Feb 11: 22.1.2 is a small patch to fix an issue that caused the new physics system (NativeComputation) to occasionally fail on launch and revert to the older, slower system (ManagedComputation).
In the image above, the orbit stretching to the bottom left is 2018 VG18, the most distant known object in the Solar System. The orbit shown here is a preliminary estimate; more accurate data will be available only after years of observation.
Update 22.1 is a small update that adds a few new sims in addition to dozens of improvements and bug fixes.
Check out these sims featuring incredibly distant Solar System objects, including the recently announced 2018 VG18, nicknamed “Farout”:
Home > Open > 2018 VG18: The Most Distant Object in the Solar System Home > Open > 2015 TG387: A Goblin at the Edge of the Solar System Home > Open > Voyagers 1 & 2 Start 2019 Outside the Solar System
Don’t forget to check out New Horizons’ upcoming flyby of the most distant Solar System object ever visited, scheduled for January 1, 2019:
Home > Open > New Horizons Ultima Thule Encounter in 2019
And here are some highlights from the long list of improvements and fixes:
Happy holidays! Stay tuned after the New Year for a recap of this past year and a look at what we’ve got in store for 2019.
Please report any issues on our forum or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.
The Universe Just Got Bigger: Workshop Support | Update 22
Create and share your simulations and explore the creativity of the Universe Sandbox community!
Home > Workshop Home > Save > Share to Steam Workshop
Use the new custom sim descriptions to detail the lore of your sci-fi worlds. Or discuss the reality behind the scientific phenomena in your simulations.
This update also includes changes to the interface with new tools for manipulating Property values plus styling improvements throughout. There’s a new autosave system to prevent accidental loss of work, and as always, there are lots of smaller improvements and bug fixes. See the full list of What's New
Please report any issues on our forum or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.
Notes:
1) Workshop only supports simulations at this time. In the future, we hope to add support for custom textures and models.
2) As of this update, Universe Sandbox no longer supports DirectX 9 or 32-bit operating systems. Users can run the last compatible version by selecting “*directx9-32bit” via Steam Betas (learn how). For more information on our decision to end support for DirectX 9 & 32-bit systems, please see our announcement from earlier this year.
The Extremes of Our Solar System | Update 21.3
This small update features a new Parker Solar Probe model and new simulations exploring extremes in our Solar System:
Skim past the Sun with the Parker Solar Probe. The probe was launched in August and now has 24 trips around the Sun planned for its 7-year mission. Each year its orbit will take it closer to the Sun as its instruments capture data that will help us better understand our resident star. Its closest approach will bring it within 8.86 solar radii, or 3.83 million miles, of the Sun’s surface, more than 7 times closer than any previous spacecraft.
Home > Open > The Parker Solar Probe Home > Open > The Parker Solar Probe’s Closest Approach to the Sun Add > Objects > Parker Solar Probe
And ride along with New Horizons as it continues through the far reaches of our Solar System past Ultima Thule. After the probe’s flyby of Pluto and its moons in 2015, NASA selected the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule as its next target. When New Horizons makes its closest approach on January 1, 2019, Ultima Thule will become the farthest object ever visited by a spacecraft.
Home > Open > New Horizons Ultima Thule Encounter in 2019
Plus: what if our Sun was replaced with one of the largest known stars in the universe, the red supergiant Betelgeuse?
Home > Open > Solar System with Betelgeuse Instead of the Sun
This update also includes an improvement to the accuracy of positions for moons and other objects in the Solar System Now & Real Time simulation, plus a few other smaller improvements and bug fixes.
We are still making slow but steady progress on our larger feature updates, like Steam Workshop, lasers, and Planet Grids. Thanks for everyone's patience!
Please report any issues on our forum or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.
The Universe Sandbox Team Meetup
The Universe Sandbox team pointing at something that was most certainly very interesting. (Left to right, back to front: Jonathan Hoy, Christian Herold, Dave Nelson, Alexander Grønneløv, Georg Steinröhder, Erika Nesvold, Mat Solomon, Dan Dixon, Jules Litman-Cleper, Jenn Seiler, Jared Meier, David Rappo. Not pictured: Jacob Williams, VR Developer (see Unity's story on Jacob for a lovely picture of him), Ryan Macoubrie, Composer
We recently had the privilege and pleasure of uniting [nearly] the whole Universe Sandbox team in person under one roof on the southern coast of Spain for an entire week.
