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Author Topic: Dirt Roads  (Read 49206 times)

cameni

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Dirt Roads
« on: June 09, 2010, 01:39:02 am »
New update on making another type of roads in the engine - dirt or forest roads.

http://outerra.blogspot.com/2010/06/dirt-roads.html




The planned update with runways got delayed a bit because we want to include more things there and to tune it better too.
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Dunlop

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Dirt Roads
« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2010, 03:07:02 am »
Looks nice as always.

This one left me pondering with one thing: How are you going to make these roads usefull?

Let me explain, even the dirt roads should be more drivable than the plain around them, because of mud and obstructions that would be there naturally. Now it looks that in a game player would choose to drive trough the plain rather than use these roads, even with a non all-terrain ready vehicle. So how are you going to solve this?

You should also make well maintained dirt road types, with no grass in the middle and less wheel tracks and bumps. Not every place have asphalt roads and still they are almost as drivable as the asphalt covered ones.
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cameni

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Dirt Roads
« Reply #2 on: June 09, 2010, 03:46:41 am »
Yes, this was just a demonstration and you're right that these aren't much useful. However, the flat road shown on one of the screenshots is actually more drivable than the surrounding terrain because it's less bumpy. The other, rougher road is more a forest road where you have trees or steep terrain at the sides, so even a such one is good as it is.

Also, there will be rocks and shrubs on the plains, and when a proper wheel model is implemented the grass will be more slippery.

The grass in the middle results from the profile used; a flatter one would raise the middle strip only mildly and there won't be any grass.
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helio2

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Dirt Roads
« Reply #3 on: June 09, 2010, 06:23:05 am »
That looks awesome. I like how it gives the whole scene a seance of intelligent inhabitants actually laying down the road infrastructure. Well done. Do you guys have like an editor u use to lay down roads and stuff? Or is it all done through text based coding?
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cameni

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Dirt Roads
« Reply #4 on: June 09, 2010, 09:02:41 am »
The roads are laid down by driving along the desired path and periodically hitting the b key, as in the previous video about the roads. Hitting the key at the same place twice will build the road.
There will be an editor window where one could set the road and way point parameters such as the road type, ±height offset, road and border width, transient width and more.
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RaikoRaufoss

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Dirt Roads
« Reply #5 on: June 09, 2010, 11:22:16 am »
Very nice, and at least there's room for improvment. :)
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Abc94

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Dirt Roads
« Reply #6 on: June 09, 2010, 11:32:22 am »
Looking good! :)

Quote from: cameni
And something more :cool:

(http://www.outerra.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=417#p417)

Was the "something more" dirt roads?
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cameni

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Dirt Roads
« Reply #7 on: June 09, 2010, 12:25:45 pm »
No, those dirt roads just got in between the updates.
Something more is not yet finished :)
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MatthewS

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Dirt Roads
« Reply #8 on: June 10, 2010, 07:17:50 am »
Excellent!  Please keep the blog posts coming on a regular basis...
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Toptag

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Dirt Roads
« Reply #9 on: June 11, 2010, 03:02:43 pm »
I just have to say congrats on what is looking like a very promising concept. I will definitely be sticking around  to follow the progression of this. I  hope you pull this off because if you do then there will be no more need to play on the small maps we are limited to at the moment.
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Pyykkö Andrei

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Dirt Roads
« Reply #10 on: June 12, 2010, 09:13:36 am »
Wait.. can you adjust this roads on how big they are and how deep they are? :P
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cameni

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« Reply #11 on: June 12, 2010, 09:33:41 am »
Yes, everything is adjustable, width, depth, slant, surface roughness etc. Most of the parameters can be changed per way point, but normally you just select the parameters initially and place the way points and it will create the road.
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Pyykkö Andrei

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Dirt Roads
« Reply #12 on: June 12, 2010, 12:15:59 pm »
Quote from: cameni
Yes, everything is adjustable, width, depth, slant, surface roughness etc. Most of the parameters can be changed per way point, but normally you just select the parameters initially and place the way points and it will create the road.

I see.. I was just thinking if road had bumbs in one place and was clean in another.. You know make variety in the same road but in different part :P
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cameni

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Dirt Roads
« Reply #13 on: June 12, 2010, 01:01:54 pm »
I'm just making an editor window where it will be possible to change the parameters along the way. Roads in the videos have them constant, set programmatically, so there isn't the variety you mention. But the road system allows it, the possibility was just unused till now.
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MatthewS

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Dirt Roads
« Reply #14 on: June 12, 2010, 08:44:20 pm »
Quote from: cameni
I'm just making an editor window where it will be possible to change the parameters along the way. Roads in the videos have them constant, set programmatically, so there isn't the variety you mention. But the road system allows it, the possibility was just unused till now.

Great flexibility!

I wonder what is the visibility of roads?  If I'm at 30,000 ft can I still see the roads below me and to what radius can the roads be seen in front/around of me?  

In FSX there is a lot of "pop up" whereby segments of the road pop up into view as you approach, I guess because FSX wants to maintain high FPS by just drawing what is nearby the aircraft.  This pop up also happens with trees and buildings.  Its really annoying because as you approach a large city you suddenly see sky scapers pop into view at about 10 NM distance.   In reality these buildings would appear as small "dots" on the horizon (assuming clear visibility) and slowly grow larger as you approach.

Please allow the user to configure separate options for the radius at which buildings/trees/clouds pop into view.  Making things like this configurable also help future proof the engine since as more powerful cpu/gpu hardware becomes available users can tweak settings to take full advantage of their new hardware.
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