Imagine the Possibilities

[ryanbatc]

http://www.outerra.com/

Wonder what sort of processing power would be needed just to render the trees hehe

[Wing_Z]

Wow it looks almost as good as my MS Flight Simulator :d
Thing with fractals is, it doesn't require a lot of computational power.
You just have to get the mathematics right, and there's the rub...

[DaveKDEN]

Looks fantastic - hope they continue with development!
dave

[ericts]

The thing that impressed me the most was the undulations in the ground at the end of the movie, after the aircraft had landed, and how they interacted with the Cessna's shadow. I can see from the forum that this is a fairly early work in progress. I would love to see how this looks with more variation in the trees, the ground and water. This engine looks like it has a lot of potential.

[TomSteber]

Very cool! Does this have the makings of the next big flight sim? Boy, combine this with the good stuff from FS9, FSX and we've got a whole new world to fly in.

[Lionheart]

Well, I just picked myself up off the ground. Fell off my desk chair.

This sim is pretty darn cool. I have asked some questions in their forum. I hope they are positive.

Thanks for the heads up Ryan.

:applause:


Bill

[pontiuspilotus]

This really is the future. They're actually using self similar fractals to (self) render at various scales, thus moving away from having to use bitmaps. For repetitive objects (trees, grass, mountains, clouds, etc) I guess it is ideal and probably more efficient computationally (and memory-wise). It will be interesting to see how they integrate objects such as buildings, wildlife, etc. But this is an awesome and exciting start! Don't know about how much compute power is needed for all of this, but I would say no more than that required to render detailed bitmaps of scenery items.

[Bjoern]

Reminds me a bit of the Operation Flashpoint/ArmA engine.

Still, I want any game to look like that. The depiction of forests is just superb!
Can't wait to see shots of cities.

[Lionheart]

Can't wait to see shots of cities.


Same here.

If they can do this with flora and terrain, imagine a city scape.

What if this is extremely fluid on 'regular' computers....? Imagine the breakthrough..




Bill

[Gibbage]

From someone who has worked on many game engines (including FS11) this is very impressive stuff. It takes a LOT to have a world engine. All current game engines can only simulate small area's that are at best, little bigger then a city block. Some engines can simulate small islands like Crysis, buy simulate a PLANET? :applause:

[ryanbatc]

I assume you meant FS10....considering there is no official FS11...

[MudMarine]

And a lot of people said flight simming was dead after the end of MSFX........WRONG!

[Lionheart]

I assume you meant FS10....considering there is no official FS11...

Ryan,

You might not know. Gibbage is from Aces. If he worked on FS11, it was FS11.

:ernae:

[dharris]

http://www.outerra.com/shots/k175-mf.jpg

Especially like this reduring on their forums

[cheezyflier]

meh, the trees look good but they need to contact banana pop about that prop.

[Bjoern]

What if this is extremely fluid on 'regular' computers....? Imagine the breakthrough..

It's a completely new engine, so I say it'd run way better than FSX.

[empeck]

meh, the trees look good but they need to contact banana pop about that prop.

They've said there is no motion blur yet on the prop. It may be true motion blur, not faked disc with transparent texture.

[ryanbatc]

Ryan,

You might not know. Gibbage is from Aces. If he worked on FS11, it was FS11.

:ernae:

Ok, but since there is no FS11 now I might cry because I got excited lol

[Gibbage]

The tree's are all the same, but again this guy is showing off the engine, not the GFX. I doubt he has a large 150 man team able to crank out a bunch of graphic assets for him ;)

Looking beyond the GFX, its quite remarkable for a small team to be able to make a sim of that level. In the end, the Aces team had 150 people on it! That also included Train Sim and the mil/pro sim guys. Man I miss those days.... :salute:

[empeck]

They've added support for vector based roads.

http://outerra.blogspot.com/2010/05/integrating-vector-data-roads.html

[Cazzie]

You know, except for the trees, I see little in the rendered images than what could be done with Terragen. Now they have Terragen !! and it will do trees and I find their rendering much better than those in this program.

8731

[cheezyflier]

Well, I just picked myself up off the ground. Fell off my desk chair.



according to the osha rules if your chair is more than 6' off the ground, you'll need to install railings, and you'll have to wear the proper fall arrest harness and one-time lanyard.

[roger-wilco-66]

They've added support for vector based roads.

http://outerra.blogspot.com/2010/05/integrating-vector-data-roads.html

whooha - drool - expecially that image of Lukla!

