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[PytonPago]

Very interesting thread.
As a cockpitbuilder there is one essential thing needed: A accessible data protocol like FSUIPC is in the MS series. Since our airplane is simulated in a external or standalone software, we need a method to collect data from the sim regarding position, height, air preassure, temperature, wind etc.
If these data can be collected via some kind of addressed protocol, we're good to go

As a flightsimmer I want PHYSICS, the realistic one. Objects, airplanes in my case, need to act realistically in different settings, influenced by wind as an example.
Easy ways to add sceneries and landclass would also be great to get a "living world". I see in the 3D model warehouse that a lot of airports is made with high detail and I believe it should be easy to insert these formats now. Sketchup is a powerful tool that is free and easy to learn. Supporting these formats can make the 3rd part movement really really big. Placing your own house in the sim wold be doable for everyone.

As a dreamer I have longed for the day where flightsimmers, trainsimmers, boatsimmers, construction and farm simmers and so on, can play together in the same world.
Think, running the trainsim, looking to the sky and there is a airplane flying by. Both the train and the airplane run their own online controlling systems, but still "live together".
I'm not all that into wargames, but have had my hours in the combat sims and Battlefield i.e.
I would like them to play in the same world as well, but there have to be a option to be able to detect damage. If some kiddo could enter his F-16 and blast me of the skies, I wouldn't use the sim at all. But being able to jump into one myself, it would be cool to join some dogfights. Just that it need to be my own choice. ...

Well, there is still a question, how the realization of pressure/wind/turbulences whyte the global weather will be simulated in outerra. As the possible data-collestion from weather-stations is possible, an all ground-to-atmosphere volume must be filled whyte such data in their acordance and of course dynamically to updated data .... if it would be a "simple" calculations present at the outerra core, then the possition data + a communication would be all needed to share  ... but sure, it would be maybe too much weather-simulation for a train-sim for sure. Well see what Cameni and co. will get out of it. Still, woud like the core-based version if it would not be too much hardware demanding, making the transitions between those sims. better.

Like the "live together" thought, its good to see more of such people and as for the "interaction" problems ... lets just say there would be picked up all most famous battle-places of the earth and would be battle-only (just enabling the "Fire buttons" to work at that locality) ... still flying and going around the world, but not bombing someones train or bus at chigago or elswhere out of the conflict zones ...

Its maybe too early to say, but imagine an entire wirtual earth ... just some players getting there when they like ... procedural city/air/naval traffic in witch you could just wallk up to one and take--sim. driwe. Or just spawn one of course, whyle the types would be all the present at the database allowing you enter one (based on your buyed ones? ... well see how the adding tool will be working and if the simmable would be payd due to autors/comunity work ...). Would be interesting.

[tsgucci]

Hi


Good thread!

To tell the truth - do not linch me please  - if OT (or the simulator which using OT engine) could offer the same  variety of options which is offered by today's flight simulator (MS or X-Plane) would be already fine. Just think how many things is possible in FS2004 or FSX or even in X-Plane! It offers really complex systems like navigation, air traffic control, AI traffic system, weather, seasons (minus X-Plane), timing, gauge programming, networking and a lot more. And the best of it, it can be altered, influenced by 3rd party softwares.
I believe we do not have to find out the wheel again. We just have to make it better and smoother. If it's only better in the graphic engine so be it!
If we do not stop at the graphic engine is even better. Let's make a better flying model! Even-though this is for me a topic which I'll never understand why people overestimating the importance of it. Your computer is a simulator, no simulator even the full motion simulator can not fully simulate the real thing. If I take a normal armchairpilot with his/her PC, beyond the aircraft's performance and the maneuvering abilities you can simulate do much more. You can not simulate the forces, you can not simulate the forces which effects the control surfaces (force feedback yokes or joysticks creates very minor contraforces nothing to compare with real life). That is the reason I do not understand when people say this 737 has an unrealistic flying character in the simulator. Really? How do you know? Have you ever tried a 737? You can not compare a PC and a real thing. I could accept the following: Unrealistic that this plane climbing with 7000 fpm with this GW and CG. Also I found the military fighter simulator a little bit funny as well, when I see they make a 180 degree turn with mach 2 above a small cornfield. Try to do it in real life. Your brain would move into your feet. But in simulator you just have to roll 90 degree right or left and pull the joy all the way back. In the meanwhile you can drink some Budweiser if you like. Just try to recover a C172 from a spin in real life, you will know what I'm talking about.
I could imagine a better weather projecting. Once I visited a full motion 737 simulator. The graphics of the scenery was not so nice, but the projecting of the weather was unbelievable. The visibility simulation was extraordinary. The fog, the precipitation looked so real. This is where I think our simulator could be improved.
The other thing which should be improved is the simulation of the air's behavior. A better wind simulation, better airflow simulation. Better thermic behavior. When I was flying with a real C172 on a hot summer day I was very surprised how the upward moving air influenced my flight. I arrived above the hot asphalt runway and the warm air was pushing up the plane. During my training I also experienced the other way round. With a C152 on a crosswind leg we flew into a downward moving colder air, the plane with full power set could not maintain the altitude and we had to change course to fly out of it. 500 feet AGL it was not so funny. Than I learnt two things: Respect the weather and flight simulator can not teach you for that (yet).
As a scenery designer I also wish to have a wide variety of options to create add-on's. For example easily add animations, conditions etc etc.

