Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[DomDom]

Hi,

i´ve found this project via the Aerosoft FS2012 Forum and it looks really really good!


Being a geography student I was wondering if you know of the TanDEM X project - this will provide excellent elevation data in the future. May be expensive though - hope not...

Keep going - this is so cool!

[C. Shawn Smith]

For the project I discussed with you through email, the Aster stuff was one of the first websites I visited.  I like how they talk about the 30m resolution, when in reality it's closer to 120m .  I finally settled on the USGS site because at that point, my purposes really didn't matter and I was able to get more or less what I wanted with their resolution.  That's one of the reasons I started to paint my own heightfied data in Photoshop ... it's slow, painstaking, and doesn't get quite the same results as I really want, but with a little noise it gets close.

I'll be interested in an eventual breakdown of your reasoning behind a lot of the information you're using in the engine, as far as the heightfield data, as well as the fractal stuff you've discussed.  As a 3d modeler, some of this stuff translates readily into the 3d app I'm working with (with a little slight-of-hand magic) for my own project, so I'm interested in any other data or breakdown you might be able to provide.

Ever thought about doing a complete breakdown of your engine?  Yeah, I know, shut up, Shawn .  I'm just fascinated by other people's reasonings, and it's nice to see this kind of thing from time to time.  As a 3d artist, I feed off of Works In Progress sites to see how various artists accomplish what they do ... and people like you are just as much of an artist as those of us who pick up a paintbrush and dip it into oils or acrylics ... it's just a different medium.

[cameni]

Being a geography student I was wondering if you know of the TanDEM X project - this will provide excellent elevation data in the future. May be expensive though - hope not...

I didn't hear about it before, looks very interesting but I too wonder about the cost.
Thanks for the info

[cameni]

I'll be interested in an eventual breakdown of your reasoning behind a lot of the information you're using in the engine, as far as the heightfield data, as well as the fractal stuff you've discussed.  As a 3d modeler, some of this stuff translates readily into the 3d app I'm working with (with a little slight-of-hand magic) for my own project, so I'm interested in any other data or breakdown you might be able to provide.

Ever thought about doing a complete breakdown of your engine?

Some of the info is scattered around in various comments, but I actually want to do a kind of breakdown document (albeit really not a complete one) probably some time after the engine is released. There's no time for that now, and many core things aren't finished yet either, but if you are interested in some lighter specific info I can answer it here

[C. Shawn Smith]

Eh, nothing really specific.  I guess the biggest thing would probably how you layer the different procedural techniques as far as the height data, your fractal layers, etc, to arrive at this particular level of detail.

The most difficult thing I'm encountering at the moment is getting my modeled terrain down to a 2m resolution, but I think 90% of my problem is that my mesh just isn't dense enough.  I'm now using an Adaptive Pixel Subdivision to help increase resolution dependent on camera distance, but my mesh is already so high in polygon count that I'm crashing my system any time I get closer than about 100m from the ground.

I'm layering a hand-painted color map on top of Perlin, Multi-Ridged Fractal, and Hybrid Hetero** procedurals (the latter three as a bump map) at the moment, as well as displacement and normal maps (created in Pixologic's Zbrush).  But I haven't been too happy with the Perlin.  And since my height data isn't complete yet, it's hard to say just how effective this particular layering is going to work.

Unfortunately, even though I use these procedurals on a daily basis, I have absolutely no idea how they actually work.  Seeing this stuff in a real-time engine helps see the results instantly.  That's why I'm now going back and rethinking some of the procedural textures I've been using ... all of these mountain flybys have really helped alot .  I'd love to see a video or screenshots without any color on the land, just for analysis purposes.

*Edit*  Bleh, I meant Hetero Terrain and Hybrid Multi-Fractal.  Remind me to never post without that 2nd cup of coffee

[cameni]

I'm afraid that it's not easy to translate what we are doing into layers of a modeling program. Another problem is the memory - if a generic modeler keeps the data for layers separately, to be merged by mathematical operators, it will consume a lot of memory. I don't know if/how the modelers are optimizing it, though.

Here the operations and intermediate layers are hidden in the shader code in various stages, to save memory and to speed it up as well.
But some time ago I did this demo where the functionality was gradually turned on to show the different stages, have you seen it?

