- Mesh Around and Find Out - 14 July 2026
Creating believable terrain is one thing, but if we're going to skim through valleys at hundreds of knots, we also need something solid to crash into.The terrain in Supersonic Fight is generated procedurally, which means I cannot simply model collision meshes by hand. Instead, they have to be created using the same process that builds the visible terrain.The process starts on the GPU. The terrain is rendered exactly as normal, allowing all of the procedural height modifications and terrain layering to happen, but rather than drawing the result to the screen, the data is written into a texture. That texture is then sent back to the CPU, where a mesh can be reconstructed and simplified before being handed over to the physics system.It's not the most glamorous system in the game, but it's absolutely essential.The images below show the process:1. Raw height data combined with satellite imag…
- Moving Mountains - 26 June 2026
I am back on terrain! It feels like an eternity since I last worked on it.The good thing is that, while I was away from the terrain, I had plenty of time to think about how I wanted to approach it. Last week, I modelled the entire Earth. You know...like you do. That gives me my low-resolution, distant scenery.Next comes the "middle distance": the scenery that exists outside the playable area but that the player could potentially fly to. As I've mentioned before, I never wanted to just slap a satellite image onto a mesh and leave it at that. I wanted something more.There's also the issue of triangles. You could create a giant mesh, but where do you put the detail? How far does it need to extend before the player starts noticing that it's low resolution?The solution? Don't have a fixed mesh at all. Instead, use a series of ever-increasing grids that move with the camera. This technique is…
- The Missing Piece of the Sky - 15 May 2026
This week, I added atmospheric fogging to Supersonic Fight.This simulates how tiny particles in the atmosphere scatter and absorb sunlight, creating a sky that feels far more believable and much closer to what you actually see from the cockpit at 30,000 feet.First, here is the scene without atmospheric fogging:And here is the same scene with the new system enabled:To put the result to the test, I compared my screenshot to real-world photography taken at 30,000 feet:(Source: Magdalene Teh, Shutterstock)I am genuinely thrilled with how closely the in-game result matches the real thing.Next up: crepuscular rays...better known as God Rays.If you would like to follow the development of Supersonic Fight more closely, you can join the Discord or subscribe to my free Substack newsletter for behind-the-scenes updates, screenshots, and the occasional biscuit-fuelled development story.Discord: htt…
- Reflections at 100km - 24 April 2026
One of the key challenges in Supersonic Fight is making the world feel believable.Techniques like shadows, ambient occlusion, and reflections are essential for grounding everything in reality. This week, I’ve been focusing on how the ocean reflects the sky.At low altitude, a simple cubemap (a panoramic sky texture centered on the camera) can work well. However, the game isn’t limited to low-level flight — you might be flying at altitudes up to 85,000 feet (26km). At those heights, simpler techniques start to break down.To explore this, I compared several approaches.Each column in the image below represents a different altitude (1m, 15km, 26km, 100km), and each row shows a different technique:Cubemap centered on the cameraCubemap locked to sea levelPlanar reflectionsRay traced reflections(Please note: atmospheric fog is not yet applied here. This is effectively a “clear air” comparison t…
- Developer Q&A Video - 6 March 2026
Last night I hosted another live AMA and answered questions from the community.Somehow I managed to talk for 90 minutes, but don’t worry, I’ve edited it down to a 24-minute highlight video.Here it is:If you’d like to ask questions for the next AMA, feel free to post them here or join the Discord: https://discord.gg/2AQMA9WvgdYou can also find recordings of the previous AMA sessions there.Rich
- Supersonic Fight - Live AMA - 21 February 2026
The next Supersonic Fight AMA is now scheduled:📅 March 5th 🕗 20:00 GMT 📍 Live on DiscordThis is your chance to ask anything about the game, from gameplay philosophy to deep avionics systems.We’ll be discussing topics like:Which came first, story or gameplay?Aircraft systems, targeting pods, and avionicsVR support and performance tech (DLSS, ray tracing, etc.)Carrier ops, refueling, ATCProgression systems and unlock pathsGround combat and mission scaleThe discussion will also cover the direction of the game, the technical challenges involved, and the thinking behind key design decisions.Join the Discord server here: https://discord.gg/2AQMA9WvgdSee you in the briefing room.Rich
- Dev Blog - 13 Feb 2026 - 14 February 2026
