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Outerra Engine => Development screen shots and videos => Topic started by: angrypig on July 02, 2010, 07:31:04 am

Title: first textured building
Post by: angrypig on July 02, 2010, 07:31:04 am
A few screenshots from last development...

(http://www.outerra.com/shots/l012.jpg) (http://www.outerra.com/shots/l012.jpg)
(http://www.outerra.com/shots/l013.jpg) (http://www.outerra.com/shots/l013.jpg)
(http://www.outerra.com/shots/l014.jpg) (http://www.outerra.com/shots/l014.jpg)
Title: first textured building
Post by: helio2 on July 02, 2010, 03:18:40 pm
1 down 800,000 to go!
Title: first textured building
Post by: Abc94 on July 02, 2010, 07:49:48 pm
Wow looks nice!

But wasn't the hanger textured as well?
Title: first textured building
Post by: Alen Bajrovic on July 03, 2010, 01:36:23 am
I can not wait anymore DEMO :D
Title: first textured building
Post by: angrypig on July 04, 2010, 03:24:09 pm
Quote from: Abc94
But wasn't the hanger textured as well?

Yes it is textured but it has only a lightmap with baked ambient occlusion. This new building has a diffuse texture with specular map in alpha channel.
Title: first textured building
Post by: ZeosPantera on July 05, 2010, 01:46:48 pm
hrm.. Have to say I am not really impressed. Even with the "diffuse texture with specular map in alpha channel."

Did you model it from scratch?
Title: first textured building
Post by: Edding3000 on July 05, 2010, 03:51:08 pm
Quote from: ZeosPantera
hrm.. Have to say I am not really impressed. Even with the "diffuse texture with specular map in alpha channel."

Did you model it from scratch?
Agreed that the windows need a lot more 'windowness' to them...

But, it doesnt matter a lot i guess, it's just parameters. Guess it's just a 'test' to find if buildings do what they are supposed to do...
Title: first textured building
Post by: MatthewS on July 05, 2010, 08:15:29 pm
Quote from: angrypig
A few screenshots from last development...

Wow! That looks incredible, especially the first shot where you can see the building from a distance.  How far away are you in that shot?

Can you show what the building looks like from even farther away?   Does it start as a single pixel and then grow larger as you get closer,  Or does it just "pop up" into view at a certain distance?  And also if it does pop up can you make that distance configurable so that users can tweak based on the power of their cpu/gpu?

It's important for flight simulation that when approaching a large city the big buildings are visible from a very far distance (single pixel), in FSX they "pop up" at 10 NM which really spoils the immersion!

Microsoft should licence this engine from you if they ever make FS11.  

Keep up the good work you guys are amazing!
Title: first textured building
Post by: ZeosPantera on July 06, 2010, 01:49:03 am
Quote from: MatthewS
Everything he said!

Actually that is a good point. Can we get an HD vid showing the transitions? are their transitions yet for things like buildings? Or do you need to model a "crappy" building for long range?
Title: first textured building
Post by: cameni on July 06, 2010, 02:00:23 am
Quote from: MatthewS
Can you show what the building looks like from even farther away?   Does it start as a single pixel and then grow larger as you get closer,  Or does it just "pop up" into view at a certain distance?  And also if it does pop up can you make that distance configurable so that users can tweak based on the power of their cpu/gpu?
Generally, things will start showing up when they are 1 pixel big. The engine computes on-screen size of things and if the objects cross the threshold they will appear. Although, at that distance aerial fog plays a significant role so they might not be even visible.

The computed size is multiplied by a quality coefficient, so let's say for Q=0.5 objects will start to appear when they are roughly 2px big. Q can be set to greater than 1 too, but as the coefficient applies to the terrain as well, it needs adequately more GPU memory as well.

Note that there are currently some temporary internal limitations where the rule doesn't apply yet, for example runways start showing up from a fixed terrain level. But that will be fixed.

Currently we are using Q=0.5 I think, but things are changing constantly as we tune it and depend on the hardware.
Title: first textured building
Post by: cameni on July 06, 2010, 02:05:38 am
Quote from: ZeosPantera
are their transitions yet for things like buildings? Or do you need to model a "crappy" building for long range?
LOD for objects isn't there yet, but there will be an option to provide LOD levels with models or to have engine generating the detail levels automatically (may not be optimal).
But of course a reduction in level of detail has to be used if we want to render large cities.
Title: first textured building
Post by: MatthewS on July 06, 2010, 04:56:34 am
Quote from: cameni
Generally, things will start showing up when they are 1 pixel big. The engine computes on-screen size of things and if the objects cross the threshold they will appear. Although, at that distance aerial fog plays a significant role so they might not be even visible.

