Outerra forum

Outerra Engine => Development screen shots and videos => Topic started by: cameni on August 09, 2010, 04:19:03 pm

Title: Earth Fly-by
Post by: cameni on August 09, 2010, 04:19:03 pm
A video of Earth fly-by, with head-up display showing altitude, ground distance, speed, heading and current latitude/longitude.

Earth fly-by (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGMs7Iem3Vg#ws)
Title: Earth Fly-by
Post by: Michal on August 09, 2010, 05:09:04 pm
Stunning!

I was expecting Moon fly-by at the end of the video, hehe.
Title: Earth Fly-by
Post by: Edding3000 on August 09, 2010, 05:27:07 pm
Looking great.

I see the stars are no longer visible in daylight! great job.
Although from space the colors seem to be very 'faded'.

Still looking at the atmospheric scattering effect?

Any idea when the video which shows all the engine features will be complete?
Title: Earth Fly-by
Post by: petitfilou on August 09, 2010, 05:28:55 pm
Just wow!  The terrain holds up so well from any distance.  

One thing which screams at me is the browness of the mountains, uniformity of colors. Hopefully that'll change?

But amazing, really.

;o)
Title: Earth Fly-by
Post by: cameni on August 09, 2010, 05:40:21 pm
Quote from: Edding3000
From space the colors seem to be very 'faded'.

Still looking at the atmospheric scattering effect?
Right colors will come with climate support later, currently there's just one climate type basically so it looks uniform and bland.
The atmosphere is not right yet, that contributes to the problem as well.

Quote
Any idea when the video which shows all the engine features will be complete?
Hopefully this week ..
Title: Earth Fly-by
Post by: RaikoRaufoss on August 09, 2010, 10:22:17 pm
Beautiful!  Now all we need is a spaceship vehicle to take us up that high. =D

Also, what is the name of the music in the video?
Title: Earth Fly-by
Post by: ZeosPantera on August 10, 2010, 12:10:00 am
Would have been cool If you did a fly-by of the tatra driving around under the trees. Never quite got close, slow or low enough.
Title: Earth Fly-by
Post by: cameni on August 10, 2010, 12:59:27 am
Quote from: RaikoRaufoss
Also, what is the name of the music in the video?
Musicshake - Launch in Space
Title: Earth Fly-by
Post by: corona on August 10, 2010, 01:20:10 am
Oh come on. Release the demo :-)

I so want to fly through those valleys right now, in a Mustang, or even a F16.

For the demo, are you thinking of including some sort of super/futuristic "plane" like you used in the demo so people can go to space? Doesn't need a model, just a hud and some sort of flying characteristics will be fine.

Also, I thought your probabilistic tree placement algorithm prefers flat terrain, if so, could you explain why the bottom of the vallies seem treeless, why the slopes have dense forest (the forests look extremely nice BTW!). I'm curious for the reason.  You can see what I mean very well here

(http://imgur.com/9FF6X.jpg) (http://imgur.com/9FF6X.jpg)

I am also curious about the shadowing system. I get the feeling that in a steep valley like some of the ones depicted, on a clear and sunny day, surely the mountains would cast much more of a shadow. I'm not sure if shadows were enabled at all for this video, I can kind of see a glimpse of it in the screenshot here, in the forground rocks on the left. (you can see another treeless vally, hehe :-))
(http://imgur.com/5JXdU.jpg) (http://imgur.com/5JXdU.jpg)
However, that is very subtle, and while it does give depth to scene, if it were a shadow the valley in the background should be brightly lit on the right, and in the shadow on left, juding from the "shadow" in the forground. This leads me to believe that it is actually just an effect of the texture algorithm, rather than a true shadow. I believe a properly cast shadow would again, give the world a much more realistic/immersive feel.

Once again I am sorry you to pick things apart like this, but you told me prefer if people give feedback rather than just say wow. I sincerly hope it doesn't discourage you from posting more in the future, we all understand its an alpha version, a preview, and some things may never get done.

Oh, and I also was expecting to the see the moon on the last second, like the blue marble photograph, hehe. That would have been awesome, and a very wow moment :-)
Title: Earth Fly-by
Post by: cameni on August 10, 2010, 02:13:14 am
Quote from: corona
For the demo, are you thinking of including some sort of super/futuristic "plane" like you used in the demo so people can go to space? Doesn't need a model, just a hud and some sort of flying characteristics will be fine.
This was a free controller that allows you to fly however you like, applying only a speed limit that depends on altitude.

