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[Blockaderunner]

So, finally i've read this through.

1. I think base scripts and physics for ground, water, orbit, rail, air etc. vehicles should be there. One copy for one type. Just for showcases, demos and ad-making. Or testing

2. How about "divided" content distribution? Free tools, plugins and mods are based on the FREE version of Outerra SDK/platform (can be incorrect so 2 versions are given) and huge, detailed are paid but based on the full version of SDK/platform and developed by your team (mb) or by 3rd party developers. I think it's common solution nowadays. Yes, this maybe problematic. Maybe 3rd party developers will be satisfied with sharing stakes in your company?.. Maybe... 8 percent rate per game copy...

3. TS2 has very bad phototextures. I think they very huge and ideal worldsim must simulate everything, including textures

4. Last. I believe Outerra should offer more flexibility in displaying different vehicles/activities classes than the fidelity of certain class. It's better wider than deeper.

[cameni]

1) Yes, that's how I imagine it as well - a few basic vehicles for each type

2) It will probably have to be divided somehow, otherwise authors of free content will not be able to create models of known brands on the commercial platform

3) We are generating the textures. Final version will use 500m landclass data that will be fractal refined to obtain more detail, and atop of it comes vector based landclass overlay for artificial structures, like fields/pastures etc.

4) like 1)

[Blockaderunner]

... 3) We are generating the textures.

Exactly what I meant

Also Outerra can be medieval, like Mount'n'Blade. But much better. Oh...

[ZeosPantera]

1)3) We are generating the textures. Final version will use 500m landclass data that will be fractal refined to obtain more detail, and atop of it comes vector based landclass overlay for artificial structures, like fields/pastures etc.

How will outerra handle different land "materials". For example. The Sahara Desert http://ancientafricah.wikispaces.com/file/view/Lone_Palm,_Sahara_Desert.jpg has rolling, ever changing dunes of sand. SOFT sand. Do you have anything in mind for handling "soft" ground features vs only slightly soft topsoil vs impervious rock (ie every surface in every game ever)

Secondly, When you speak about artificial structures are you also talking about things like random rocks and logs? http://www.rosiejones.com/RAW/xarno.rosiejones.com/v2_0/myXarno/rosiejones.com/myAttic/websitephotos/photo_lg_ireland.jpg

[cameni]

No support of sand dunes yet, that would need some kind of dynamic modulation in the shaders, seems to be doable eventually. It won't be feasible to do with vector patches.

Random rocks will be created in two ways - free ones as a vegetation (probability & sparsity), and others as semi-random fluctuations in fractal function meant to create faults and such.

[alainneedle1]

OK I'm new here just like Timmo.....  : O)  ....I don't understand engine and stuff like that so forgive me if my question is not posted at the right place...

Is SLI, PhysX, DX11, Hyperthreading and the use of multiple cores related to the way the engine is built?

If yes will the engine be built to take advantage of all this....

Thank you.

[cameni]

SLI and related technologies require engine support for optimal performance - not yet supported but it will be tested soon.

PhysX is just one of many physics libraries, but physics support isn't directly related to the rendering engine, a developer can use practically any of the libraries. We are including Bullet physics library for demonstration of integration with engine, and JSBSim for flight dynamics model.

The engine isn't using Microsoft's DX11 but OpenGL3.3, and will use OpenGL4 later. OpenGL4+OpenCL provide the same level of features as DX11, additionally allowing for portability to Mac and Linux platforms.

The engine is using multiple cores but more importantly it heavily utilizes GPU for rendering, leaving CPU for simulation. From the figures given recently to one wannabe sim developer: when approaching Lukla in the last video, we've been consuming 14% of CPU time total on a 4-processor intel core 2 Q6600 CPU running at 1.5GHz (i.e. 60% of one core), with circa 4 mil triangles rendered.

[alainneedle1]

OK I'm new here just like Timmo.....  : O)  ....I don't understand engine and stuff like that so forgive me if my question is not posted at the right place...

