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[aua122]

Hi!

First of all gratulations to your project. I followed a link on an german flightsimulation site to your youtube video about a cessna flight in outerra!
I watched it over and over again - i just can say - WOW!

In my opinion your engine could be a revolution for flightsimming. I forwarded the link of your great video to the community of our virtual airline (www.austrian-va.eu) and to a german Flight-Sim-Magazin. And everybody who saw your video was as impressed as i was.

At the moment several developers are working on a new flight-simulator because microsoft doesn't continue its Flight-Sim-Series anymore. One of theses developers is Aerosoft (www.aerosoft.com). I forwarded your video to the customer support too, because i think they should have a look at this.

There is so much potential in this engine and i really hope to see it in a future flightsim game!!!!

greetings from Austira
Chris

[cameni]

Hi Chris,

I'm glad you liked the video. It was basically just a test of several things we worked on - collision responses for the JSBSim (which does some weird things related to the suspension there btw) and the in-game HD video capturing. We liked it and so we ended up uploading it, and now we are very pleased by the reaction from the flight sim crowd, especially from the German/Austrian forums.

I've been contacted by Mathijs Kok from Aerosoft already some time ago, but then he went silent. I can only guess he got averted by the fact that we are just a small independent developer (in fact we did it just in our spare time then) and we don't have any product history yet. Can't blame him for that either, we only have our demo work speaking for us but there is much money in it for Aerosoft. Additionally, he expressed himself on Aerosoft's forums recently that "as good as it is at what the demo's show, it is not what we need". I may also say (but it's not a response to that) that I don't like some of their decisions or proclamations that made it through on the forums, so I'm not sure how it would work anyway. But all these are just speculations - there's far too little info available.

As a small developer we cannot really hope to make a substantial flight simulator with all stuff belonging to it, alone or without the appropriate funding to be able to make a high quality and a high potential simulator, and we will not make a mediocre one. So what we want to do is to make a game that will be appealing to general player population, to be able to secure some income channels, but to smuggle in a realistic simulator of some plane made available as a side or a free ride mission, or just for the demo purposes. We hope to show off our technology this way, and our ability to utilize the engine in a game.

Thanks,
Brano

[aua122]

Hi Brano!

Thx for your reply! Well i hope your video makes it round the world, to the rest of the simming community. The great thing i see in outerra, is the possibility to do almost everything, which is sim-related. Space-Sim, Flight-Sim, Trian-Sim, Tactical Sims, Ship sim, and more are things which i can imagine. There are hundereds of possibilities.

Hmmm, why shouldnt Aerosoft or another developer use your engine. You did a great job. I see outerra as base. The rest have to be built around by the gamedesigners. As you correctly stated, to build up a complete flightsim like ms-fs or x-plane in your sparetime very difficult.

Anyway im sure we will see outerra in future simgames:)

Go, on and again congratulations,

best regards
chris

[WarpSpider74]

You guys should get in touch with Uros and Gregor, the devs of the Condor Soaring Simulator (assuming you haven't already...)  This is the best gliding sim on the market, developed by a small independent team and while it looks great with it's current engine, soaring over your landscapes would be simply breathtaking.  Regardless, your engine looks amazing, can't wait to see how it turns out.

Greetz from the other Aus... the one down under.
Derek

[cameni]

Hi Derek,
Yes I saw that one recently, I had no idea how many dedicated flight sim projects are there before we started receiving emails from fans
I can imagine that there will be a common platform based on Outerra engine so these guys can make their specialized simulators, focusing on their stuff without having to deal with terrain & world rendering.

[MatthewS]

Hi Derek,
Yes I saw that one recently, I had no idea how many dedicated flight sim projects are there before we started receiving emails from fans
I can imagine that there will be a common platform based on Outerra engine so these guys can make their specialized simulators, focusing on their stuff without having to deal with terrain & world rendering.

Another flight sim fan here!  

Outerra is what Microsoft should license to build FS11 (if that ever happens).

Of course Aerosoft are looking to build a new flight sim too.  Maybe they will change there mind about Outerra.

In anycase guys you will make a lot of money!  The engine seems perfect for all sorts of applications.

You planning on adding features such as rain, wind, cloud(with shadows) too?

Also, any plans to use OpenStreetMap to import road/rail/coastline/water data?  Outerra would look amazing with this data!!!

How about a SDK to 3rd parties can experiment with your engine.  I've done a bit of work with integrating OpenStreetMap into FSX scenery.  Would love to write an exporter to incorporate OpenStreetMap data into Outerra.

Planning to release any demos?