Quote
Also, I thought your probabilistic tree placement algorithm prefers flat terrain, if so, could you explain why the bottom of the vallies seem treeless, why the slopes have dense forest (the forests look extremely nice BTW!). I'm curious for the reason.
Actually it prefers inclined terrain, but not too steep. The reason is that grazing animals prefer flat areas so these would be cleared out sooner. Additionally - there would be a river in the valley.
Eventually the system will combine the fractal model with real (rough) tree coverage data, that will be transformed to a probabilistic map initially. This should cover different tree species as well.

Quote
I am also curious about the shadowing system. I get the feeling that in a steep valley like some of the ones depicted, on a clear and sunny day, surely the mountains would cast much more of a shadow. I'm not sure if shadows were enabled at all for this video ... This leads me to believe that it is actually just an effect of the texture algorithm, rather than a true shadow. I believe a properly cast shadow would again, give the world a much more realistic/immersive feel.
The terrain is shaded but not shadowed. That means you won't see a shadow being cast on the terrain occluded by the shade, so to say. Right now only the objects cast shadows. Of course, with terrain self-shadowing it will look much more immersive, we just need a different algorithm for that.

Quote
Once again I am sorry you to pick things apart like this, but you told me prefer if people give feedback rather than just say wow.
Yes I appreciate the feedback, don't hesitate with comments :)

Quote
Oh, and I also was expecting to the see the moon on the last second, like the blue marble photograph, hehe. That would have been awesome, and a very wow moment :-)
Yes, that would be .. I was looking what data are there for Moon and Mars some time ago, surely we'll do also these one day.
Title: Earth Fly-by
Post by: corona on August 10, 2010, 03:58:17 am
Quote from: cameni
Quote from: corona
For the demo, are you thinking of including some sort of super/futuristic "plane" like you used in the demo so people can go to space? Doesn't need a model, just a hud and some sort of flying characteristics will be fine.
This was a free controller that allows you to fly however you like, applying only a speed limit that depends on altitude.
That'll be perfect for the demo, double please? :-)
Quote from: cameni
Quote
Also, I thought your probabilistic tree placement algorithm prefers flat terrain, if so, could you explain why the bottom of the vallies seem treeless, why the slopes have dense forest (the forests look extremely nice BTW!). I'm curious for the reason.
Actually it prefers inclined terrain, but not too steep. The reason is that grazing animals prefer flat areas so these would be cleared out sooner. Additionally - there would be a river in the valley.
Eventually the system will combine the fractal model with real (rough) tree coverage data, that will be transformed to a probabilistic map initially. This should cover different tree species as well.
Point taken about the additional data needed, I do believe however that untainted valleys (not human landscaping)  would not be treeless because of "animals grassing it away". IMO if no additional data is available, and if the landclass calls for forests, then flat areas should have a high chance of forests. It just looks odd the way it is. Think like a valley in Sibiria or something, were its very unlikely much data is available.
I looked at a view photos in and around the area the video was taken, and interestingly the valley bottoms really were mostly treeless, I believe this is only due to human interaction and/or the hight altitude of the area. Just IMO.
Example here: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/8082425
Quote from: cameni
Quote
I am also curious about the shadowing system. I get the feeling that in a steep valley like some of the ones depicted, on a clear and sunny day, surely the mountains would cast much more of a shadow. I'm not sure if shadows were enabled at all for this video ... This leads me to believe that it is actually just an effect of the texture algorithm, rather than a true shadow. I believe a properly cast shadow would again, give the world a much more realistic/immersive feel.
The terrain is shaded but not shadowed. That means you won't see a shadow being cast on the terrain occluded by the shade, so to say. Right now only the objects cast shadows. Of course, with terrain self-shadowing it will look much more immersive, we just need a different algorithm for that.
Hmm...shadeing vs. shadowing....I'm not sure I understand the difference. Is self-shadowing terrain too processing intensive, or are you confident it'll get done eventually?
Quote from: cameni
Quote
Once again I am sorry you to pick things apart like this, but you told me prefer if people give feedback rather than just say wow.
Yes I appreciate the feedback, don't hesitate with comments :)

Quote
Oh, and I also was expecting to the see the moon on the last second, like the blue marble photograph, hehe. That would have been awesome, and a very wow moment :-)
Yes, that would be .. I was looking what data are there for Moon and Mars some time ago, surely we'll do also these one day.
I think just a flat moon with some crater textures would have been enough to wow people, it just gives a sense of scale. But of course if you wanna import heightmaps and fly into a moon valley that'll be more awesome.  A trip through mariner valley wouldn't be bad either (hey...you dont even have to worry about tree placement...hehe). But dont do that now, there are more importing things to be done :-) I think it was just the setup of the video that made ppl think of that.