This week I’ve been focusing on terrain optimisation - making it look dramatically better without increasing performance cost.For Supersonic Fight, terrain matters. You’ll be flying low over mountains, coastlines, cities, and forests. I want it to hold up at 30,000 feet and 30 feet.Smarter Texture SystemModern materials use Physically Based Rendering (PBR), that means surfaces react to light realistically - metal looks metallic, snow scatters light properly, rock feels solid.Normally, that requires five or six different textures per material. That’s a lot of VRAM!So instead, I packed all that data into just two textures. The result:One third of the memory usage ✔Fewer texture lookups ✔Same visual quality ✔Better performance ✔More realism. Less cost.Adding Real Depth (Without More Triangles)To really sell the terrain up close, I implemented Parallax Occlusion Mapping (POM).Rather than ad…
- Dev Blog - 17 Jan 2026 - 17 January 2026
All I wanted to do was add a Pause Menu. That was it.I needed somewhere to put a few debug options so I could toggle things like the sky, clouds, terrain, and water on and off. The goal was simple: work out what was having the biggest impact on frame rate when running on the Steam Deck.I could have thrown together a very basic pause screen with a few plain buttons. But I realised this was a good opportunity to properly think about the look and feel of Supersonic Fight’s user interface, starting with the Pause Menu.I spent some time playing other games and paying attention to what I liked and didn’t like. I also searched Reddit for pause menus that people love...and ones they hate. One thing came up again and again: it needs to be fast. No clutter. No flashy animations. Just functional:Next, I needed a dialog to actually display those debug options. Once again, I went digging through my…
- Steam Deck Compatibility - 5 December 2025
Supersonic Fight will be continuously tested and played on the Steam Deck throughout development.I didn’t expect to love my Steam Deck as much as I do. I end up playing on it almost every night! Because of that, it probably comes as no surprise that I’m making sure Supersonic Fight plays great on the Deck.As development progresses, I’ll share updates on performance, controls, and any Deck-specific improvements. If you’re a Steam Deck player, I’d love to hear what matters most to you!Rich
- Dev Blog - 29 Nov 2025 - 29 November 2025
After the excitement that was the third AMA, my work on the terrain system has continued. My focus has been how my terrain provides collision information to the physics system. (Unity uses nVidia's PhysX under-the-hood.)If I were using Unity's built-in terrain system, it would provide PhysX with the height map and PhysX does the rest. Unfortunately, Unity does not allow you to directly access PhysX so I cannot just pass my height map to it. That gave me two options: Create a static collision mesh from my terrainDitch Unity and write my own engine giving me full access to PhysXI cannot tell you just how seriously I considered option 2! However, the advantages that Unity offers are simply too big to ditch. Therefore, option 1 was selected! To create a collision mesh from my terrain, I start with my terrain tile, create a regular grid and then run a mesh simplification algorithm to reduce…
- Developer Q&A Video - 21 November 2025
Greetings pilots!As promised, for those who were unable to join me live for the Developer Q&A, here is a recording of my answers:If you would like to ask questions for the next AMA then feel free to ask them here or join the Discord (Discord Link) where you can also view the previous two AMA videos.Thanks to everyone that joined me on the night!Rich
- Dev Blog - 14 Nov 2025 - 14 November 2025
Greetings pilots!Over the past week, I've been revisiting my terrain tools. Since I originally wrote them, I've moved away from Unity's terrain system and now use my own custom solution. That meant a lot of the old code needed updating. Most of that is now done, and I've finally reached the fun part: testing that everything still works!To do that, I searched "Best canyon in the world" and one of the results was the Verdon Gorge in France. By entering the GPS coordinates and a few more parameters, with a single-click, my tools generated a 5x5 grid with each tile measuring 4km x 4km. The system automatically downloaded the terrain height, ocean floor depth, and satellite imagery. It then combines them and produces this:When flying around the level, I don't want the player to see the edge of the world. I want terrain stretching as far as the eye can see. To achieve that, I generate progres…
- Ask Me Anything - Developer Q&A - 13 November 2025
Whether you're a long-time fan of classic combat flight sims like F/A-18 Interceptor and F-15 Strike Eagle, or you've just discovered Supersonic Fight and want to know more, you're invited to join the conversation.I'll be hosting a live AMA (Ask Me Anything) on the Supersonic Fight Discord server on Thursday, November 20th at 8pm (GMT) - answering community questions, sharing behind-the-scenes details, and talking about what's next for the game.The community has already asked some great questions, including:Do you aim to make use of Steam Early Access?How in-depth are the aircraft's systems compared to DCS's F/A-18C?Will there be rainbows?Native integration for bHaptics?...and more!You'll also be able to ask new questions during the event, and hang out with the awesome members of the Discord community.Here's a link to the Discord server: Join the DiscordIf you can't make it, don't worry…
