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[Hattiwatti]

I would play DEFCON with it.


Generate a few major cities as bases and launch ICBMs all over the world.

[cameni]

I would play DEFCON with it.

Not sure if this is needed for a game like that one. You probably won't need the ground level detail, in fact I'd say you won't need the cities to be modeled, but just as textures.

Unless you want to see the damage in detail, but modeling and simulating that won't be anywhere easy. Considering that it's not important for the gameplay itself ..

[Hattiwatti]

I would play DEFCON with it.

Not sure if this is needed for a game like that one. You probably won't need the ground level detail, in fact I'd say you won't need the cities to be modeled, but just as textures.

Unless you want to see the damage in detail, but modeling and simulating that won't be anywhere easy. Considering that it's not important for the gameplay itself ..

Simply, I mean just playing nuclear war against other player.
Btw, another thing I'd like to see is a destruction of a planet, would that be too massive?

[cameni]

Btw, another thing I'd like to see is a destruction of a planet, would that be too massive?

Depends on what you imagine behind the destruction of a planet. I've read that some imagine it like splitting the planet in half
Nothing like that, can't even quite imagine simulating it.

But making huge craters and turning the surface into a moonscape would be possible, although it will require some specific code that isn't there yet.

[C. Shawn Smith]

Btw, another thing I'd like to see is a destruction of a planet, would that be too massive?

Heh, that's exactly the same thing request on the Infinity forums from some of the newbies to their game engine.

I've played DEFCON myself ... very fun and interesting game, especially in office mode  Would be a VERY interesting modification to the engine, if someone had the stamina to try to do it.

Next vehicle, Cameni, should be a Harley ... some sort of touring bike, made for comfort .  Would love to travel the Earth on one, even though I don't have the slightest idea how to really drive a bike

The only other thing I could ask for would be a Kwai Chang Kane model to "walk the Earth" like in the Kung Fu TV series  Of course, we'd have to add the background music while walking through the deserts hehe.  And while you're at it, you HAVE to add a couple of saloons with gambling, so I can order water and have the patrons try to fight me.

Sorry, been watching too many reruns lately on TV

[NouberNou]

Having been involved in the user community for OFP/ArmA since it first came out, large scale terrain is very interesting. Since I've started working in VBS2 (the military simulator version of ArmA1) these things have become even more interesting to me.

What would I do with Outerra? Something along the lines of VBS2, except geared towards battalion/regiment level training in combined operations. JTAC/FAC and Forward Observer training in the VBS2/ArmA2 engine is possible, but usually the level of detail has to be slashed on one side or the other, and for VBS2/ArmA2 it is the flight engine.

I posted a comment on the blog about HLA, and seeing Outerra implemented as literally just a planetary engine with the basic rules of physics applied (or not even that) and letting other systems join in built by different developers using a distributed architecture would be amazing and open a lot of training possibilities. Especially being able to be used in semi-trusted environments like training facilities you could implement lots of distributed network architectures like mentioned earlier in the thread with greater ease.

For example, details for a pilot on individual ground troop movements could be ignored in larger situations or made more granular, while the aircrafts flight and weapons state would only need to be broadcast to the people on the ground. All of these could be run on different machines or facilities tailored to those specific simulations.

I think engines like Outerra and other groups/companies working in the planetary engine field are the future for military training. I am very excited to see what the future has in store!

One technical question I have is for things like the low level fractal generation of micro terrain details. If for example you were to emplace trenches, do you have something in the works for making sure that trenches are able to be integrated into the terrain at a distance, at least in terms of interaction with projectiles or other physical phenomenon? The big issue in ArmA's engine has always been, at least to myself, that at distance things like clutter are lost, tall grasses are not draw, etc. My worry is that unlike ArmA where the terrain mesh is static (for the most part, at least when going up in detail), Outerra might have issues where AI or human players would be behind some sort of physical embankment or trench and it would be rendered differently to players further away.

[cameni]

We've heard about HLA already, actually Robert who is cooperating with us in the field of military related stuff has been advocating it to us for quite some time. However, I feel we can't go into this without some investment from a partner that would drive it towards a product for this area, otherwise it would be a risky business - not enough experiences for it and not enough resources to focus just on that.
But yes, it's definitely one of areas that could benefit from Outerra.

As for your question - Outerra generates terrain and textures dynamically, using fractals to fill in the missing detail, but then it also applies vector data such as roads (trenches could be just a kind of road) that are applied to each LOD level. So if there's a trench at a distance that is still visible for given quality setting and LOD metrics, it will be applied. Effectively this means that if one sets a sub-pixel quality - objects and features disappearing when their size falls below pixel size on the screen - one can't see the switch.

Another thing is how LOD is handled. Good LOD management and seamless switching are key aspects here too. For example the trees are drawn as billboards until they are just a few pixels high, when it switches to a color layer. When we will do a corn field or high grass, distant LODs will actually draw the upper surface there, that includes the vegetation. If there is a soldier hidden within, he will be effectively under the mesh for distant LODs that do not render the grass blades or blocks individually anymore, and thus still invisible.

I think it's actually an advantage to have the system designed like this, instead of relying on static meshes and classic LOD approaches.

As for the physics, for simulation purposes we always use a constant terrain detail. Terrain for collisions and physics can be generated independently from what is being rendered, these two things do not relate.

