Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[cameni]

A video of Earth fly-by, with head-up display showing altitude, ground distance, speed, heading and current latitude/longitude.

[Michal]

Stunning!

I was expecting Moon fly-by at the end of the video, hehe.

[Edding3000]

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?

[petitfilou]

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)

[cameni]

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.

Any idea when the video which shows all the engine features will be complete?

Hopefully this week ..

[RaikoRaufoss]

Beautiful!  Now all we need is a spaceship vehicle to take us up that high.

Also, what is the name of the music in the video?

[ZeosPantera]

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.

[cameni]

Also, what is the name of the music in the video?

Musicshake - Launch in Space

[corona]

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



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 :-))

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 :-)

[cameni]

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

[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? :-)

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

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?

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

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.

[cameni]

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

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.

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.

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

[AWM Mars]

What else is there to say but WOW.. thats really smooth and detailed. Excellent work

[Abc94]

Unbelievable!!!  Very cool Video!    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.

Oh come on. Release the demo :-)

What corona said!


EDIT:


I've almost watched this video 20 times now!

[jcmk]

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