Outerra Engine > Ideas & Suggestions & Questions
Little things of a big thing
josem75:
Now that we are close to some of the majors outerra updates, and being clear that NOTHING can be compared with how great is outerra as a global engine. and i tested for example the famous "A Boy and His Kite", and for me outerra is still much better.. (while this unreal engine thing is still even not global, just bigger).
I wanted to open this topic where i will be listing some little suggestions tools, that after years of user experience i think would make the gameplay much more perfect.
(note: Not for be implemented now, i know how stressful get the big udate days for all the outerra team).
1 - Terrain quality switch fast keys.
A fast keys where we can move terrain quality up or down (Ideally while outerra show a line with the current value when we touch those keys up or down).
I love to play at 1080 terrain. And i can do in most of the places. But we know other like mountains are imposible. But the necesity of go into menus for change it, make you just play always at 720 or 600. And its a pity. The solution could be "easy" ( sorry Pasto :) ).
2 - Outerra Speed bar.
Lets suppouse we are walking, or flying, and we like the experience but we need to boost the speed for connect with another scenary. So we must go out from plane and move faster in ufo. Or we want just fly faster for improve the feellings with the engine.
Why not a speed bar where we can boost the general game speed? x1,25, x1,5 , x1,75,x2.. Etc, until x32 or x64, or more. Ideally a long bar that appear with some key with VERY detailed steps of speed up or down.
Because maybe for some person, the Mig 29 experience can be more funny at x1,8 speed, or x1,9. Or x2.1.
Thats why i see better little steps than x2 , x4 , x8 (as i saw in others famous simulators).
Besides that Bar appearing, would be a great adition having keys programmed for speed up and down where you also can program the quanty of steps (every 0,1, or every 0,2, or 0,5, etc). While outerra also show the current value when you touch.
3 - THOSE NEXT ARE RELATED WITH VISUAL CONFIG IN ATHMOSPHERE.
3 - A - This first is very simple. Just Save button for athmosheric settings.
Sometimes you want to test the overal experience changing some settings. You can go back to reset changes, but the idea is test the settings outside first without needing write your current settings for not loose.
*More complex, with the posibility of fast keys with my config 1,2,3, and change on game fast. This would be great.
3 - B Something very silly but very useful. (dont know if technically posible) Diference snow from terrain in ground reflectance value. I personally love to play with very high value here. But the problem sometimes is snow places get so burn.
-The simple way, a simple diferent bar where you can put 18 value for example in ground reflectance, but only 12 for snow, for example.
note: I would do same with roads, which are also overexposed looking a bit fake sometimes and would look greater darker, as long as affected with this value. Coveral in shadows areas with high reflectance values.
-The complex way. Suppouse you love how snow look also in 18 value in general (also totally my case), but in some areas with a lot of snow, or in some hours, get also over-expossed. So a value with some resistance to overburn snow not when is still good, but when begining to burn (i dont know how to do technically, its like a brake point so snow cant go more burn from determinated point).
Lets call that a fixed value acting like that brake. Which can be both in terrain and snow. So if you move bar up, those are more dificult overburn while circunstancies are making them overburn (the more hard light hours, places with a lot of snow, etc). Its like a fixed value that corrects overexposition of whites.
(Dificult to explain, i dont know if i am explaining good so people can und, i hope yes).
I suppouse fixed bars and values that prevent that kind of visual things, can go as comlex as programmers want. But basically avoid overexposed situations. In snow and also terrain. Coz sometimes terrains are abnormally white in some mountains, and also get burn.
3 - C - Alive Atmosphere configuration.
Where you can move values depending on the hour of the day, and record your config.
This would be also useful for prevent overburn, or overdarkness, etc. So you have a timeline bar over the settings, and if you activate option, you can record the secuence when you change settings in diferent hours. For example. I move expossure down while those hours in the day the sun is in the top and burn terrain more. Or i move ground reflection, or whatever.
Ideally, The value from one hour to another make a smooth transition, here again this would be more complex technically, than make a manual transition, which is another option, adding more detailed values manually for make changes smooth.
All those options can make the gameplay experience more detailed. Some of them can be complementary.
For example if cant fix overexposure as i explained in 3-B, the 3-C posibility can do the trick. But personally i like two points both together.
The more options, the greater engine.
I will be puting some more when have some time free.
cameni:
Likely won't be doing anything with the terrain reflectance now, since there's going to be an update to terrain materials adding some PBR parameters (primarily adding the roughness) that will change the lighting quite a lot. Also the snow will eventually go away in its current form painted on the terrain.
Speed bar is a good idea, though there are limits and differences in hardware performance that need to be handled.
