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[corona]

Great job, as always.

I have a few questions if you don't mind.
- How much of the landscape was hand-edited for the video, eg. did you do alot of "I want a forrest here" or did you pretty much leave it all to fractals?
- On the final into Lukla we can see a foot-path, and there is a tree that's almost on top of it. Do footpath not clear their path, in other words, is that intentional? (btw. the footpath kinda sticks out alot I think)
- The buildings...I won't critisice them again, but, well you know, it's been said before. Don't worry though, concentrate on code.
- Road markings seem to change to solid (from dotted) in corners, is that automatic depending on corner radius, or hand-edited?
- I assume road signs are placed manually?
- In a flightsim game responsive Instruments are key, even if the outside display can't be rendered quite as smooth. Simularly, some instruments are much more important than others. Please think about allowing driving instruments at higher priority and individual frame rates.
- Are you worried about MS Flight taking away your thunder?
- What are the next steps? Any plans to get the community involved in content creation (building models, tree models, road textures, etc.?)

Thanks, and as always, keep up the great work!

[ZeosPantera]

HA!

Also saw the sign leading up to Angrypig's cottage. Nice stuff.

[cameni]

Forests are completely determined by fractal algorithm and terrain attributes. Only the roads and transitional areas on their sides will remove the trees now, and in the case of the foot path they are extremely narrow and sometimes the trees, which are displaced from their grid positions by random amounts, get misplaced into the roads.

Road markings can be assigned manually when placing way points, i.e. on each way point you can change marking style (and many other attributes). It's not automatic because rules for that are complex, need to consider lines of sight from both sides etc. There may be an automatic generator once, suggesting the markings to be optionally overridden.
Road signs are placed manually as well.

We can't be really worried about MS Flight, we never intended a sole flight simulator anyway and there's no reason to remove flight sim functionality from a global world+vehicle simulator just because there are specialized simulators, is there? We'd like to be appealing mainly for people who dream about a universal simulator, and neither MSF nor AFS will be one.

Next steps .. optimizing and solving several issues to release the demo. Custom content creation should come after the demo is out.

[corona]

Forests are completely determined by fractal algorithm and terrain attributes. Only the roads and transitional areas on their sides will remove the trees now,

That's awesome, it looks very natural. The second flying part after coming over that ridge and reveiling the vast forests beyond I went WOW :-)

and in the case of the foot path they are extremely narrow and sometimes the trees, which are displaced from their grid positions by random amounts, get misplaced into the roads.

I see, that makes sense, no biggie.

Road markings can be assigned manually when placing way points, i.e. on each way point you can change marking style (and many other attributes). It's not automatic because rules for that are complex, need to consider lines of sight from both sides etc. There may be an automatic generator once, suggesting the markings to be optionally overridden.
Road signs are placed manually as well.

I see what you mean, still I believe for roads coming from vector data perhaps it could be done automatically for narrow corners.

We can't be really worried about MS Flight, we never intended a sole flight simulator anyway and there's no reason to remove flight sim functionality from a global world+vehicle simulator just because there are specialized simulators, is there? We'd like to be appealing mainly for people who dream about a universal simulator, and neither MSF nor AFS will be one.

Makes sense, and it's not certain in any way what it will be anyhow. For all we know it might be an arcade shooter style game.

Next steps .. optimizing and solving several issues to release the demo. Custom content creation should come after the demo is out.

Sounds good. Any progress on the ATI driver side?

[Ross (the Boss)]

You guys seem to have hit a chord across a wide gamut of imaginations, judging from reactions to the media you've released so far. May that be the key to your success!

Road signs are placed manually as well.

Would dynamic signage generation be an appropriate feature for the engine, or would you rather see that implemented on a per-project basis? (You're eventually going to be procedurally generating geometry and textures for flora, right?)

P.S. Major kudos for being so responsive to your community!

[cameni]

Would dynamic signage generation be an appropriate feature for the engine, or would you rather see that implemented on a per-project basis? (You're eventually going to be procedurally generating geometry and textures for flora, right?)

Well, it probably depends on usage. For a simulator I imagine that eventually one would want to place the signs according to reality, but for a world building game you'd probably want to generate them automatically when you are placing a road. They will be also country-dependent. So probably engine should not deal with that.

And yes, the geometry and textures for flora should be generated procedurally one day, to both introduce a procedural variability and to allow for seamless generation of all detail levels.

[cameni]

Wrong thread I know ... but what 3d app are you guys using for the models?  I'm familiar with Lightwave 9.6, and might be interested in doing a few things for you guys in the near future as far as static models (houses, buildings, and such).  Can someone post a more detailed post on your needs?  Especially concerning file formats, normal/displacement mapping, UVs, etc?  If I can find the time, I can do some "American-style" homes and such.

There should be some guidelines for that, I hope Angripig will provide it before the demo so we can include some of your creations within stock objects there.

[MatthewS]

Congrats on the video...Amazing stuff!

[RaikoRaufoss]

Your finest video yet!  Nice to see human figures in the Tatra trucks!  Also, is the view outside of the trucks towards the end where the Tatra comes toward us and then goes down the road from the point of view of a human?

[cameni]

Your finest video yet!  Nice to see human figures in the Tatra trucks!  Also, is the view outside of the trucks towards the end where the Tatra comes toward us and then goes down the road from the point of view of a human?

Yes, there's a first person view controller already .. forgot to mention it in the blog

[ZeosPantera]

I assume you cannot enter and exit vehicles yet. That will be needed before any demo.

I have an idea for the next video.

[Drive the tatra.. Down Mt Everest.]

A plane can do a fly-over. And actually what would the plane hitting the ground look like? I know there isn't a damage model but how does the physics handle the collision with the ground?

[cameni]

I assume you cannot enter and exit vehicles yet. That will be needed before any demo.

You can enter/exit vehicles already.

I have an idea for the next video.

[Drive the tatra.. Down Mt Everest.]

Oh .. another one.
It won't work currently because the collision with displaced terrain slopes isn't correct yet. And we aren't rushing to implement it because somehow we don't feel the urge to drop things down the rocks

Colliding with the ground in a higher speed now means appearance of forces pushing the object back. These forces can be so high that they would damage the model if it was possible, but currently it just sinks underground until the forces push it back on the surface.
I think the plane physics will stop the simulation after reaching some critical values.

[Jonathan Addison]

Could I be more inspired? Probably not. Fantastic clip!

It's nice to be part of following something great!

edit: I've now trans-coded this clip to my phone and will be shamelessly showing people...

[AWM Mars]

From and VR Artists perspective, from a model makers perspective and a machinamists perspective, this is very very impressive.

I was so immersed I did not feel I was in a computer generated simulation. The flow/movement of the models/vehicles was 'natural', so was the look of the terrain, random like nature, not tiled textures etc. I can only imagine looking back in 6 months time, and being continuously impressed by the work and talent I am witnessing.

[cameni]

Thanks everybody. The video seems to generate a lot of positive feedback, and that is quite encouraging.

I was so immersed I did not feel I was in a computer generated simulation. The flow/movement of the models/vehicles was 'natural', so was the look of the terrain, random like nature, not tiled textures etc.

Yes, and while there are lots of bugs and missing features, it begins to feel like a world to live in
I hope the the full climate support and additional vegetation will make it much better yet.