[Szyporyn]

I think Battleground Europe is something like that.

Yes WWII Online (or Battleground Europe as it has been renamed) is so far IMO the only game that would fully take into use the awesomeness of this engine.

The developers are not that keen (or so it would seem, there are some techincal stuff that I for obvious reasons do not know about hindering it) on moving away from their own developed game/graphics/terrain engine etc....

It is my hope that they WILL one day re-think and realise that this engine has everything they could possibly wish for (or so it would seem from what I have read).

IMO it could be taken further, but the genre that would get the most of this engine is indeed the warfare simulation genre, as you get the air, land and sea all rolled into one - but it would not make much sense if you did not go MMO for it as well...

What would I do with this engine then?

Well I would go the MMO warfare simulation way also.

The era is not so important, that is more a money question (everyone knows that the WWII type of games are the big sellers) - but a newer era game would get more out of this.

One could only imagine a scene out of Red Storm Rising with a F-15 moving to its maximum altitude to bust a satelitte come to play here.

But IMO any game that is so detailed would require MORE than just the "action" part - a seperate game would be needed (in cooperation with the "action" part off course) - since you cannot (or at least I cannot) imagine such a complex type of game be effecient or even organized without a strategic part - so for these players (the generals) a seperate type of game would need to be developed - a game where they in a typical strategy type environment would be able to operate based on input from the "action" part, and the "action" part act on the orders from the "strategy" part.

I have always had a thing for the old NATO vs Warsaw pact scenarios myself - and making a simulation based on that scenario would get the most out of such an engine as this one - again IMO (just imagine a tactical nuke blast a hole in the front - how awesome would that look using this engine)

[NouberNou]

We've heard about HLA already, actually Robert who is cooperating with us in the field of military related stuff has been advocating it to us for quite some time. However, I feel we can't go into this without some investment from a partner that would drive it towards a product for this area, otherwise it would be a risky business - not enough experiences for it and not enough resources to focus just on that.
But yes, it's definitely one of areas that could benefit from Outerra.

As for your question - Outerra generates terrain and textures dynamically, using fractals to fill in the missing detail, but then it also applies vector data such as roads (trenches could be just a kind of road) that are applied to each LOD level. So if there's a trench at a distance that is still visible for given quality setting and LOD metrics, it will be applied. Effectively this means that if one sets a sub-pixel quality - objects and features disappearing when their size falls below pixel size on the screen - one can't see the switch.

Another thing is how LOD is handled. Good LOD management and seamless switching are key aspects here too. For example the trees are drawn as billboards until they are just a few pixels high, when it switches to a color layer. When we will do a corn field or high grass, distant LODs will actually draw the upper surface there, that includes the vegetation. If there is a soldier hidden within, he will be effectively under the mesh for distant LODs that do not render the grass blades or blocks individually anymore, and thus still invisible.

I think it's actually an advantage to have the system designed like this, instead of relying on static meshes and classic LOD approaches.

As for the physics, for simulation purposes we always use a constant terrain detail. Terrain for collisions and physics can be generated independently from what is being rendered, these two things do not relate.

I agree with you on HLA, its not something you'd want to invest your time in unless it was for a specific purpose. The good thing though is that you can more than likely add something like HLA on top of your engine, just hooking what it needs to in any already exposed API and have an HLA wrapper for communications.

Interesting on the LOD. For things like collision you will have a fixed LOD? I was wondering, for things like artillery or other non-line-of-sight stuff would you be able to stream that terrain data for collisions of projectiles not within the immediate area of the player(s)?

[cameni]

Interesting on the LOD. For things like collision you will have a fixed LOD? I was wondering, for things like artillery or other non-line-of-sight stuff would you be able to stream that terrain data for collisions of projectiles not within the immediate area of the player(s)?

That depends on the implementation. If you do not see the terrain, do you need to know where it hit? If there's an entity nearby that would be affected, in a trusted environment that entity could be computing the collisions and resulting effects, advertising it to a global controller.

But any patch of terrain can be computed down to any level of detail as everything is deterministic. One will need just the base elevation data plus the vector data containing the edits. Vector data are fairly small, easily streamed around.

[phase.iNERTIA]

We're looking forward to the Outerra Engine next year, we plan to license it to develop an online multi-player game.

[Dawe]

I think,best for this engine is the truck simulator and multiplayer must be
This is my dream

[ZeosPantera]

We're looking forward to the Outerra Engine next year, we plan to license it to develop an online multi-player game.

Least informative post ever! Maybe it's a hiking game.. Maybe it's a geo-caching ice-cream adventure.. Maybe it's an ant colony simulator in 1:1 scale and walking around the globe would take a hundred years.

[phase.iNERTIA]

We're looking forward to the Outerra Engine next year, we plan to license it to develop an online multi-player game.

Least informative post ever! Maybe it's a hiking game.. Maybe it's a geo-caching ice-cream adventure.. Maybe it's an ant colony simulator in 1:1 scale and walking around the globe would take a hundred years.

Yes, we can't say much under NDA. Though lets just say it's a multiplayer sci-fi game.

Ant colony simulator sounds cool though, you have very awesome game ideas!  

[Aman]

Reminds me on "Sim Ant!"