In the seven years since Dan hired two developers to begin work on the latest version of Universe Sandbox, our team has grown to 14 strong. In the past two years alone, we have added six members to our team. So for some of us, this meetup meant seeing familiar faces, but for many, this was the very first time meeting each other in person.
While there are countless benefits to having a remote team spread across the globe, there are drawbacks as well -- not the least of which is the limited opportunity to experience each other not just as coworkers, but as fellow humans with families, wide-reaching interests and hobbies, and large catalogues of cheesy jokes. This was a chance for us to have conversations that weren't at all related to code architecture, simulation performance, pesky bugs, or features on our roadmap. Though of course, we couldn't help ourselves from having those conversations, too.
And importantly, we set aside time to take a step back from the details and appreciate this massively ambitious and unique project we are all a part of and discuss the future that it holds. Believe us when we say our wishlist for the future of Universe Sandbox is not brief.
We've now returned to our homes in Germany, Denmark, Australia, and across the United States in Seattle, Portland, St. Louis, Chicago, Birmingham, D.C., Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston, reinvigorated and excited to get back to making Universe Sandbox bigger and better.
We continue to be ever grateful for all of the support we receive from our loving community that makes all of this possible.
Scroll on for proof that we all get along and had a great time hiking, touring historical sites, and of course, eating:
Ending Support for DirectX 9 & 32-bit Windows Systems
Universe Sandbox will no longer support Windows users running DirectX 9 or 32-bit operating systems later this year. The exact date and release are not known at this time, but we want to give everyone a heads-up.
November 2018: As of Update 22, Universe Sandbox no longer supports DirectX 9 or 32-bit operating systems. Users can run the last compatible version by selecting “*directx9-32bit” via Steam Betas. Learn how
Why?
Short answer:
These are technologies that have been replaced in mainstream computing over a decade ago. There are very few users left on these systems, and it is getting harder to support them as time goes on. This will help us continue to make improvements to performance and stability into the future.
Long answer:
The game engine we use, Unity3D, stopped supporting the DirectX 9 API last year. Unity states that "due to diminishing hardware numbers and the loss of platform support from Microsoft ... continued support of the DirectX 9 API is no longer feasible and is working against the development of new features in Unity." This move mirrors the direction taken by many other companies for their software and video games, including Blizzard's popular Heroes of the Storm.
The vast majority of Universe Sandbox users are already running 64-bit, and our ability to focus on and develop only this version will help us continue to make improvements to Universe Sandbox's performance and stability into the future.
Who Will Be Affected?
This will not affect macOS or Linux users, and if you are on Windows, chances are good that you are already running modern hardware with support for later versions of DirectX and a 64-bit OS that will not be affected by this.
But in case you aren't, here's what you need to know:
What Should I Do If I'm Affected?
Upgrade to a newer version of DirectX: We recommend upgrading to at least DirectX 11. Follow these instructions to find out which version you're running and view information about upgrading, if needed.
Some older GPUs do not support DirectX 11. You will need to find information about your GPU or contact the manufacturer to see what versions of DirectX it supports.
You will need to upgrade to a newer version of Windows if you are running a version older than Windows 7.
If you can't upgrade: We will offer a DirectX 9, 32-bit compatible version of Universe Sandbox via Steam. This version will not continue to be updated or supported; it will be the last update before we move onto DirectX 11, 64-bit versions only.
November 2018: As of Update 22, Universe Sandbox no longer supports DirectX 9 or 32-bit operating systems. Users can run the last compatible version by selecting “*directx9-32bit” via Steam Betas. Learn how
August 13: Update 21.2.1 is a small update that includes a few minor improvements, bug fixes, and updated translations.
Update 21.2 introduces official VR support for Windows Mixed Reality devices. If you own WMR, just launch Universe Sandbox from Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR and start throwing planets.
Issues? Feedback? Let us know on our forum or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.