- Dev Blog #006 - 6 June 2025
Hey Supersonic Fighters!As my terrain rendering work has progressed, and since I now have full control over how the terrain is generated, I was able to add something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I could describe it...or I could just show you:BeforeAfterThe F/A-18’s service ceiling is around 50,000 ft (15,000 m), and at that altitude, the Earth’s curvature is clearly visible. For reference, here’s a great YouTube video that lets you view Earth from different altitudes. Skip to 2m23s for what the horizon looks like at 10,000 m:Curving my flat Earth was actually very easy BUT it did mean that the old Procedural Sky no longer worked because, of course, it has a flat horizon! So, and this will come as no surprise to you, I am currently creating my own sky shader.If you'd like more updates, or you want to ask me any questions, be sure to join our Discord - and don't forget to wishlis…
- Check Out the Brand-New Gameplay Trailer! - 19 May 2025
Hey Supersonic Fighters! I am very excited to share some new in-game footage with you! You can view it on the store page or directly here: Originally, I planned to have this trailer ready for Steam's "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles Fest" in September 2024. But, at the time, I wasn't happy with how the game looked - so I kept working on it until I was truly proud of the result. The old video on the store page was the "Announcement Trailer", released way back in 2022. That video was more of a vision than actual game footage - fun fact: the carrier wasn't even moving, and the planes were hand-animated rather than flying! For this new trailer, it was really important that everything you see is real - the flying, the physics of carrier landings, even the movement of the carrier itself. It's all happening in-game, in real-time. If you would like to re-watch the original announcement trailer,…
- Dev Blog #005 - 9 May 2025
Hey Supersonic Fighters! A few weeks ago, I shared an image of the “low-res terrain,” showing what the distant scenery will look like—here it is again: Since then, I’ve been working on the “high res terrain” — the ground you’ll actually be flying over and seeing up-close. The game will include very large areas (San Francisco being the obvious one), so I needed to automate the process as much as possible. I had done a lot of work on this some time ago, creating procedural tools to adjust terrain height and paint textures. I even made a video about it back in Dec 2022: However, those tools were very slow, which made it hard to tweak things and immediately see the results. To fix that, I switched to Compute Shaders—super-fast tools that let me see terrain changes instantly. It has completely transformed the workflow. Anyway, enough talk. Here’s an image that gives you an idea of what the t…
- Dev Blog #004 - 28 March 2025
Hey Supersonic Fighters! I've been working on the scenery in Supersonic Fight! My goal is to ensure that even distant terrain looks immersive — more than just a satellite image stretched over a simple mesh. This image showcases the baseline scenery in the game: Next, I’ll be focusing on high-detail terrain, and I’ll share more images once it’s ready. After that, I’ll work on the level-of-detail system to ensure smooth transitions between high and low detail. If you would like more updates then feel free to join our Discord! – Rich
- Dev Blog #003 - 11 March 2025
Hey Supersonic Fighters! Apologies for the recent radio silence—work on Supersonic Fight has been progressing steadily, and I’m here to keep you in the loop! The in-game livery editor is shaping up nicely. With the tools and options available, you’ll be able to customize your aircraft with ease. Here’s something I put together in under 30 seconds: Personalization is a big part of the game, and I can’t wait to see what you all create! What kind of liveries would you like to design? Let me know in the comments! Also, stay tuned—there’s more exciting news coming soon. Rich
- Ask Me Anything (Again) - 15 April 2024
🌎 How big will the map be? 💾 On which engine is the game running? ✈ Will there be air-to-ground combat? These are just three of the questions that will be answered in the next AMA taking place on: Thursday 25 April ⌚ 7pm BST / 11am PT / 2pm EST Join our Discord server and register interest in the event by following this link: Discord Link If there is a question you would like answered then feel free to drop it in the #sf-dev-ama channel. Don't worry if you cannot make it to the live event, it will be recorded and posted on Discord. See you there!
- VR Fest '23: It's time to meet the Supersonic Fight Dev! - 4 December 2023
Don't miss the chance to meet me, Rich, in person during our live Q&A session on our Discord server to celebrate VR Fest. I'll be there to answer all your questions about Supersonic Fight, VR features, and more. Join us in the #sf-dev-ama channel to suggest a question ahead of the Stream. Then fly over for the live session on Thursday. I'm really looking forward to meeting the Supersonic Fight community. Thursday, December 7th ⌚ 7pm GMT ⌚ 11am PT ⌚ 2pm EST Join the Discord
