they are potential game concepts for the community to coo over. The 'Volcano Event' concept above popped up on Reddit and received a storm of upvotes. You can see why, really: who wouldn't want to see that in the game? As if to show off, residek also shared a couple more images. The first of these is my favourite of the bunch: it's a paint-over of a screenshot from the last DevBlog, and it's absolutely gorgeous. This one is work in progress, but I'm going to name it "Tractor". I don't know why, but it's just a name that speaks to me. Mmmm, nebular.

Sticking with celestial magnificence--and also reddit--my absolute favourite discussion about Rust's background was kicked off by this thread about an eclipse, specifically this image. The size of the sun got redditor RT-Pickred thinking:

Whats interesting is due to how small the moon is in this picture we can theorictly predict how far rust in to the future using the calculations of how far the moon is fron earth now, the size of it in front of the sun and how far it travels away from the earth. I'm not good with math so if anyone wants to try it out go for it.

Hugo0o0's response thread "Rust is set 10 billion years into the future! Mathematical evidence proves this," claims:

We can see how big the moon relatively to the sun is. It is in front of it, but there is no full eclipse, like nowadays. That means the moon is farther away. By how much? Radius is < 0,5 of what it is today. We can use geometry to then calculate the distance increase, which coincidentally is exactly double assuming the radius r2 is 0,5 r1. [ tan(a) = /r/2d1[3] = /r/d2[4] => d2= 2d1] Now, since the moon must have then distanced itself by 384 400km,and it distances itself at a rate of 3,8cm a year, that is 38440000000/3,8=10115789473.7, or 10 billion years.

Which is impressive mathematics--though I am incapable of understanding or critiquing it--but avoids answering questions about why there's water and people still on Earth in that timescale. We're doomed to be scoured from the planet way before then. Of course, it might also suggest Rust isn't set on Earth, but if that were the case then why does it have beans? Hmm?

Redditor mucsdnop did something so simple, but so satisfying, that I'm amazed I didn't know it could be done. He discovered how to make fireworks. All it takes is a lot of campfires, some wood, some C4, and probably an empty server. I tried to do the same thing and ended up having to fight off so many people that it made me very sad. Just like Katy Perry. I tried it with lanterns, but it's not nearly as cool looking.

Figuring out how to represent maps is a full-time business, it seems. We've gone from people leaping into the air and stitching together screenshots to systems that can now take the map seed of a Rust server and generate a top-down view. I actually thought PlayRustHQ's generator was all we needed, but now I'm not so sure. We now have a 3D map you can see in the browser. bgzee posted his pet project in the playrustpublic subreddit, using the server's map to show off the rotatable map. Like all good plug-ins, it started by accident.

I had been working on a plugin to collect all sorts of in-game stats when I stumbled onto the terrain metadata and then things got a little out of hand...

There's promises of more functionality to come, but it's an impressive start.

Adam Thompson's pet project Wool, a Rust app that runs on iOS and creates an AI-filled server simulation, is ticking along nicely. I covered his work at the start of the year, and back then he wasn't entirely sure if he was going to release his work to the public, but he's finally packaged the app up and has it running on iOS 8. If you want to run an abstract of a Rust server, he'll let you know when it's properly live on his site. I am sadly on Android.

Think you're working on something awesome? Tell me all about it. Right now I'm particularly interested to know if where you come from influences your building style. Let me know. There's a dedicated forum post, or you can fish for upvotes in the Subreddit. I also shuffle around the the Steam Community, so feel free to show me to things from there. You can follow and respond to Rust on Twitter, and I'm on there as well. We also have a dedicated site for suggestions and bug reporting. I can't respond to everything, but I read every comment and take it all in.