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[HiFlyer]

Right now it seems the developers are busy on the Biomes, but it seems to me that making whole world changes is going to be a pretty time consuming task.

I was wondering if besides the Anteworld itself, the developers ever considered making a small "product showcase" area, such as either an imaginary or real place with limited dimensions like an island where they could really go to town and try their latest tech while having users contribute by making their own towns, adding roads and infrastructure etc....

Someplace to preview the "best of the best" of Outerra. And the user that makes the best use of the resources and adds the most, gets his level used as the "Base" level for the next additions.

Aerosoft (a flightsim developer) did this with a project they called Andra's Field, and X-plane does something similar (in a sort of half-hearted way) with their Seattle area.

There are obviously things needing to be fleshed out to make it work, but it could be quite an interesting and creative project.

Just something to consider

[John514]

That is actually a really good idea. Lets see what Cameni thinks.

[HiFlyer]

That is actually a really good idea. Lets see what Cameni thinks.

I remember them saying they wanted to try an area with a higher density mesh and other things; and it seemed an island (or other limited area) would be a good place to experiment and showcase stuff, as well have themselves and users populate the area with extensive buildings, roads, etc to show what could be done.

If a user creates a model for the area (like a bridge or dam or whatever) the model gets contributed to the basic Outerra models to be used by everyone else, and for inclusion (if its good enough and there are no copyright issues) in the final game tools.

[soulunite]

Nice thinking HiFlyer! I would love for this to happen

[christibbs]

I think that is a great idea. I'd like to see a whole town built (with interiors if possible). One of my biggest concerns for Outerra is how it handles large amounts of detailed models.

[John514]

I think that is a great idea. I'd like to see a whole town built (with interiors if possible). One of my biggest concerns for Outerra is how it handles large amounts of detailed models.

Well, someone imported the whole city of Paris as one model. Outerra was doing just fine!

[cameni]

I think something along those lines will appear in near future, especially since our new guys are primarily going to work on the scenery and import tools. Imports will be global, but the scenery tools will be most likely tested on a smaller scale region.

[PytonPago]

Good plans/news, looking forward for this ! Also, will there be some way or option to synchronize such "tweaked" areas whyte aether the server (just a on/off synch option maybe) or other peoples work when the multilayer mode comes later ? Would be handy for works like the ME-Dem guys have when serious city-building starts or for aviation folks to do realism-airport scenery-es (some blending way would be nice too, if two people work at one place together to merge the changes, or just a "online workstation" possibility). Wouldn't be bad to have something like a "scenery-pack" structure in thought for the future, where not just models would be for download, but whole scenery's whyte the handwork elevation data (free or payware base).

P.S.: New guys ! We want all the paparazzi stuff about them.

[HiFlyer]

Coolness!

Of course, the idea is the easy part. Now lets see how practical it is to implement!

[foxfiles]

Well, someone imported the whole city of Paris as one model. Outerra was doing just fine!

any link to the related post?
because I doubt a lot about the quality of this model?
I know about a very large Paris 3D model, with textures, taken from an airborne photometry mission, but it is not something one can get freely or test anywhere...
Also I wonder about a "static model" of a full city in real time...

[PytonPago]

any link to the related post?
because I doubt a lot about the quality of this model?
I know about a very large Paris 3D model, with textures, taken from an airborne photometry mission, but it is not something one can get freely or test anywhere...
Also I wonder about a "static model" of a full city in real time...

... i think he mistook the post of the few elevated streets posted some + year ago - just two small blocks of low buildings actually.

[HiFlyer]

any link to the related post?
because I doubt a lot about the quality of this model?
I know about a very large Paris 3D model, with textures, taken from an airborne photometry mission, but it is not something one can get freely or test anywhere...
Also I wonder about a "static model" of a full city in real time...

... i think he mistook the post of the few elevated streets posted some + year ago - just two small blocks of low buildings actually.

This is one of the burning questions, though. On many flight sim sites, there remains a stubborn perception that engines like Outerra simply cannot handle large areas of civilization the size of a city.

There is also the perception that complex avionics systems etc would drag Outerra to a standstill. There is a response akin to exasperation at the frequent mention of Outerra as a possible sim, and Outerra has (to date) shown little, at least publicly that puts these persistent doubts to rest.

It was also as a partial answer to that skepticism that I suggested this, as a concrete demonstration of capability would challenge critics (if they are indeed wrong) as well as give an undeniable proof of concept that might go a long way in encouraging fence sitters to take a serious interest.

[PytonPago]

No need o worry about avionics - its still one of main aims to be a Sim-engine. As for large rural  and city areas - its all on the well planed LOD-models of them, maybe even in combination whyte procedural city generation on non-city-characteristic structures and landmarks surroundings. I would not get much headache from such ... Cameny and his friends surely have already lots in minds for handling these pity problems. 

[John514]

Well, someone imported the whole city of Paris as one model. Outerra was doing just fine!

any link to the related post?
because I doubt a lot about the quality of this model?
I know about a very large Paris 3D model, with textures, taken from an airborne photometry mission, but it is not something one can get freely or test anywhere...
Also I wonder about a "static model" of a full city in real time...

Hmm. My mistake. Here it is. Read for yourself: http://forum.outerra.com/index.php?topic=2022.msg21732#msg21732

[foxfiles]

Hmm. My mistake. Here it is. Read for yourself: http://forum.outerra.com/index.php?topic=2022.msg21732#msg21732

Ah yes thanks for the link, now I remember having seen this, but the model is of a very low & "bad" quality...

One can surely manage good LOD properties on very large models, using tools like simplygon.com
but for a complete city, I wonder, because if we want to have a convincing representation of such a city, close to the real place, at low altitudes or at ground level, then it means a lot of facets and pixels.

Today it's easy to find this kind of accurate representations of large urban areas, the trick is to extract vector datas from these huge models for procedural usage (generation of roofs, facades, roads,  poles, etc).

By the way there is a lot of research on this : of course it is feasible by hand (but so time consuming) so if it would be automatic, with smart recognition + extraction, it would solve the issue.