Excellent!  At least they don't suddenly pop-up at 10nm like in FSX which is pathetic.

Aerial fog? Is this a technique you use to obscure objects/terrain off in the far distant so you don't have to render them?  In that first shot it seems the fog is still letting the terrain (and presumably objects if bigger than 1px) show though even at about 40nm?

I should mention that in FSX terrain is visible at more than 150nm (though objects are not visible past 10nm).   I think I saw in one of your videos the terrain being visible at very great distances as you zoomed out to space.   XPlane limits terrain and object visibility to about 25nm before everything is fogged out, that is a joke for high level flight!

Also, for performance users with less capable machines might have to slide the quality multiplier down, say to .25 and this would cull a lot more objects, but some objects are more important to see than others!

For example, in a flight simulator I might like to have airports (runways and buildings) show at a quality of 1.00 but other less important objects (eg houses) show at a quality of .25.  

Is it possible for your engine to accommodate this?  I guess the engine needs to know what "class" of scenery the object belongs too and then apply quality factors based on the class... this gives users the ultimate tweak-ability to suit their hardware and personal FPS tolerance!

Please consider "tweak-ability" when designing your engine.  You have no idea how much FSX/FS9 users tweak various settings in order to balance smooth FPS against nice visuals, especially when running complex aircraft which are simulating/rendering complex systems (eg PMDG 747, MD11 or LDS 767).
Title: first textured building
Post by: cameni on July 06, 2010, 05:27:42 am
Quote from: MatthewS
Aerial fog? Is this a technique you use to obscure objects/terrain off in the far distant so you don't have to render them?  In that first shot it seems the fog is still letting the terrain (and presumably objects if bigger than 1px) show though even at about 40nm?
Nope, I meant the atmospheric effect where light from a distant object is attenuated while passing through atmosphere, and in-scattered light from sun and sky enters into the viewing ray. With greater distance the amount of in-scattered light overwhelms the attenuated reflected light so it's gradually harder to recognize the object shapes. We aren't using any artificial techniques to ease the rendering

Quote
For example, in a flight simulator I might like to have airports (runways and buildings) show at a quality of 1.00 but other less important objects (eg houses) show at a quality of .25.  

Is it possible for your engine to accommodate this?  I guess the engine needs to know what "class" of scenery the object belongs too and then apply quality factors based on the class... this gives users the ultimate tweak-ability to suit their hardware and personal FPS tolerance!
I think this would be possible, although for example roads & runways are tied to terrain so there would have to be one slider for terrain quality that applies to roads and runways too. Getting a better Q specifically for runways can be achieved here by selectively boosting Q of terrain tiles containing runways.

Q for objects can be separate, and there could be classes of objects having their own Q for prioritizing.

Quote
Please consider "tweak-ability" when designing your engine.  You have no idea how much FSX/FS9 users tweak various settings in order to balance smooth FPS against nice visuals, especially when running complex aircraft which are simulating/rendering complex systems (eg PMDG 747, MD11 or LDS 767).
I've read several threads where FS users talked endlessly about tweaking the parameters, and I have overall bad feelings about the system that allows to break stuff by allowing to twiddle with too many knobs. That kind of action is common in layered-type rendering where you can switch off this and adjust that, but our system is much more organic in order to get more natural results, so that level of tinkering is neither possible nor something we would want to have.

That doesn't mean it won't be tweakable, but it will be much more compact for certain. And different.
Title: first textured building
Post by: MatthewS on July 06, 2010, 08:31:03 am
Quote from: cameni
Nope, I meant the atmospheric effect where light from a distant object is attenuated while passing through atmosphere, and in-scattered light from sun and sky enters into the viewing ray. With greater distance the amount of in-scattered light overwhelms the attenuated reflected light so it's gradually harder to recognize the object shapes. We aren't using any artificial techniques to ease the rendering

That sounds brilliant!  

I suppose strong light sources like airport beacons would be visible long before the actual airport buildings due to their strong intensity.