[mctash]

AFAIK one of the advantages of Outerra engine is most of the visual grunt needed is handled by the gpu not the cpu (which is so much better than fsx model). This should leave alot of the cpu free for the actual simulation of systems.

[Aman]

Nice spoken, tsgucci.
I dont need a simulation of a airplane down to the very last bolt. I like a sim, that makes me wanna fly around and explore areas. Outerra has the potential for that. A "realistic" sim is great. But without a nice environment it will get boring. Hardcore-Simmers will have other priorities, sure. FSX with the Outerra-Engine would be absolutely great.

[PRiME]

Well as long as we can crash the planes in spectacular-cinematic then all is good

[NAX]

Well as long as we can crash the planes in spectacular-cinematic then all is good

If that's the only thing you want from a flight simulator... Have you turned 12 yet?

[Jak_o_Shadows]

I think the most important thing is weather.

Looking at the way you've been doing things, you obviously don't want to do lots of manual labor. Details such as airports, planes, roads and the like are best left to the community. Not only will the community generally be happy to make this, they'll also keep them updated.

I strongly agree that there needs to be an easy way to access most aspects of the entire engine. I recall that you used JSBSIM, similar to half of flight-gear. If done properly, this should help with simulating the weather and such.

Some thoughts about licensing:
I'm fairly sure that using the google maps viewer to make roads in the same spot as real-life is against it's terms of use. Flight-gear has had trouble with this before, to a small degree.
If it were possible for you to somehow use a lot of flight-gear's assets, that would be a great boon to you. Of course, if you were to do, it might be diplomatic to  make sure that you stay compatible with flight-gear. Licensing-wise, I don't think you could legally include any of flight-gears GPL assets, as they're licensed under the GPL (which has been described as "viral").

[foxfiles]

I have just discovered your engine and I do beleive that you have something in your hands which would change the sim market widely.
I'm myself one European business guy and I beleive your question is very marketing related, why?
because defining the specs for the "best" flight simulator depends on the clients/customers you targer : in other word, there are different level of flight sim users :
private user : gamers, serious hobbyists,
civilian professional users : academics, flight schools, museums, craft/planes/helico builders who are interested in having training platforms for their customers, etc
military users.
Adding all these market segments, flight simulation or generic simulation  is VERY strategic!
The few companies who will be able to put on the market affordable flight sims with professional capabilities (realistic flight physics/models, super good realism, multi channel viewing or spherical FOVs, etc...) should be profitable.

Why did Lockeed Martin purchased the old MS code to develop Prepard3D, (wich, according to me, is the Flight Sim you would benchmark with) for making a new FSX for private gamers?
Yes maybe but I don't think so, rather it is because they target their usual customers : pro simmers and above all, military users = $$$$$

Maybe you also miss the fact that most of the serious actors in this domain are from the US or from North America (biggest flight simulators builder is a Canadian company).
Aren't you, Outerra's owners, European guys / people? yes? maybe you can then understand that it's all about competition and as long as you start to touch mil apps, it becomes very sensible.