Since you mentioned rivers above, I would imagine the holdup being vector data importing, correct? There really is not much point in hand drawing rivers like you showed with roads. -have you thought about water shaders yet?
Keep up the good work.
Title: Earth Fly-by
Post by: cameni on August 10, 2010, 04:41:43 am
Quote from: corona
Point taken about the additional data needed, I do believe however that untainted valleys (not human landscaping)  would not be treeless because of "animals grassing it away". IMO if no additional data is available, and if the landclass calls for forests, then flat areas should have a high chance of forests. It just looks odd the way it is. Think like a valley in Sibiria or something, were its very unlikely much data is available.
Sure - but that depends on the climate as well. I'd say that for warmer climates with large amount of herds it holds, but not so much for the colder ones. The model parameters will be different for different climates.
And as for the data - here's what is available, as an example
(http://www.outerra.com/images/umd-landclass-small.jpg) (http://www.outerra.com/images/umd-landclass-small.png)
Original's got 1000m resolution, and the colors indicate a rough vegetation type. It's not usable in this form though, because the classification isn't consistent and we have to process it to a probability based map so that fractals can continue to refine it further.

Quote
Hmm...shadeing vs. shadowing....I'm not sure I understand the difference. Is self-shadowing terrain too processing intensive, or are you confident it'll get done eventually?
Shading is computing the amount of light a surface gets based on its inclination towards a given light ray. Surfaces that are back-facing the light source would receive no light from it, but they are illuminated indirectly by sky.
Shadowing can be considered as a process of determining whether the light was occluded by a chunk of terrain getting in the way of the light ray. You can bet it's more computationally intensive, and getting it to work consistently on such large scales is another huge complication.
We'll need to combine another approach with the existing one for objects.

Quote
Since you mentioned rivers above, I would imagine the holdup being vector data importing, correct? There really is not much point in hand drawing rivers like you showed with roads. -have you thought about water shaders yet?
Yes, the import. I can make a dry riverbed profile even now, although there are things to do as well.
And no, not dealing with water shaders yet .. no time :)
Title: Earth Fly-by
Post by: AWM Mars on August 10, 2010, 04:59:13 am
What else is there to say but WOW.. thats really smooth and detailed. Excellent work :)
Title: Earth Fly-by
Post by: Abc94 on August 10, 2010, 04:32:48 pm
Unbelievable!!!  Very cool Video!  :cool:  I was anticipating a video showing ground/space transition for quite a while.

Outerra is so far ahead of anything else out there right now!  Seriously, I'm sure that any game/simulator made on this engine (even in it's current state) would blow all of the competition out of the water!  

You should consider trying to get this in the MODDB spotlight, I'm sure it more than qualifies.

BTW, the music you chose sounds really good with this video.

Quote from: corona
Oh come on. Release the demo :-)

What corona said! :P


EDIT:


I've almost watched this video 20 times now!
Title: Earth Fly-by
Post by: jcmk on August 12, 2010, 08:00:11 am
Very cool stuff indeed. As I said on the blog, can't wait to get the demo. In the meantime I'll have to live with the screenshots.

Jean-Christophe
Title: Earth Fly-by
Post by: cameni on August 12, 2010, 08:13:54 am
Quote from: Abc94
I've almost watched this video 20 times now!
:D

So I was right then .. when I was making the video, I told Angrypig here that out of all ABC will like it most :)
Title: Earth Fly-by
Post by: Abc94 on August 25, 2010, 11:16:37 pm
Quote from: cameni
:D

So I was right then .. when I was making the video, I told Angrypig here that out of all ABC will like it most :)

My name was mentioned during the making of this video??  I'm honoured!  :D
Title: Re: Earth Fly-by
Post by: cameni on November 25, 2011, 05:21:21 pm
Due to popular request (and objections against the original soundtrack), I reuploaded this old video with a different soundtrack:

Earth Fly-by (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z17ocS1uP0E#ws)
Title: Re: Earth Fly-by
Post by: RaikoRaufoss on November 25, 2011, 09:42:43 pm
People objected to the original soundtrack? ??? I like Jablonsky's "My Name Is Lincoln", but there was nothing wrong with the original soundtrack.
Title: Re: Earth Fly-by
Post by: Matt6767 on November 26, 2011, 02:51:29 am
I like the original soundtrack too, the beginning is just awesome with the music.
Title: Re: Earth Fly-by
Post by: cameni on November 26, 2011, 03:09:11 am
Well, some people who remember the Challenger disaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger) find it wrong. I didn't make the connection when picking the music from Youtube's audio library.

