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[halobungie]

Hello Cameni,

you have write: Yep. That's why I wrote in the blog "Don't mind the bugs visible on the water - they have been fixed already for the presentation". I forgot to mention it here

Can you show us the fixed water coastline?

Greetings,
halobungie

[cameni]

I meant the black and white dots on water when looking from above, these are already fixed but we didn't make another video yet.
I'm currently working more on the water, since the first version didn't support translucency of objects submerged in water. I will write a more detailed blog about the water when it's done, also describing some algorithms there.

[petitfilou]

Will there be eventually some underwater vegetation?  seaweed, dirt particles, etc?  
And what about wildlife, like fish in the sea, rabbits, deer, etc on land ?  I know its not a priority at this stage, but later on.

[cameni]

You probably don't expect me to say nay, no and never, and that engine's architecture disallows any underwater vegetation

Oceans should be subject to climate and land class data as well, that means the underwater vegetation will change depending on the climate, and seafloor should be different too.
Once the animals are spawned, I'm sure it will include sea creatures.

Although, getting the animals behaving to Outerra standards .. will be some work

Yeah and dirt particles, that's something Angrypig is sawing my ears with from water day one
Weird, I though "sawing someone's ears" is a universal phrase, but now I can find it used only in Slovak language.

[razgriz 53992]

The water especially looks unbelievable.

One thing I was thinking when watching it, was the lack of sound. It'll be amazing when the environment creates sound- howling of wind, splash of waves, pattering of rain. It'll be awesome.

The conference seemed to produce amazing results, congrats with everything guys.

You saw 'when the animals are spawned'. Are there going to be animals that roam the land? If there are, that would be unbelievable. To see birds, deer and everything else would be stunning.

[flightmaster]

The water especially looks unbelievable.

One thing I was thinking when watching it, was the lack of sound. It'll be amazing when the environment creates sound- howling of wind, splash of waves, pattering of rain. It'll be awesome.

The conference seemed to produce amazing results, congrats with everything guys.

You saw 'when the animals are spawned'. Are there going to be animals that roam the land? If there are, that would be unbelievable. To see birds, deer and everything else would be stunning.

I agree, just thinking of it gives me this: O_O

[cameni]

Yes the sound is very much needed there, I think we'll do at least some ambient one with basic environment detection, so it changes with proximity to forests or sea.

Animals would greatly liven up the world, but obviously they aren't priority now.

[razgriz 53992]

Yes the sound is very much needed there, I think we'll do at least some ambient one with basic environment detection, so it changes with proximity to forests or sea.

Animals would greatly liven up the world, but obviously they aren't priority now.

I understand why they aren't priority, it could even be something left alone which can be created by modders.

I run out of words to describe this. My posting thoughts go something like-

'well, I've used 'awesome' twice, 'unbelievable' 3 times, 'amazing' 4 times, 'stunning' once... in this one sentence. Bugger. *reaches for thesaurus*'

[petitfilou]

If, when the day comes, you need some animals in outerra.  I'd be happy to provide some cycles/behaviour animations.  If they could be done in Softimage and exported somehow, maybe collada?  

Before you ask, yes I am an animator (and bit of a generalist).  ;o)    

I'm working full time, but could do some in my spare time.   I could even model some animals if you can't find models.

You could have, say, one deer duplicated with AI creating herds etc.  with random anims playing,  that'd be great to see in your engine.

I'm thinking like World of Warcraft 's got some nice moments when wolves attack rabbits, etc.  obviously done in a more realistic way, to fit with the world.

Anyway, just ask when you're ready and interested.  Cheers

[cameni]

Thanks, I'm sure we could use a skilled animator when the time comes.

As you maybe know, we are thinking about making a game capable of demonstrating the engine, that wouldn't be too heavy on our limited resources. That means extensively using procedural stuff, without too much modeling. At the same time we want a whole planet there, and these are some serious constraints put on the game.

 Procedural stuff will mainly generate the world without human influence. A civilization game from the past when man began conquering the world pretty much dominated by wolves? There would be many types of animals roaming when humans are low. Or the game setting could be in the future with humans almost wiped out with nature reclaiming the world - this would be better as it will allow use of post-modern vehicles. Anyway, there would have to be a much greater representation of animals than we are used to now.

So I think it's possible we will be testing the needed bits soon, including some animals. We will setup a forum to discuss the sandbox/civ game idea, as we received a lot of feedback that says there exists a large group of players that want a sandbox-like game, with exploration and some tension elements etc. I know there are many flight simmers that just want a copy of the contemporary world that probably won't like it, but that concept requires a much higher investment. The tools developed here for world editing will be needed for other areas, so it's not like a totally divergent path though.

[petitfilou]

No worries,  it was just in case at some point some wildlife animation would be needed.    I guess you would animate herds, or flock of birds procedurally, but use hand made anims, like bird flapping its wings, deer walk cycle, etc..    like in a video game really.

Do you think developers in the future could add their own wildlife to the game? like addons for vehicles?....  like importing a deer model with run, walk anim,  then use procedural tools to create behavior, animals scattering if you get too close, etc.?

cheers.

EDIT:  I kinda repeated what mentionned really.   oops.

[OGREMAN]

......... Here's a slightly newer video with camera viewing from shore....

Ohh Yeah!   This program is becoming a full time distraction ...... I LOVE IT  .... If a usable version was made available tomorrow IT WOULD STILL NOT BE SOON ENOUGH .... sooo excited at the possible use for this...

[MatthewS]

Do you think developers in the future could add their own wildlife to the game? like addons for vehicles?....  like importing a deer model with run, walk anim,  then use procedural tools to create behavior, animals scattering if you get too close, etc.?

I reckon Outerra should offer a much lower level of support for developers.

Let developer via API do the following:-

- Create object
- Destroy object
- Set object position (heading, alt, pitch, bank)
- Set object animation (eg "walking")
- Move object along set of waypoints at given speed.
- Query object position by handle
- Query object info by object handle (eg object name, supported animations etc)
- Get list of object handles within a given radius

With those basic capabilities a 3rd party developer could write any sort of "AI" module, eg wildlife, AI aircraft with ATC control, ground crew, airport "crowds" etc etc.

IMHO its more important that Outerra supply an API with a lot of low level capabilities so that 3rd parties can "value add" rather than Outerra try to add this "value" themselves.

[Tim]

For "Serious Gaming" it is better to move as much "intelligence" as possible out of the image generating software into an external host. Even better: use a standard. Check out the Common Image Generator Interface (CIGI) from Boeing (http://cigi.sourceforge.net/)

BTW: Keep up your outstanding work!!

[MatthewS]

For "Serious Gaming" it is better to move as much "intelligence" as possible out of the image generating software into an external host. Even better: use a standard. Check out the Common Image Generator Interface (CIGI) from Boeing (http://cigi.sourceforge.net/)

BTW: Keep up your outstanding work!!

Exactly... hence the need for Outerra to have an API that lets 3rd party developers exercise low level control of the engine.

Sort of like what SimConnect did for FSX but make it more comprehensive.