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[Outcast]

Firstly...Hello everyone!  

Secondly, I've been looking for something like this for years (thanks to Salmo for directing me [Gribbers] from the IL2:1946 forums). After setting up an account last night and looking at the demo photos in these forums I must say I'm gob-smacked at how amazing it looks, the sheer scope of the project, and the future potential this could offer to SO MANY different industries and games alike.  

I have a few queries I was wondering about, and apologies if they've been covered before in this forum.

1) Night and day - are there cycles at the moment? Most screenies seem to be a default midday shot.

2) Earth? I understand you're trying to replicate planet Earth in terms of topography, and this will be work in progress over a long time. Are there plans to create a sandbox environment/package, where users start with a blank globe, or even pre-populated planet that doesn't resemble Earth (obviously on a much smaller scale)...same flora types, weather and day/night cycles, just on a globe that doesn't replicate earth? Allowing users to create their own little world to play with

3) Current travel options - do you literally have to type in co-ordinates, or use planes/cars to travel around. Or can a user simply use their mouse to scroll around, zoom in/out etc? (free float camera style)

4) Educational - Once geographical physics have been implemented, such as weather, erosion, water etc - are there future plans to licence this as an educational tool for schools universities to use (an example would be to simulate water run-off over large urbanised areas, or movement of sediment across large expanses such as mountains)...I studied Physical Geology at Uni and if software like this was available then, I would have got a 1st as a degree  

5) Gaming - I've seen a few posts around the possibility of using this platform as an tactical FPS such as ARMA - and responses around how difficult it would be to find enemy units/bases. Could smaller islands, such as Malta, be used as a cordoned off battlefield...the entire planet could be available, but each game is locked down to a small area to save memory usage. In more depth I was thinking about having airbases on tips of each island, where say only 5 people can spawn as pilots for the entire game, and the rest (memory permitting) played the role of ground troops and armour units. That way the aircraft wouldn't buzzing the sky like a super unit, it would take time to takeoff, fly to target, attack/defend and then fly back to base to refuel. Similar to ARMA but using real world data.

6) How can I get a job on this project  

Anyways - keep up the good work guys, and look forward to any reposnse. I'll be watching these forums for some time to come  

OutCast

[cameni]

Welcome here

1) You can set the solar time of day and the day of year for the location you are at. Time isn't passing yet, but that's just a minor matter. There was a short sequence showing a sped up sunset in the video.

Screens are definitely not just midday, in fact the morning/evening shots are nicer, so I guess there's more of them
Night rendering isn't finished yet either; there are stars but no dynamic HDR adaptation, and thus the terrain is totally black.

2) Artificial planets are planned in the future for a separate planet creator app. We have also some guys from the ME-DEM project aboard, who want to recreate that world, so I guess much of that functionality will be developed over time in cooperation with them map makers.
Completely random planets should be then possible as well, though there's a lot to it if one doesn't want to get generic looking worlds full of fractal-sameness.

3) You can either type lat/lon, or pick a previously saved location, or get there by a vehicle. By default you have a "UFO" controller that allows you to travel rapidly, without inertia effects. It adjusts its speed by the altitude, so that you don't smash to ground at Mach 10 (and aren't crawling with ground-level speeds in the space either).
There's no mouse controlled planet viewer mode.

4) Some of the uses may be slightly problematic because of the optimizations that the engine uses. For example, the height data are remapped and wavelet-compressed, which is not the fastest process. Other than that, yes - education is one of the possible uses. Even with the longer compilation of data to make a planet, I guess some people would welcome the ability to shift continents, model different climates and have a close look at the result

5) Gaming - well, some problems stemming from the scale are to be expected, but problems are meant to be solved
And they will be solved once developers can experience how it looks and how their devised game play actually executes in such a world. Potential must come first.

6) What can you do?

[Sam 36]

Welcome, OutCast!

I like your ideas, especially number four.  This has great potential as an educational aid. (...and for games. )

Blessings, Patrick

EDIT: Oops... Cameni beat me to it (should have hit the refresh button).

[Outcast]

Wow, thanks for the speedy reply, and thanks for clarifying those points.

Apologies, but I probably could've spent a little more time navigating the forums to get the answers to the first few, and appreciate the problems you're going to face with the others, such as the educational elements.

I like the sound of the UFO thing...look forward to seeing it one day.

What can I do? Unfortunately I'm not a techie, I've been a project/programme manager for the last 7years (mainly in IT, but more around management and installations/data etc). My specialist skill is finance management and also take interest in anything space related as well as anything to do with geography/geology...not exactly a detailed CV by any means   , but thought I'd be cheeky enough to ask. I was also involved in mission/campaign editing for flight sim IL2:1946 as well as Operation Flashpoint, which is why I'm loving this wonderful development.

Leaving work now, so will spend some time going through the forums over the weekend