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[4x4lover]

so if you could somehow have the engine find out what the temp is in that location someplaces woldn't have trees and grass

[MatthewS]

so if you could somehow have the engine find out what the temp is in that location someplaces woldn't have trees and grass

Or, support a "landclass" system like with FSX.  In FSX its a little coarse at 1kmx1km "tiles".  Maybe Outerra could have smaller tiles, say 250meter x 250 meter.

By making Outerra extensible (like Microsoft did with FS9/FSX) you will get a lot of 3rd party support!

Please consider
- Custom land and water textures
- Custom landclass and waterclass tiles
- Custom road textures
- Custom "autogen" building and tree textures
- Custom elevation data and ability to specify spot heights for mountain tops.
- Custom sky and cloud textures

Also, please let these land, road, water, autogen be customised on a regional basis. For example a desert texture for the sahara might need to look different to a desert texture for the Australian "outback" and suburban buildings in Asia are going to be quite different to suburban buildings in the USA.

edit: Although the way you smartly place tree data based on slope looks very natural.  Maybe you could have a system that is a hybrid of landclass tiles and smart placement based on slope?

[cameni]

Well the system in Outerra is a bit different, you cannot expect to have such results while using the approach as in FS.
Although, a landclass-like system will be used as basis, with 500m resolution but refined with fractal techniques so that the transitions between types are natural. Land class is here defined as ground textures and vegetation sets with assigned probability rules (related to terrain attributes). So yes, it will be a hybrid system - for example, rough raster defines where lies a forest, but the transitions will be fractal and individual trees/shrubs are still subject to probability rules so that it looks natural.

As the result, this system should create Earth roughly as it would look without human interference.

Atop of that you can have vector data defining mainly the changes in environment caused by human activity. Roads, fields, pastures etc. These have sharp edges with respect to the surrounding environment; the transitions are still subject to fractal refinement but at a much smaller scale.
The only place for autogen I can see here is for large polygon-defined agricultural areas where it could automatically create single fields and auto-assign the classes. There should be also a city generator, generating cities/towns/villages in specified area - this should be probably based on OSM data so that roads are defined correctly, and buildings are generated in the polygonal urban areas.

Custom elevation data - the elevation data and other raster data have to be processed first, in order to get them into our format that is LOD- and progressive download- friendly, and compressed. If you have a custom patch of data, you'll need the surrounding terrain data as well to create the terrain files. But there should be a tool later that will be able to do this.

But the point is - in order to get the detail on every level and to have the natural terrain appearance you can't do simple things like defining a new land class with a single texture and assigning an ID for it. You have to specify the vegetation and probabilities, a set of textures and their fractal blending styles etc.

[Abc94]

Ok, I have a request.

Can you make a video of a Tatra truck driving off Mount Everest or a tall mountain?  I am fine if there's green grass at the top of Everest.  

I read a comment asking this on the MODDB page

[cameni]

No it's not possible atm due to horizontal displacement effect on rocks. Physics uses non-displaced terrain so vehicles appear like sinking into the rocks. It needs a different collision apparatus, but it's a low priority task because of the low usability.

And only two madmen asked to drive Tatra down the Everest mountain so far

[Alen Bajrovic]

when demo version comes out?

[InviZ]

And what about Canyons?
For example in Asadabad. (http://wikimapia.org/#lat=34.867905&lon=71.1488342&z=10&l=1&m=b)

[cameni]

And what about Canyons?
For example in Asadabad. (http://wikimapia.org/#lat=34.867905&lon=71.1488342&z=10&l=1&m=b)

Not sure where to look. Heading direction and precise camera coordinates would be handy.

[InviZ]

Ok, lets try something like this http://wikimapia.org/#lat=34.6430238&lon=70.8408737&z=14&l=1&m=b
I just want to see virtical rocks
Like on this pic: http://artofwar.ru/img/h/hristenzen_j_e/text_0110/asadabad_trip_033.jpg

[cameni]

The original elevation data we are using have resolution 90m, which is not enough for canyons or cliffs, nevertheless here are some screens of the steepest naturally occurring slopes (possible with 90m base grid) - showing the effect of the horizontal displacement.





If I artificially create a steeper slope (by placing a leveling pad at the foot of a hill), overhangs appear. You can see the leveling pad on the ground and the rock hanging over it.



What I want to do is to add a displacement texture that will augment the fractal displacement in creating the characteristic patterns of particular rock type - different for canyons, cliffs, iceberg-carved mountains of volcanoes etc.

[C. Shawn Smith]

Cameni, I'm sure you've already answered this, but where are you getting your heightfield data from?  USGS?  Just curious

[MatthewS]

Here are some screens of the steepest naturally occurring slopes (possible with 90m base grid) - showing the effect of the horizontal displacement. If I artificially create a steeper slope (by placing a leveling pad at the foot of a hill), overhangs appear. You can see the leveling pad on the ground and the rock hanging over it. What I want to do is to add a displacement texture that will augment the fractal displacement in creating the characteristic patterns of particular rock type - different for canyons, cliffs, iceberg-carved mountains of volcanoes etc.

Gosh those screens look great!  The detail at ground level is fantastic... makes a person want to pitch a tent, light campfire and watch the sunset, whilst keeping an ear open for any nearby grizzlies/cougars!

[InviZ]

Cameni, fantastic job! Looks very good!)
And what about cillisions with such rocks? I mean when generated with using fractals!

[cameni]

Cameni, I'm sure you've already answered this, but where are you getting your heightfield data from?  USGS?  Just curious

There are various sources for the data, one nice list is on vterrain.org. We are combining several sources, they have to be remapped and compiled into our format.

Too bad the global 30m Aster dataset is unusable thanks to its low quality.

[cameni]

What about cillisions with such rocks? I mean when generated with using fractals!

The generated data are being read back for collision purposes, although currently just as a heightfield without the horizontal displacement component. Later, for the tiles that are under its effect it will be read back as meshes, to get proper collision handling.