DISCLAIMER: Code presented here is pseudocode that does NOT necessarily reflect production Limit Theory code.
A quick intro to me: I’m a programmer at Procedural Reality, an indie game studio creating an infinite, procedural space exploration game called Limit Theory. You can follow @LimitTheory on Twitter if you want to see where these cool screenshots come from. In addition, all of the code presented here (in non-pseudocode form, lol) will be available and moddable once Limit Theory is released. So if you like this tutorial, be sure to keep in touch. ;0
EVERYTHING in Limit Theory is procedurally generated- including all geometry, down to every vertex and triangle. My job is to create procedural space ships and space stations. I’ve been building up a library of basic shapes to be the building blocks of these ships and a library of warps to make these shapes ~interesting~.
Note: This tutorial assumes you have at least basic knowledge of 3D geometry and related math.
Today, I want to share with y’all an algorithm for stellation. For the purpose of this tutorial, stellation is the process of extruding a triangle to converge at a point, to create a tetrahedron- a pyramid made of 4 traingular faces. The word comes from similar roots to the word “star”, as when you apply it to a polyhedron, you end up with a star shape.
Linden Reid 