I am from Europe and I am NOT at all against the US/Americans, instead it is the contrary,
 but maybe I understand why others may see you as future strong competition : they do their job with critics on your nice techno... that's the business game

Okay, if you are interested in continuing this discussion more deeply, you can PM me
Cheers

[foxfiles]

sorry I made a mistake above

You should read :  the "best" flight simulator depends on the clients/customers you TARGET

[ZeosPantera]

Well as long as we can crash the planes in spectacular-cinematic then all is good

If that's the only thing you want from a flight simulator... Have you turned 12 yet?

Some people juggle geese.

If someone is going to go through the trouble of getting a simulator as accurate as possible in the air why stop at any point of the journey? It is good inspiration to land properly if the possible ensuing fireball might destroy the airport or town you're landing in.

[cameni]

I'm myself one European business guy and I beleive your question is very marketing related, why?

The question was put up by Zeos, our avid fan from Manhattan, who is not a dedicated flight simmer and probably just wanted to get the idea what the simmers really want.

Maybe you also miss the fact that most of the serious actors in this domain are from the US or from North America (biggest flight simulators builder is a Canadian company).
Aren't you, Outerra's owners, European guys / people? yes? maybe you can then understand that it's all about competition and as long as you start to touch mil apps, it becomes very sensible.

There are several fields where Outerra makes circles in the water, not just the flight sim market. When we are talking about military customers, there's the VBS by Bohemia Interactive which is Czech based (we are based in Slovakia). There are other fields where customers would like to get a global coverage with the level of detail we've got, like UAV simulation etc.

I'm perfectly aware that a competition would simply have to say things because of the business game. But at the moment we technically aren't competing with anyone.
Much less with the big dogs on US grounds; without us having a serious backing, they would outlaw us with silly patents in a blink of the European night

[phlerp]

As a user/operator of flight simulators with multiple screens/projectors I have one concern. Though Outerra works fine as it is with multiple screens it is still only one projection. This will create undesirable effects when the field of view is getting close to 180 degrees (bent horizon line etc). It would be desirable to be able to define several views with their own projections to be able to cover a 360 degrees field of view with a varible number of screens in a good way.

It is also not possible, as far as I understand, to define a rear view or similarly "detatched" view in Outerra. This is something that in many implementations of simulations are very important.

On top of this it is important to have functions for adjusting the views and their projections to create a good representation of the simulated world based on screen size and distance from the viewer. This is something I think Outerra is lacking today.

[cameni]

There will be an option that will do a spherical or multi-planar projection, so that these distortions can be suppressed. Detached views will be possible as well.

I guess the screen size and distance setup functions will automatically appear together with the additional projections, as these need to be configurable.

[foxfiles]

I totally agree with what Pherp is saying above : you must be able, for any simulation you offer (flight, ground, sub, etc...), to provide the best visual experience :
Please offer full 360° immersion, 360° field of view, Horizontal and Vertical.
allow the user to set up multi views driving multi screens/projectors.

Of course, I do not think that very large FOV with high resolution is today feasible with only one single CPU (even with several GPUs).
By the way it is NOT feasible neither in FSX nor with Prepar3D,
so implement multi-channel Image Generation with networked PCs sharing the same world/LOD/point of view.

Dear Cameni, about my above "marketing / competition " comments, I know that you are not naive at all and as BISimulations main team is closed to you, being in Europe does not mean being in trouble at all, 
However I wonder if we, European, are still capable of funding interesting advanced startups/projects? I hope so...

Finally another question : is there already any real 3D simulator (stereo viewing) on the market ?
we have 3D screens, we have 3D capable projectors... what if ?

For the rest, many members have already answered but focus on what you are the best at,
then open your engine for add-ons and/or look for partnering with others who are very flight specific...

[foxfiles]

There will be an option that will do a spherical or multi-planar projection, so that these distortions can be suppressed. Detached views will be possible as well.

I guess the screen size and distance setup functions will automatically appear together with the additional projections, as these need to be configurable.

There are several "paying" software around that do manage pretty easily the cylindrical, spherical, multi-planar and so displays / projections.
I know many specialists which are doing warping and blending, so as long as you can let the user define the views parameters, this is something solved...
It is sure that if you can implement geometrical corrections and images mixing/juxtapositions, it would be nice!

Please do not forget cylindrical projections as they are very easy to create, I mean physically...