Planetside Screenshots

I realize that this post is going to cause some Web-Wiplash, but I think that is ok. For years I have held onto some old Planetside screenshots that I wanted to post online some day. After scouring an old hard drive yesterday these are the ones I came up with. Still, I know I am missing many of the screenshots I really wanted to keep. Especially ones from when the game was very early in development.

I designed the entire client side game engine myself and I had a lot of fun during the development process. One of my regrets is that, in many respects, the final game did not look nearly as visually impressive as it did at certain points during development. There were a number of reasons for this. One was from a technology stand point. Most developers of an MMO game engine might assume it would be reasonable to stream data in as a player moved around the environment. That was certainly my original design. However, once the game got into heavy beta testing there was a strong push to get everything pre-loaded ahead of time to avoid and and all possible hitches or stalls during game play. While I agree this may well have improved the game experience it came at the expense of an awful lot of beautiful artwork that I wanted to keep in the game.

Another reason the final game looks a lot different than these screenshots is because, in general, these screenshots represent my own personal artistic vision for the game. Especially in terms of how the terrain, trees, and grass was going to look like. Later on, others took over the visual look and feel of these elements and I was somewhat frustrated that my own vision wasn't fully realized.

Many of these screenshots are from early versions of the engine; especially from times when I was doing a lot of work on the terrain engine.

If I ever find any of those really ancient screenshots, some from when the engine had only been in development a few months, I will go ahead and post them too.



Here is a screenshot from one of the very earliest versions of the Planetside engine.


Here is a screenshot from one of the very earliest versions of the Planetside engine.


Here is a screenshot from our first playable version of the game.


Here is a screenshot from our first playable version of the game. I was really bummed out when this extremely hip looking purple building was removed from the game. It was a lot of fun running around inside killing people.


Here is a screenshot that shows some of the creatures that were going to go into the game. I wrote the entire AI pathing system for it.


Another screenshot with a creature near the player.


A screenshot of my Planetside terrain engine when it was nearing completion. This terrain is based on real-world data taken from the USGS site.


A screenshot of my Planetside terrain engine when it was nearing completion. This terrain is based on real-world data taken from the USGS site. Note the size of the trees relative to everything else. This is how I wanted the terrain to look inside the game; based on the richness of real-world data and represented roughly to scale.


A screenshot of my Planetside terrain engine when it was nearing completion. This terrain is based on real-world data taken from the USGS site. Note the sublte shading between the land and the water.


Here is a really cool Planetside screenshot that I took when I had the character shooting the beamer weapon directly into the ground at the camera location. The blowback from all of the energy bolts caused the warp gate to light up.



The following screenshots were taking from the version of Planetside that was shown at E3 in 2003. In my personal opinion this is about as visually appealing as the game ever got. Afterwards the resolution of the textures and the quantity and quality of the procedural grass was cut way back. This was all in an effort to increase frame rate and reduce hitches as new content would be swapped in and out on demand. Of course, with the video cards of today, this kind of load wouldn't even begin to stress it.


Here are some Planetside screenshots from the first time I got projected shadows working.


Here are some Planetside screenshots from the first time I got projected shadows working.


Here are some Planetside screenshots from the first time I got projected shadows working.


This screenshot is from a fairly early version of the Planetside engine. You can tell because of the subtle shading of the trees and the rich detail in the terrain.


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Here is a top-down view of a synthesized terrain texture for the Planetside terrain engine.




Another screenshot demonstrating real-time shadows on vehicles in Planetside.


Another screenshot from an extremely early version of the Planetside game engine. Click to see the full resolution image and take a note of the detailed highway underneath the bridge. The geometry for the highway was algorithmically generated based on spline curves and then a CSG operation was performed against the terrain to stitch it into the heightmap.


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003



Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another screenshot demonstrating the Planetside terrain engine.


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


A screenshot demonstrating an early version of the Planetside engine once the synthesized grass system was first integrated.


A screenshot demonstrating an early version of the Planetside engine once the synthesized grass system was first integrated.


A screenshot demonstrating an early version of the Planetside engine once the synthesized grass system was first integrated.


A screenshot demonstrating an early version of the Planetside engine once the synthesized grass system was first integrated.


A screenshot demonstrating an early version of the Planetside engine once the synthesized grass system was first integrated.


A screenshot demonstrating an early version of the Planetside engine once the synthesized grass system was first integrated.


A screenshot demonstrating an early version of the Planetside engine once the synthesized grass system was first integrated.


A screenshot demonstrating an early version of the Planetside engine once the synthesized grass system was first integrated.


A screenshot demonstrating an early version of the Planetside engine once the synthesized grass system was first integrated.


A screenshot demonstrating an early version of the Planetside engine once the synthesized grass system was first integrated.


A screenshot demonstrating an early version of the Planetside engine once the synthesized grass system was first integrated.


A screenshot demonstrating an early version of the Planetside engine once the synthesized grass system was first integrated.


A screenshot demonstrating an early version of the Planetside engine once the synthesized grass system was first integrated.


A screenshot demonstrating an early version of the Planetside engine once the synthesized grass system was first integrated.


A screenshot demonstrating an early version of the Planetside engine once the synthesized grass system was first integrated.


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


A screenshot from the earliest playable version of the Planetside engine.


I took this screenshot when I had first implemented the Planetside decal system. At first I was expecting this to look like blood but, as you can see, the scale was a little off. Instead it looked like I was spraying the room with buckets of red paint!


I took this screenshot when I had first implemented the Planetside decal system. At first I was expecting this to look like blood but, as you can see, the scale was a little off. Instead it looked like I was spraying the room with buckets of red paint!


An image created by Curtis Cannell for a magazine cover promoting Planetside


A top-down view of one of the heavily eroded early test terrains I created for the Planetside terrain engine.


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003


Another Planetside screenshot from E3 2003

A composite image showing some of the various high resolution images from the Planetside terrain engine.


A composite showing different styles of terrain visualization. Some images show the wireframe version next to the graphics image. The trick that made the terrain look so good is that the surface texture was synthesized at very high resolution with high quality texturing, shadows, and lighting. The terrain textures could be marbled based on slope and other parameters. Meanwhile the actual geometry was relatively low resolution based on the results of a right triangular irregular network (RTIN). To retain low frequency details the error heuristic adapted based on local frequency samples across the raw heightfield data.

If I were to do this again I would produce a texture that contained normals and also a shadow value that would allow me to move the shadows and lighting across the texture in real-time.