Is SLI, PhysX, DX11, Hyperthreading and the use of multiple cores related to the way the engine is built?

If yes will the engine be built to take advantage of all this....

Thank you.

Thankyou very much for this information....I just can't imagine what kind of perf. we can get out of your engine with an up to date rig like I'm building right now....i7 980x, GTX 480, 200MHz 7-7-7-20,PCIe SSD card and more.......

I can't imagine running a sim.like that with 2 GPU.....

This is very VERY exiting news...there is a lot of good dev. at the moment who did a phenomenal job at making FSX better than ever but we still stuck with stutterings, popping trees and a partially functionning DX10 unless we lower the sliders controlling the eyes candy.

Now I know my next question is probably a shot in the dark but looking at what you have done so far and applying the same time frame it took for you guys to get where you'r at from the start what will be your best estimate as far as predicting when this can be up and running for us simmers?

[cameni]

Of course, the performance depends on many things - what kind of detail should be generated at what speed, detail settings, but the engine is in development and we'll be adding more things but also optimizing it.
But I'd say that the engine architecture really pays off.

Now for the question of when ..
We can't really apply the same time frame to estimate the timelines, and the big question is also what will be done. There are more areas where we are taking this engine, but with regard to simulators, the closest and most probable thing I can foresee right now is that the engine could be used in a combat flight simulator (or two), as a few developers approached us about that some time ago already. Generally they want to start their development in 2011, with some 2-3 years development time. But of course this is very very early and nothing could come out of it as well.

Otherwise there will be a flyable/drivable demo (alpha) sometime later this year, that should give some initial impressions. Beware though, whole world is a single land type with pines everywhere.
It will allow building roads and runways and placing some buildings etc.

[alainneedle1]

Another question or two if I may.... with an engine like yours is it possible to have flags, trees leafs , tall grass, smoke and dust moving along with the wind or is it something up to the dev. and something we can only dream about...

Is it possible to have real time weather like hurricane with that kind of engine or is it too soon to tell?

[cameni]

Well all those items are of course possible, it depends mostly on the priority when they could be done (after weather and particle systems).

Similarly the hurricanes. But the engine should support only the rendering of various atmospheric and particle effects initially, with possible external plugin for real weather or with some physically based but random one in the engine.

[RaikoRaufoss]

Sounds good; keep it simple at first, we can make it fancier later.  It's what we've been saying for some time.  And congratulations on your 400th post Brano!

[angrypig]

I join the congratulations

[locoidal]

Hello to everyone.
Firstly: !!!Congratulations for this fantastic engine that you are building!!!

second:

but with regard to simulators, the closest and most probable thing I can foresee right now is that the engine could be used in a combat flight simulator (or two), as a few developers approached us about that some time ago already. Generally they want to start their development in 2011, with some 2-3 years development time. But of course this is very very early and nothing could come out of it as well.

I'm not sure.....but.....i think that probably the DCS' guys are behind these combat sim?. If this is true I'm going to be the happiest man in the world.

You are Gurus men!!!!

[steve_1979]

Great works so far guys. The lighting changes from ground level up through the atmosphere look very impressive.  Assuming the videos were recorded real time and not pre-renderded the frame rates seem very smooth for the level of detail. The OpenGL tessalation looks every bit as good as the DX11 tessalation too.

To answer your initial survay question about wether you should have an integrated simulator for air/ground/water/space or focus on just one specific area. As I am a keen gamer who plays flight sims (FSX) racing sims (GTR) and combat sims (ARMA) I find the idea on a single integrated 'everything' simulator very exciting so long as any necessary graphical comprimises to do this aren't too excessive. The integrated 'everything' simulator idea get a big thumbs up from me.

It will be interesting to see how weather and enviromental effects will be implemented. I would also be interested to see how capable the physics engine is - what happens when objects collide? Are there things like real time damage/deformation that can effect the handling of vehicles.