Modding

We are starting to see some really cool mods for Subnautica, which is impressive, because we did not create Subnautica with mod support in mind. We do not have the manpower to improve mod support, but we can save you some time reverse engineering our files. So here is how our terrain data works under the hood. Definitely ping me on Twitter or post on our forums, if you managed to build something cool with this information!

Terrain Data

Subnautica uses an isosurface polygonization algorithm called Dual Contouring to create terrain surface meshes from voxel data. The voxel data is stored in batches, each covering a cubic volume measuring 160 m on a side. Each batch is subdivided …

Making creatures swim like fish is suprisingly difficult. It leads right into the territory of non-holonomic locomotion. Equations with lots of funny greek symbols.

The reason behind all this is that fish are much better at swimming forward than in any other direction. They also need some velocity to make a turn. In that sense fish are like higher dimensional cars. Now stir some bumping into each other and colliding with terrain into the mix. Add a pinch of non-uniform drag and two scoops of underwater currents. Now you got yourself a real problem at hand. Enjoy!…