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[necro]

Hy guys,
my name is thomas, 24 years old, from germany and i want to know whether you could need a modeler. I am experienced in creating models for games because i was working for another project called aero-empire. But unfortunately this project has stopped its progress. So i am looking for a new possibility to hire out my skills.
So here is one reference which i want to show you:

and this was the flying airship in the gameengine (irrlicht)




The textures were also made by me. But i didnt finish them because i wasnt the textureboy. So i did all textures just for me. For getting an first impression about.

This one is another reference.



I also made the textures for this train from the scratch. Using fotos is nice for fast progress, but they doesnt look as well as self maded textures ;) So i only use foto-textures if i have to.

Other references are:
linux, {many programming languages (e.g. c++, java)}

Well, i'm just curious about your answer. It would be great to join your team. Thanks for your attention.

Thomas

[cameni]

Hi Thomas,
We aren't utilizing our own modeler much at the moment because we are investing our time into various procedural generators and the tools needed for model checks and import are not yet finished completely.
 On the other hand, we'd like to have more models included in the demo so they can be placed by users, so I think it would be a good idea to start a process of testing and accepting models made by other people, to be included in the demo. And we'll see by the results if the cooperation with some can be extended to other parts of our work beyond the demo.

Now I'm also thinking about including some railroads into engine. I do not have a definite image how I want to implement it yet (rails and physics-wise), but I can imagine that a railroad sim would be perfect in our engine too. The road placing code could be reused by making a special road type for railway embankments, adding a generator for the rails. Maybe we could start by testing the loco model. I don't know when the remainder might come into schedule, though.

[necro]

Oh, that sounds very interesting. I would be glad to do some work for your project. Even if you have your own modelers. So if you dont want to recruit new modelers you can consider me as freelancer or something else >_> Whatever you need and want. Please feel free for contacting me every time you like (you can find my messengerstuff in my profile).
Have a nice day.

Thomas

[MatthewS]

Hi Thomas,
Now I'm also thinking about including some railroads into engine. I do not have a definite image how I want to implement it yet (rails and physics-wise), but I can imagine that a railroad sim would be perfect in our engine too. The road placing code could be reused by making a special road type for railway embankments, adding a generator for the rails. Maybe we could start by testing the loco model. I don't know when the remainder might come into schedule, though.

Railroads....Absolutely!  

Also, can your engine support watercraft?  Imagine being about to fly an aircraft, drive and train and road vehicle and captain a boat, all from within the same game!

[cameni]

Also, can your engine support watercraft?  Imagine being about to fly an aircraft, drive and train and road vehicle and captain a boat, all from within the same game!

Yes, Outerra is primarily a world rendering engine; support for various types of vehicles is just a matter of integrating the appropriate physics. Since we can't be experts in all areas we want to create a system for plugging-in handlers of physics and simulation subsystems, so that for example the gliding sim community can make their own component that deals solely with the aspects of a gliding simulator, without dealing with world rendering again and again.

And having all the vehicles in the same game in a huge world that can be build up by the players, yes that is our dream too

[MatthewS]

Yes, Outerra is primarily a world rendering engine; support for various types of vehicles is just a matter of integrating the appropriate physics. Since we can't be experts in all areas we want to create a system for plugging-in handlers of physics and simulation subsystems, so that for example the gliding sim community can make their own component that deals solely with the aspects of a gliding simulator, without dealing with world rendering again and again.

FS9/FSX is a good example of how the community and 3rd party commercial developers can extend the base platform/engine.

Could you also consider extensibility with regard to textures, land classes, "autogen" scenery objects models (ie trees, buildings).  I guess what im getting at is that your engine needs to allow different regions to be catered for, ie buildings/trees in the South Pacific are going to be quite different to buildings/trees in Europe.

Also, is it possible that 3rd parties will be able to extend the weather system. In FS9/FSX there are addons (eg REX, ActiveSkyX etc) that generate cloud fronts based on METAR reports that they download off the internet.  This realtime weather modelling is  complicated and best left to 3rd parties but you need to give them the ability to create/delete clouds, haze, wind, rain, snow conditions via a SDK.  These weather "cells" might be as small as 1km2 (thinking of high detailed weather around airports, or maybe smoke from bushfires or smog from industrial areas).