I actually want to remove 1080p terrain quality until we can tune the limits better or solve the occlusion problem in mountains, because right now many people would set it and understandably not realize later that the unrefined terrain is caused by it.
josem75:
--- Quote from: cameni on December 07, 2017, 03:36:07 am ---Likely won't be doing anything with the terrain reflectance now, since there's going to be an update to terrain materials adding some PBR parameters (primarily adding the roughness) that will change the lighting quite a lot. Also the snow will eventually go away in its current form painted on the terrain.
Speed bar is a good idea, though there are limits and differences in hardware performance that need to be handled.
I actually want to remove 1080p terrain quality until we can tune the limits better or solve the occlusion problem in mountains, because right now many people would set it and understandably not realize later that the unrefined terrain is caused by it.
--- End quote ---
Thanks Cameni. So great things incoming!
1080 is very problematic. But i must to admit, i enjoy a lot in lplaces with less requeriments, for example my place, where work nicely.
For that, the suggestion of change resolution fast with a key would be nice. With some kind of advertise about performance. Can be 600 by default, and when you change to 1080 you put the info keys and the advertise of problems if you go higher. (just a idea of how).
I think that 1080 is also related of how detailed you see not only near but also far distance, and even trees (this im not totally sure but i remember something like that doing some tests).
I will be adding new sugestions.
For example, GLACIERS.
I think is something very doable with the things you are doing in the engine (snow, rocks, craters), coz glacier would be a bit of the mix between those. Playing with parameters making a "highway" of blocks of ice, with some more blue colors mixed with some sand (making some ways tipically) and all changing randomly, etc.
For example https://www.google.es/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fc8.alamy.com%2Fcomp%2FBWKWX8%2Fswitzerland-europe-aletsch-glacier-swiss-alps-aletschhorn-fusshorner-BWKWX8.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.alamy.com%2Fstock-photo-switzerland-europe-aletsch-glacier-swiss-alps-aletschhorn-fusshorner-33014192.html&docid=hNldAfxD-MvcUM&tbnid=FzxekPbDe7bF2M%3A&vet=10ahUKEwi5g5656ZzaAhWMOxQKHVyaBH4QMwhBKAkwCQ..i&w=1300&h=924&itg=1&safe=off&bih=805&biw=1706&q=glacier%20swiss%20alps&ved=0ahUKEwi5g5656ZzaAhWMOxQKHVyaBH4QMwhBKAkwCQ&iact=mrc&uact=8
I think there are some Vector Gis coverage for Glaciers already:
In a fast search: https://www.gislounge.com/gis-data-worlds-glaciers/
And from America can be downloaded: http://glaciers.research.pdx.edu/Downloads
josem75:
Here is another Idea.
I know 3d trees is the target, but this will need time.
Meanwhile, i think Outerra quality provide nice trees even beeing 2d.
That said, in those 2d trees i still see a big big path of improve until 3d trees arrive. Resolution when you get near the tree could be higher. And also models could be even better. IN Mediterranean lack a lot of trees, Olives, Pinus, etc. And in america good accurate Deciduous, etc.
I found a great page with lots of great trees, and every kind of tree with more than one model (diferent shapes, etc). And in extremelly high quality. In the average of 3xxx x 4xxx Pixels. So the higher quality could be the one when you are just close to the tree. And then going lower while going far. So the performance would not be very affected.
Also those are better quality in colors and definition for me, than used in Outerra. species, coveral deciduous, mediterranean, etc, are very accurate and high quality, great trees models.
This would jump Outerra a lot with not much effort in $.
I dont know what need the Engine to change resolution of trees textures. Maybe technically also not a big job.
And they are ready to use (png with layers or totally white backfround).
I can even buy some groups for Outerra and prepare them or help in it.
I can also prepare snow version (i did in the past, i can look for my files and snow layers and tricks i use).
I made in some stages, a little snow, and a lot of snow.
Every tree price is about 0,70 €.. One entire collection, for example Deciduous, its like 7 €. Mediterranean the same. This is a present for the quality..
You people see by yourself. And imagine those trees in Outerra.
https://www.cutout-trees.com/collections/deciduous-trees
cameni:
The problem is that these often have baked in hard lighting and it's problematic to do anything with it in engine. Our trees are rendered from Xfrog library http://xfrog.com/product/XB-59.html under neutral lighting. There are many more of them there, we just added a subset that we could manage. Some areas are really missing their species, we plan to add a few more but need to assess the priorities - adding the ones making most impact.
Btw our new release will have option for higher res trees, not sure if we should make it default because it now consumes 4x more VRAM too.
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