20 Earth Languages & 12 Jovian Moons | Update 21
July 27: Update 21.1 includes a new History of Jupiter’s Moons tutorial (Home > Tutorials > Science), updated translations from the community, the addition of Indonesian, and a few other small improvements and bug fixes.
Universe Sandbox now supports 20+ languages, with support for adding even more in the future (see below for a current list of supported languages and let us know if there’s a language you’d like to see). We are proud to make Universe Sandbox more accessible to people from all over the world.
Change language:
Home > Settings > General > Selected Language
While most of the text has been translated via Google Translate, we’ve had significant contributions from our amazing community over the past month that have made improvements to many of the languages. We hope our community continues to help translate as Universe Sandbox grows and evolves.
Is there a language you want to see? Do you have feedback on the translation process? Let us know on our forum or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.
12 Jovian Moons
This update also includes the 12 recently discovered moons of Jupiter. Initially discovered in March 2017, they have now all been observed several times and their orbits are confirmed. Jupiter now has a total of 79 known moons.
See Jupiter's new moons:
Home > Open > Core > Jupiter's New Moons
They are all very small, around 1 to 2 miles wide. One of the moons is unique, as it orbits in the opposite direction of all of the other moons it is near. “It’s basically driving down the highway in the wrong direction,” said Scott Sheppard, one of the astronomers who made the discovery.
Please help us test! Jump into the Community Test build and start sharing and exploring Workshop simulations.
Steam Workshop
Share simulations to Steam Workshop:
Home > Save > Share to Steam Workshop
Browse & open Steam Workshop simulations:
Home > Workshop
Sharing simulations now will help us test this feature and also help us build up a big catalog of sims on Steam Workshop, so we can show off the creativity of the Universe Sandbox community from day one of the official Workshop release.
As part of our redesigned save dialog and support for Steam Workshop, simulations now support custom descriptions that appear when the simulation loads. And even cooler? These descriptions support the same BBCode formatting that Steam does. Two differences: It also supports images with [noparse] [/noparse], and even animated GIFs! But it does not support the noparse tags.
Opt Into the Community Test Build
Please note: We’ve done extensive testing on this feature, but this is a Community Test build for a reason. There are still changes we have planned, and you may encounter bugs. If you do, please let us know on our forum or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.
This Hyperbolic Update Will Change Your Life | Update 20.7
This update features improvements to orbits & motion:
A hyperbolic trajectory is the path of an object that is affected by the gravity of a parent object, but not enough to be pulled into an orbit. Instead, it escapes the gravitational influence and continues toward infinity.
Learn more about hyperbolic trajectories:
There is also a new sim of Jupiter’s co-orbital retrograde asteroid 2015 BZ509:
Update 20.7 also has many smaller improvements, including autosaves and a revamped What’s New panel, along with a bunch of bug fixes.
Now we're excited to announce another upcoming feature for Universe Sandbox ²: support for multiple languages. As with Steam Workshop, we still have work to do on this, but we've made great progress. Just check out the video above for proof. You may spot some words that haven't been translated yet, and some things may look a bit off, but all the big pieces are in place and everything is working smoothly.
If you're familiar with any of the languages used in the video, you may also note that some translations are a bit strange. Currently, everything has been translated with Google Translate, which has been a very useful tool, but it does not always produce the most accurate results. In the future, we’ll have professional translations for the most widely used languages.
Help Translate
Universe Sandbox ² is constantly growing and evolving; it's important that we have help from others to build and maintain translations into any number of languages. This is where you, the community, come in.
Along with the ability to switch languages at any time, you will also be able to help translate Universe Sandbox ² with a very easy-to-use integration with Crowdin. Crowdin is a system that helps manage localization projects by making it easy for anyone to submit new translations and vote on the best ones.
Once we have everything ready, we'll be sure to make an announcement and include full instructions for anyone who wants to help.
Please note: Localization is not yet available in Universe Sandbox ². It is still a work-in-progress feature and will look different in the future.
Big thanks to our developer, Dave, for all of his work on supporting other languages. We’re excited to make Universe Sandbox ² more accessible to people all over the world.
