Watch Star Citizen reveal procedurally generated planets
UPDATE: Second video demonstrates seamless space to surface transition.
UPDATE 3.20PM GMT: A second video has surfaced that shows Star Citizen creator Chris Roberts flying a spaceship from space down onto a planet.
ORIGINAL STORY 10AM GMT: Cloud Imperium Games last night announced procedurally generated planets for Star Citizen.
A video (embedded below) introduced and partially explained the feature with an in-engine, and apparently real-time demonstration of a planet scaling from a character's eye on the surface back to a round ball floating in space. "Seamless transition from space to ground level," it said.
This is achieved by procedurally generating parts of the planet on demand based on where the camera is viewing from - "since the planet could never fit in memory".
Procedurally generated planets were announced during the Star Citizen Holiday livestream. Cloud Imperium Games also shared a gallery of ships as seen during the broadcast (which is offline now).
Star Citizen recently passed the incredible $100m crowdfunding milestone and also launched into alpha 2.0. To join in, you'll need to buy a game package. A new and limited cheaper package has been offered that costs $36. This includes the full Star Citizen and adjoining Squadron 42 games as well as a spaceship, a hangar, some starting money and some ship insurance. There are 2071 (at the time of writing) units of that package left.