The video got featured on several gaming sites in the last few days, so the issues has been brought back too.
Title: Re: Earth Fly-by
Post by: razielb8 on November 29, 2011, 02:33:45 pm
Every time i see a new video on this site I think of how all games should use this engine.
You guys are going to revolutionize the gaming industry, though i would say this engine could be used for more then games.
Keep up the good work :)
Title: Re: Earth Fly-by
Post by: PRiME on January 27, 2012, 07:21:09 pm
Looks very impressive, I can't help but wonder what applications would be possible for placing multi worlds in the engine. Lets say solar system? Clearly this is way outside of the scope of the project but I was wondering how would the engine deal with having moon, sun, mars etc?   Is it possibly a case of opening up the space a bit more and plopping down new planet systems?

Just seems Outerra is designed for true scale, and possibly adding a whole solar system of empty space might be possible, even maybe orbits? :)

Thinking from a space-sim perspective.
Title: Re: Earth Fly-by
Post by: mctash on January 27, 2012, 07:58:32 pm
Don't quote me on this, but I think solar scale and beyond is entirely possible in Outerra Engine. I'm sure I remember it being discussed a while back.
Title: Re: Earth Fly-by
Post by: ZeosPantera on January 28, 2012, 01:31:54 am
At a resolution of 1CM accuracy Outerra can handle 2.2 Billion KM from earth center. After that the accuracy will fall to 2CM for an additional 2.2 Billion KM.. Then it is either 3or4 CM accuracy for the next 2.2Bkm and so on and so forth.. For a while.
Title: Re: Earth Fly-by
Post by: PRiME on January 28, 2012, 01:39:12 am
Ok, well solar system would expand out to 8billion, just past pluto, and after that its just dwarf planets etc which goes out to 14.5billion.

So I guess it can be done. I wonder if orbits were possible. It be nice if the engine could accommodate endless space but I guess at 2cm loss in accuracy it would eventually become unsustainable past our solar system. 
Title: Re: Earth Fly-by
Post by: cameni on January 28, 2012, 02:24:08 am
That 1cm accuracy and degradation with distance refers to a local coordinate frame, Earth-centered now but probably will be sun-centered. But this coordinate frame can be nested within another, global one, with say 2 billion resolution. That way you can cover 2 billion * 2 billion km with 1cm resolution ...
Title: Re: Earth Fly-by
Post by: PRiME on January 28, 2012, 02:28:50 am
chances are for such a vast space simulation you would possibly shrink the solar system. For game-play aspects. Be interesting to experiment with that aspect of the engine someday.

I would simply put a sun in middle (easy modelled) and move the Earth continuously out to see effect on its landscape.. to determine engines limits and also ways to get around the accuracy issue. If it is a issue that is..
Title: Re: Earth Fly-by
Post by: Black Phoenix on January 28, 2012, 04:19:17 am
That 1cm accuracy and degradation with distance refers to a local coordinate frame, Earth-centered now but probably will be sun-centered. But this coordinate frame can be nested within another, global one, with say 2 billion resolution. That way you can cover 2 billion * 2 billion km with 1cm resolution ...

You could take sun as an absolutely fixed object, divide space around solar system in 100 000 000 km sized cubes (one sides length), and then compute coordinates relative to the current cube you're located in. Maybe cube size needs to be a bit smaller... but you'll never run out of precision in the interplanetary flight.

When approaching some body switching to body-relative coordinate system is totally justified, and even though it's non-inertial, the perturbations caused by the body you approach will greatly exceed the error in computations.

When flying through interplanetary space, integrating within a single "cube" is possible without losing precision at any point. Switching between these coordinate system is a matter of trivial add/subtract. It doesn't even have to be known to the graphics engine - you will never notice the error in the interplanetary space (no reference bodies other than yourself), and your coordinates will be relative to nearest body once you're there (so back to high precision again).

This might seem a bit pointless (why not make just one double-precision space?), but implementing this is trivial, and it could be used to build interplanetary flight simulation with great great precision.

I'm not really planning to making interplanetary flight sim just yet, but if the outerra engine is nice and smooth enough (for my aerospace simulator), I would start work on that (the physics side of things).

Really looking forward to the wiki, would be interesting to see and work on the API for addons.