Cheers,
Mark

[Wing_Z]

You know, except for the trees, I see little in the rendered images than what could be done with Terragen. Now they have Terragen !! and it will do trees and I find their rendering much better than those in this program.
8731
Can't comment on Terragen as I don't know it, but if it can do road splines with automatic cut and fill, and definition down to 3cm - and render it at flythrough speed - it's bloody good.
I want this stuff in a Flight Simulator.

[peter12213]

Me too, if this is the future then I want it, it looks so much better than fsx, hope they do develope it into a flight simulator!

[Bjoern]

They've added support for vector based roads.

http://outerra.blogspot.com/2010/05/integrating-vector-data-roads.html

Oh yeah!




I want this stuff in a Flight Simulator.

...or a driving game.


Provided it can autogenerate cities et al it might even be cool for a HUGE military simulation. And when I say huge I mean huge. Not Armed Assault 2 huge but "Let's invade this continent together with thousands of AI soldiers" huge.
Ah, the possibilities...

[empeck]

New video. Quite long, but good. They already have simple LAN multiplayer.

gf8YQ9WSdiw

And new blog post:

http://outerra.blogspot.com/

[stiz]

starting to look really good now! :jump:

[Bjoern]

Hey Aerosoft, I think I've found an engine for your planned flight simulator!

[peter12213]

Thats super awesome, I want that really badly!

[heywooood]

wow

I would love to have that terrain in FSX - it was so 3D looking both throughout the mountain ranges right down to the accurate depiction of the berms and earthen walls in and around Lukla

I really dislike the FSX cliffs and earthen landscape edges for their saw-toothed marble cake appearance. Bad enough in spot view but in flyby FSX terrain looks 1990-ish

[blazefox2]

also in FSX it almost seems as if the world is not as big as it should be, mountains and cities that i have been to in real life seem to close together. but from the videos that they've shown, that is not an issue

My mouth still wont close after seeing this though :jawdrop:

[warchild]

I've been following OuTerra's development for several months now. I knew i wouldn't be in a minority in liking what i saw, but jesus, this is awesome.. and yes i hope they continue with it as well.. Perhaps they could use it as the new scene gen for MS flight??

The entire ground surface is generated in fractal geometry. theres no bmps used. even the grass is animated using fractals.. technically, it should run on most computers being used at the moment..

[blazefox2]

so what is the difference in fractals and how fsx senery is?

[MudMarine]

I can't wait to see where this goes!! I have high hopes; someday maybe I can say goodbye FSX you suck and have been replaced!!:jump::icon_lol:

[Bjoern]

I've done a bit of research and the OuTerra engine apparently is not an option for Aerosoft's FS, according to a discussion at their forums.


After that, I've checked the current state of FlightGear and dang, I liked what I saw!

It now has an urban shader which basically simulates houses or at least adds a 3D effect to cities and the countryside, very good looking volumetric clouds and a centralized scenery server which provides *everyone* with *all* scenery add-ons uploaded there. Furtermore, you can apparently convert MSFS sceneries and aircraft. The AI system is quite sophisticated, allowing airline traffic, formation flying and aerial refueling.
In the works is a localized weather system, a combat module (A/A, A/G !!) and tons of aircraft.

This sounds awfully good.

Granted, it's not enough to win me over yet, but as soon as I'll get halfway working ATC, a better UI, bug-free AI and more accurate terrain count me in!

Or maybe I should start digging into its programming language right now? Hmm...

FG

[empeck]

Do-328 for FG? ;)

[MudMarine]

Now if you can only land and launch from a MOVING aircraft carrier.........I can only dream!!!

[Bjoern]

Do-328 for FG? ;)

Why not?

Might be awfully simplified though. No skinned mesh, maybe not even spec and bump mapping.

Oh well, it's going to be open source anyways. Who wants to convert it for other sims can do so then.

[warchild]

so what is the difference in fractals and how fsx senery is?

well, with BMPs, you have sets of imagesthat are fixed in content and size that have to be loaded in and adjusted in placement and scale as the virtual airplane passes over them.. thats a lot of graphics and loading in all those bmps takes a lot of power.. Fractals on the other hand are all nothing but raw numbers.. the shape of an object can be changed by the manipulation of a single digit or fraction of a digit.. on top of which, with fractals, your not loading in detailed scenery of something ten miles away. your creating a rough scenery that can be increased in detail the closer youy get, but if you arent close, theres no reason for the entire thing to be created. this cuts down on overhead, and theres no loading in static images and manipulating their animation to worry about.. its a much more streamlined process..