[C. Shawn Smith]

Ahh, that helps a lot, actually, and I haven't seen that before .  That shows me exactly what I needed to see, I think.  Most of what I'm seeing translates almost directly into the 3d modeler, it's just a matter of the memory management, like you said.  Now at least I have a direction to travel .

Also saw a few things in the Horizontal Displacement page.

It's weird ... both of our projects are like comparing apples to oranges lol.  But a lot of it has its equivalent, we just call them by different names .

It just tells me one thing though ... I should have gotten into programming instead of 3d modeling ... I'd probably be more satisfied with my results long-term

[Abc94]

Alright, I have a couple screenshot requests!

The first one is looking at the Jasper mountains in Alberta, Canada.

Latitude:  52°56'42.94"N
Longitude:  117°59'52.87"W
Heading:  41.000000°
Tilt:  77.000000°
Altitude:  7.20 km

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

My second location is above some of the Florida Keys.

Latitude:  24°33'34.51"N
Longitude:  82° 7'59.85"W
Heading:  80.000000°
Tilt:  74.000000°
Altitude:  3.17km

And I know there may be some problems with islands since they are so close to sea level, but I'm ok if there's land where there should be ocean or vise versa.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

My third and final location is a whooping 128.9 km above the ground!

Latitude:  53°37'33.73"N
Longitude:  115°25'59.85"W
Heading:  177.000000°
Tilt:  75.000000°
Altitude:  128.90km

[cameni]

FOV angle probably won't be what you wanted.
I've added more screens with different angles to produce more interesting views at the locations.

[RaikoRaufoss]

Truly beautiful!  Shame there won't be a vehicle that can take you from ground level to the edge of space in the demo.

[Abc94]

Thanks Cameni for taking the time to make those screenshots!    They look like they were all taken from the Cessna, although I don't think it would be able to fly up to 128.90 km! And I especially like the second image, (out of the six) with all of the lines running through the mountains!

Although when I got those coordinates from Google Earth, the camera positions looked alot differnt.  I think this is becasue I messed up when recording the coordinates, since I wasn't sure that the position I gave you was the actual camera position or the position of the placemark that it created when I tried to save the position of the camera.

As well, it seems that all of "my" screenshots are looking directly down at the Earth, while the views I had in Google Earth were looking more at the horizon, so I am thinking that I ended up giving you the position of the placemarks rather than the camera positions.

Anyways, I am über excited to try out the demo!  I hope you can get the physics engine to use horizontal displacement so I can drive multiple Tatra trucks off of steep hills and mountains!  

PS:  The last two screenshots are so hazy you can hardly see the ground (especially the fifth one)!  I'm guessing that's just because the atmosphere isn't fine tuned yet?

PPS: If you can't drive Tatra trucks off mountains, what about driving off a canyon cliff?  That would make for an interesting video!  

[cameni]

As well, it seems that all of "my" screenshots are looking directly down at the Earth, while the views I had in Google Earth were looking more at the horizon, so I am thinking that I ended up giving you the position of the placemarks rather than the camera positions.

Maybe there's confusion about the "tilt" angle, I took it for angle from horizontal plane, but now that you say you looked at the horizon, it should probably be an angle from the down vector .. weird, a bit.

PS:  The last two screenshots are so hazy you can hardly see the ground (especially the fifth one)!  I'm guessing that's just because the atmosphere isn't fine tuned yet?

It is true that the atmosphere is not fine tuned yet, but from 128km it will be always hazy due to in-scatter of light into the viewing ray. Maybe the bigger problem is that the terrain is just grass and trees down there, not many colors.

If you can't drive Tatra trucks off mountains, what about driving off a canyon cliff?  That would make for an interesting video!  

A flying Tatra?
Well it would be possible, although without damage model it will be just the flying, and probably also passing through the terrain floor at the end.

[DenBocaz]

can i ask for some shots? !!!

this is the location:

41º 27' 28'' South
72º 55' 07'' West

can i ask for 4 shots?

from the location to south, east, north and west please!

and hey Cameni!, i'll send you a PM

cheers!

[cameni]

Here it goes.

[RaikoRaufoss]

All I can say is WOW, I really like what I see!