Also, what is the max visibility of your engine.  I think FSX does 120 NM which is needed for high level flight.

Anyway, you have an amazing engine in the making...    

SDK + 3rd party devs = great success for your engine.

[cameni]

There's a slight problem that Outerra does things differently - it has to, in order to be able to refine the detail seamlessly from space to ground the way it does. However, the end goal of having different regions will be reached, the question remains how it will be customizable by other parties. The data used by the engine are compiled from various data sources containing elevation and other terrain attributes into a data set usable by the engine. I'm thinking there could be tools that replace the input data for a region, and recompile the data storing the affected chunks in a different layer that can be then enabled by users.
Anyway, I think this will have to evolve gradually.

We didn't deal with weather system yet, but something like what you described will be needed after we create the atmospheric effects mentioned.

The visibility is unlimited, you can't see only the stuff you can't see because of planet's curvature. Actually, just now the atmospheric conditions are as if there was a super-clear day everywhere, and you can see remote things that you probably wouldn't be able to see normally ever. But it can do an air-less planet too.

[MatthewS]

I'm thinking there could be tools that replace the input data for a region, and recompile the data storing the affected chunks in a different layer that can be then enabled by users.

This layered approach is exactly what FS9/FSX uses.

Microsoft ship FS9/FSX with a base layer of scenery, users can install new scenery files in a higher priority layer that overrides the lower layers for the area covered by the new scenery file.

So this lets 3rd parties produce addons that up the detail for specific areas (eg airports) whilst still maintaining the default scenery elsewhere.

Add on scenery files in FS9/FSX can cover things such as:-
-elevation mesh
-landclass tiles (ie tells the engine which texture files to use for each 1x1 km2 tile)
-coastline and water polys
-roads/railways
-photo scenery tiles
-3d object placement
etc.

[Beolex]

When the game is released, you should add a forum board called "modifications" and the sub-boards would be like "work-in-progress models", then "released models", then "tutorials", and so on. This way we can get a modification-friendly forum so many people can contribute modifications and add-ons to make this game very custom to the users. From my observations, the games with add-ons lead to happier consumers.

[cameni]

When the game is released, you should add a forum board called "modifications" and the sub-boards would be like "work-in-progress models", then "released models", then "tutorials", and so on. This way we can get a modification-friendly forum so many people can contribute modifications and add-ons to make this game very custom to the users. From my observations, the games with add-ons lead to happier consumers.

I think this might be a good thing to do even with the demo release, as the modding may start with right there. This and what MatthewS said leads me to a though that we should probably make it mod-friendly right from the start by allowing to select an alternate directory with config and data files that will be shadowing the default one. Even if the elevation data couldn't be modded right now, somebody may want to mod the textures and parameters without altering the default data set. And the installation of such a mod would be trivial too.

[helio2]

I think it your right about it being mod friendly, it would be a good idea.  The alternate directory solutions makes sense. Also modifying the planet's terrain and size is a must!

[Beolex]

Is it also possible to add our own vehicles? Or would it take too many resources for the end-users to make their own cars/trucks/airplanes and so forth? If some experienced 3D Modelers/Physicists join these forums, and combine their talents, they could provide some nice 3rd-party vehicles for the consumers to enjoy. Imagine being able to add any vehicle you want to the game, and perhaps tweaking the chassis to be a street car, an off road car, a rock crawler, a supercar, and so on. This would be very extraordinary.

[MatthewS]

we should probably make it mod-friendly right from the start

Yes you must do this IMHO!

Its the "modders" that will create the demand for your engine amongst the user community.  You will be too busy working on core engine features to focus on "content" as such.

[cameni]

We have to generalize the code for vehicles to make it configurable. The configuration would mainly define vehicle and engine parameters, map the wheels and joints, define suspension type and camera attachment points and such. I think it may come later as we'll be updating the demo by pushing selected features from the development version, if there's a demand.