Night lighting is something where FSX is very poor.  In particular airports are very dimly lit and the actual lighting effect itself tends to popup only at close distance. I'm guessing that in Outerra airport lighting at night would be visible from far distances and appear quite bright.
Title: first textured building
Post by: tasmanet on July 12, 2010, 10:44:14 am
Quote
I've read several threads where FS users talked endlessly about tweaking the parameters, and I have overall bad feelings about the system that allows to break stuff by allowing to twiddle with too many knobs. That kind of action is common in layered-type rendering where you can switch off this and adjust that, but our system is much more organic in order to get more natural results, so that level of tinkering is neither possible nor something we would want to have.


Great Idea and don't shift from that decision. ;) or you will regret it.
The time wasted on M$FS forums by people who actually don't fly but spend all their time Slewing and fiddling with settings is pretty high. :(
Title: first textured building
Post by: MatthewS on July 12, 2010, 04:33:00 pm
Quote from: tasmanet
Quote
I've read several threads where FS users talked endlessly about tweaking the parameters, and I have overall bad feelings about the system that allows to break stuff by allowing to twiddle with too many knobs. That kind of action is common in layered-type rendering where you can switch off this and adjust that, but our system is much more organic in order to get more natural results, so that level of tinkering is neither possible nor something we would want to have.

Great Idea and don't shift from that decision. ;) or you will regret it.
The time wasted on M$FS forums by people who actually don't fly but spend all their time Slewing and fiddling with settings is pretty high. :(

Except the engine might get "canned" if people can't fine tune some basic settings to increase FPS, eg visible range/density of different object classes (buildings, clouds, trees etc).
Title: first textured building
Post by: Beolex on July 15, 2010, 07:52:19 pm
Where do you get the textures from? They look very appealing. :)
Also, what program do you use to model?
Title: first textured building
Post by: Robert on July 18, 2010, 04:29:53 pm
My apologies for the late reply.

The building was modeled in Audiodesk's Maya as a test case to investigate importing workflow.  However it was converted to .max and handed over to angrypig for final configuration and tweaking.

Due to the building being a test case, the raw textures were downloaded from an excellent site called www.cgtextures.com (http://www.cgtextures.com) where they were then further processed and rearrange in Adobe Photoshop.  Soon we are starting work on a airport control tower that will have original textures that we will take with a high end DSLR.

The building model actually has three textures.  A tileable window and wall texture which covers a majority of the building.  This allows for high resolution so you can get rather close to the building without the texture pixelating. However, this method of texturing has a limitation of being too uniform and clean, no providing the variety of what you would actually find in a real office building.  A second texture was embedded into the first textures alpha channel and is used to control the specular channel (The shinny effect on the windows)  The third texture contains elements of the building not covered by the windows and walls, for the doors, roof concrete, and the air conditioning units.

(http://www.outerra.com/shots/r001.jpg) (http://www.outerra.com/shots/r001.jpg)
(http://www.outerra.com/shots/r002.jpg) (http://www.outerra.com/shots/r002.jpg)
(http://www.outerra.com/shots/r003.jpg) (http://www.outerra.com/shots/r003.jpg)
Title: first textured building
Post by: Alen Bajrovic on July 18, 2010, 08:23:39 pm
You inserted a lot of buildings , NO MORE PLEASE ! :D , im just kidding.  Seriously it will be better than FSX flight simulator, I hope:), You made a big thing guys ,  just continue, I wish you luck and I hope that you will soon publish the Demo version
Title: first textured building
Post by: Michal on July 19, 2010, 02:59:18 pm
Quote from: ScaredStupid
The building model actually has three textures.  A tileable window and wall texture which covers a majority of the building.  This allows for high resolution so you can get rather close to the building without the texture pixelating. However, this method of texturing has a limitation of being too uniform and clean, no providing the variety of what you would actually find in a real office building.  A second texture was embedded into the first textures alpha channel and is used to control the specular channel (The shinny effect on the windows)  The third texture contains elements of the building not covered by the windows and walls, for the doors, roof concrete, and the air conditioning units.