[cameni]

Hi Matthew,
Thanks for the kind words, although I'm not sure any *rosoft would be the right thing for us

Yes we want to have a complete world rendering together with atmospheric effects, but this will come gradually after we finish the main terrain features.
The OSM data will be used too, I'm now working on better integration of roads into the engine, once that is ready it will be fairly easy to import road types and then also the road data into the world. Railroads would be really nice too but we are now primarily adding features that we need for our demo game, and rails won't be there.
An SDK may only come after we release a product, maybe the demo will evolve into a moddable sandbox game that may then become the ground for 3rd party experimentation as well.

The thread about demo is here

[Pezzer]

Hi
I just found your site after investigating a new flight sim. What you have already achieved is very impressive but I would like to ask if you have been in contact with the Cascade Game Foundry because they are what remains of the old aces team from Microsoft and they appear to be planning a new FS product in a sort of continuation of the old msfs series.

Hope you keep up the great work.

James

[cameni]

Hi James
No we aren't in contact with them. From the sparse description it's not clear to me they are working on a new FS title, either. They are supposedly "working on demos that illustrate what their team can deliver – very cool concepts". Well, concepts.

[Airhogg]

Wow!  I'm a flight sim fan and home cockpit builder, but I also love first person shooters.  My first thought from watching the videos makes me think this could eventually be an incredible online multiplayer game/simulator (think Battlefield 2 on a global level).

Allow players to choose their vehicles of choice, but incorporate true simulation for those who seek that as well.... maybe have the ability to turn off the "battlefield" portion so those who want to practice instrument approaches aren't getting shot at by small arms fire.

This could go so many different directions.  It could definately be an online social environment as well, but I can't imagine that not becoming boring after so long.  Imagine leaving your virtual house in your car of choice and heading to the airport.... hopping in your aircraft of choice and flying to your city of choice to hang out with your virtual friends of choice.  It might be fun for newcomers, but I would think it wouldn't keep their interest for long.  You have to have action or a plot of some sort to keep people coming back.

Seriously though, I would probably focus on the exploration aspect... at least at first.  Allow everyone to get their feet wet with the beauty of what you've created.  Aircraft, cars, boats, ATV's, and maybe even a "human".  Just allow people to explore our "world" in ways they may never be able to do in real life.  Hop out of your vehicle and take a virtual hike through the woods or virtual swim in a newly found stream in a location that you simply don't have the means to get to in real life.

Once you gain momentum you could move forward towards a more accurate simulation of any vehicle available.  Allowing 3rd party development is a must.  The Microsoft Flight Simulator line could never have gotten where it did without it.  The announcement of Microsoft's new "Flight" sounds like they may be removing the simulation from the game.  There may be a market for that, but as a serious simmer, I'm not looking for social interaction while I "virtual fly"... I want realism.  I would consider 2 modes.  One with online interaction (see where others are and what they do) and one without (for more serious "simmers").

The realistic view of the world is the key and your engine is a huge step towards that.  I was just enjoying watching the trucks go up the dirt road!  I couldn't wait to see where they ended up!  When you show the view from the window of the cabin toward the night sky, my taste buds wanted more of it!

Good luck either way.... I want to help beta test!

[cameni]

Thanks! Yes, the exploration will be probably the first thing to do there, although we need to enhance the generator to be able to generate more terrain types with proper vegetation system. I can't wait to see how it will look around the world then .. can't wait because I have to analyze and program it

You'll be all beta testing it with the demo, or rather it's an alpha-testing, but the demo should grow gradually into something more.

[maxter]

So will this "world/planet" simulator have some sort of physics engine added to it as another layer.

As a long time flight simmer (since 1984/85) one thing that has been a real issue for me is accurate physics of an aircraft moving through the air.  Various sims have tried and have had success to varying degrees.

For me to be able to replicate the elastic movement of an object through a fluid is really important as is the interaction of that object once it comes in contact with something solid (ie aircraft landing).

What is also really important is the the game/sim is able to be interfaced with the many thousands worth of flight control hardware that many of us simmers already have invested in.

Anyhow, to echo what the others have already said above, really well done guys and looking forward to the demo.

Cheers and thanks,

[DenBocaz]

i'm new here! but i want to say that this engine is blowing my mind every time i see the videos! i just can't wait for the demo to be released... i think i'm not the only one like that!



cheers!

[RaikoRaufoss]

i'm new here! but i want to say that this engine is blowing my mind every time i see the videos! i just can't wait for the demo to be released... i think i'm not the only one like that!



cheers!

You're not alone.  I can't wait either.

[DenBocaz]

i have to say that i'm very excited, because the place i live, is very mountain-esque, so i hope the data used in outerra will represent the best way possible the terrain in my location (FS Global is good, but has a looooot of bugs)

i'm from Puerto Montt Chile!