It would be nice to add second UV-channel support, and put ambient occlusion multipied to diffuse there.
Title: first textured building
Post by: Beolex on August 04, 2010, 01:28:00 pm
Well, I recently learned Blender 3D, and I could probably make some houses as test subjects. I will also be able to UV Map them and give them ambient occlusion. Do you want me to make a couple of houses as test subjects?
Title: first textured building
Post by: cameni on August 04, 2010, 02:07:11 pm
Angrypig is making buildings (for the sample location that will be included in upcoming video) with Blender too, I think he could release some instructions after that on how to make the buildings so they can be successfully imported, also with performance and memory consumption considerations included (hint hint)

The buildings are nearly finished now and we don't need another ones for now, but we may include more buildings for people to play with in the demo. So if you feel like you could make some generic ones that we could put in a package, go for it.
Kind of a pre-modding for the demo :)
Title: first textured building
Post by: AWM Mars on August 06, 2010, 10:02:46 am
Looking at what has been achieved, it looks awesome.. something, like myself, a lot of people are interested in.

I did try and find a roadmap for development, along with a 'inclusion' list, is there one available?
Title: first textured building
Post by: ZeosPantera on August 06, 2010, 02:28:02 pm
Quote from: cameni
Angrypig is making buildings (for the sample location that will be included in upcoming video) with Blender too, I think he could release some instructions after that on how to make the buildings so they can be successfully imported, also with performance and memory consumption considerations included (hint hint)

I have a friend obsessed with bridges. He would love to model bridges for outerra. Would the same modeling techniques apply for a model you have to drive over?
Title: first textured building
Post by: cameni on August 06, 2010, 02:36:20 pm
The road map isn't well-defined as we are still talking with various parties and deciding who to support and what direction to take it (first).
After releasing the demo we will be working on climate data and land class support, with additional vegetation types. Scene tools should be updated too, with possible shared world editing. A basic SDK should be created as well.

All this will be needed by some teams that want to work on games using it, and it's as far as we can currently see.
We want to produce a game on it ourselves, but it's not yet decided what form it will be. But it should be mod-friendly in any case, possibly leading to an open world sandbox game or more.
Title: first textured building
Post by: cameni on August 06, 2010, 02:40:19 pm
Quote from: ZeosPantera
I have a friend obsessed with bridges. He would love to model bridges for outerra. Would the same modeling techniques apply for a model you have to drive over?
Yes, particularly with regards to geometry instancing, that will be used extensively on bridges I guess.
Title: first textured building
Post by: AWM Mars on August 08, 2010, 04:35:55 am
Excellent, thanks for the update.
Our company are currently working with the MPEG Consortium on the next generation streaming formats. We are charged with developing the Virtual Reality Collaboration and Immersive Environment, elements of the MPEG formats. This will allow for 2 way data streaming using standard MPEG formats, for Collaboration.
We have developed the collaboration server-side software and are working on the client-side. The engine will allow full collaboration including text and voice communications. MPEG are native to almost every device with a chip embedded, so will run out of the box, using our thin-client.

Your solution, like a couple of others that we have looked at, lend themselves very well into data streaming formats. MPEG offering probably the best known and used, compression and streaming functionality. Are you considering incorporating your solution to the up and coming formats?
Title: first textured building
Post by: cameni on August 08, 2010, 04:45:18 am
Quote from: AWM Mars
Our company are currently working with the MPEG Consortium on the next generation streaming formats. We are charged with developing the Virtual Reality Collaboration and Immersive Environment, elements of the MPEG formats. This will allow for 2 way data streaming using standard MPEG formats, for Collaboration.
I'm somewhat missing the context now, especially with respect to Outerra .. can you elaborate it more, like to give an example what it will be used for?
Title: first textured building
Post by: AWM Mars on August 09, 2010, 04:13:02 am
Your solution streams data to the client for rendering, it is not a solid lump of data that has to be fully downloaded with all its content, prior to rendering the whole thing. MPEG, as you know is one of the worlds leading streaming formats. The recent move by the MPEG consortium is to develop more formats, but allowing for dual direction streaming, hence collaboration and interaction. MPEG-V and MPEG-U are being developed as we speak, for that very purpose.
Title: first textured building
Post by: cameni on August 09, 2010, 04:40:31 am
Ah, thanks. Might be an interesting business model for some market segments.

 Is there an independent layer that would be handling it unobtrusively, i.e. capturing, processing and streaming the output on server and capturing input devices on client and injecting the events on the server?
Title: first textured building
Post by: AWM Mars on August 09, 2010, 04:54:54 am
I cannot give specifics, mainly because they have not been fully decided yet :) Our company is developing the client/server and scene management software for various inner groups within the consortium. Our goal is to gain protocols and formats that comply with 2 way streaming data for collaboration, in additional, always mindful of the existing formats for content. We are at the prototype stage so things change rapidly.