Tom Knudsen Posted January 18, 2015 Report Posted January 18, 2015 (edited) Just imagine how nice X-Plane would have been with such technology when it comes to clouds. To bad we will never see these clouds in X-Plane.. Edited January 18, 2015 by Tom Knudsen Quote
Andyrooc Posted January 19, 2015 Report Posted January 19, 2015 Well, hopefully not in the near future. I have trouble rendering the basic ones we have now, let alone anything that fancy. Quote
Tom Knudsen Posted January 19, 2015 Author Report Posted January 19, 2015 Well, hopefully not in the near future. I have trouble rendering the basic ones we have now, let alone anything that fancy.<br /><br />That is the huge diffrence bweteen the two engines, Outerra utilize this way better<br /> Quote
sundog Posted January 19, 2015 Report Posted January 19, 2015 That is the huge diffrence bweteen the two engines, Outerra utilize this way better Do you have a development build of Outerra Tom? My understanding is that their new clouds are still a work in progress. So it's a little premature to speculate on how they might perform or look outside of a carefully staged video, especially when flying through them. I am a huge fan of their work too, though. They probably will pull it off in time. 1 Quote
Tom Knudsen Posted January 19, 2015 Author Report Posted January 19, 2015 Clouds are work in progress and that process seem to take a loong time for sure. I too agree they may pull it through in the end, just very curious on how the end will look like. 1 Quote
Andyrooc Posted January 20, 2015 Report Posted January 20, 2015 The whole business of cloud rendering is quite interesting, and pretty heavy. This guy (Mark Harris) did a paper on it here: http://www.markmark.net/dissertation/harrisDissertation.pdf This girl, Niniane Wang worked on FSX and is now at Google: http://ofb.net/~niniane/clouds-jgt.pdf Interesting stuff. 2 Quote
HiFlyer Posted February 5, 2015 Report Posted February 5, 2015 The whole business of cloud rendering is quite interesting, and pretty heavy. This guy (Mark Harris) did a paper on it here: http://www.markmark.net/dissertation/harrisDissertation.pdf This girl, Niniane Wang worked on FSX and is now at Google: http://ofb.net/~niniane/clouds-jgt.pdf Interesting stuff. Both clouds and lighting alpha have been released. http://forum.outerra.com/index.php?topic=3151.0 Quote
Captain_Jack Posted February 5, 2015 Report Posted February 5, 2015 Outerra is quite impressive in areas, it's got great clouds and a fantastic haze system etc. There's a lot of potential there but getting from Alpha's to a finished product is where a lot of developers lose steam. Being a Mac user I wish they'd make an OS X version. Still, very cool. Quote
JohnMAXX Posted February 6, 2015 Report Posted February 6, 2015 Keep on mind, and this is just a slightly educated guess, if you integrated outerra and X-Plane you'd get about 2fps on a good day..... Quote
Andyrooc Posted February 6, 2015 Report Posted February 6, 2015 I think what people are wondering, is would outerras cloud algorithms work better than X-Planes? Given clouds are quite a big part of flying, it would be good to see some advances in this area. Quote
OlaHaldor Posted February 7, 2015 Report Posted February 7, 2015 Wow! I must admit a lot have changed since last time I made an effort to check out Outerra! Quote
Tom Knudsen Posted February 7, 2015 Author Report Posted February 7, 2015 Especially in the scenery design portion of it. Quote
HiFlyer Posted February 10, 2015 Report Posted February 10, 2015 Well...... there actually is a thread on the Outerra forum discussing X-plane using Outerra as the visual driver. I don't suspect that's practical, and probably not even desirable either for various reasons. I think Outerra will do better to stand on its own; a new direction for many genres requiring large open worlds. Hopefully flight sims among them. Quote
joandreas Posted February 10, 2015 Report Posted February 10, 2015 more of of how detailed vs how many gb it would take. Quote
HiFlyer Posted February 10, 2015 Report Posted February 10, 2015 (edited) more of of how detailed vs how many gb it would take. Its not what you might think. Using our current sims to estimate the capability of the Outerra engine to accomplish a particular task (and what resources it needs to do so) is probably a clear pathway to error. So far, for instance, the entire earth in Outerra only requires about 14gb This little (incomplete) presentation explains some of why that is, and why Outerra is a completely different beastie (entirely) than what we are accustomed to. http://forum.outerra.com/FMX/presentation/ Edited February 10, 2015 by HiFlyer Quote
Andyrooc Posted February 11, 2015 Report Posted February 11, 2015 12Gb is at 90m resolution though. Photoscenery is closer to 10cm resolution. They appear to be modelling ground texture based on rules rather than actual data (like from OSM), which funnily enough will probably be more realistic looking than spending time creating more accurate scenery. However, things like rivers, port, bays, lakes, main roads etc would have to be accurate enough for a discerning X-Plane GA pilot to find their way around the countryside. Quote
Ben Russell Posted February 11, 2015 Report Posted February 11, 2015 What's up with the water textures in this shot: Quote
Ben Russell Posted February 11, 2015 Report Posted February 11, 2015 One of the biggest issues I have with Outtera is that every single screenshot that people post looks like cold wintery alpine conditions. Nothing like where I live. The other problem that they have is that the more detail you have, the more detail you need.Things like a razor sharp river bank edge...No roads leading to the random shed placed on the side of a hill...One single cloud type in all those screenshots in this thread... It's like plastic cheese. Quote
Andyrooc Posted February 11, 2015 Report Posted February 11, 2015 One of the biggest issues I have with Outtera is that every single screenshot that people post looks like cold wintery alpine conditions. Nothing like where I live. <snip> You could fix that by moving somewhere wintery. Quote
Ben Russell Posted February 11, 2015 Report Posted February 11, 2015 X-Plane is already plausible enough. 1 Quote
HiFlyer Posted February 11, 2015 Report Posted February 11, 2015 12Gb is at 90m resolution though. Photoscenery is closer to 10cm resolution. They appear to be modelling ground texture based on rules rather than actual data (like from OSM), which funnily enough will probably be more realistic looking than spending time creating more accurate scenery. However, things like rivers, port, bays, lakes, main roads etc would have to be accurate enough for a discerning X-Plane GA pilot to find their way around the countryside. The 90m is modified downwards through fractal refinement. And in all actuality, they will be using the same data sources used by everyone else for this sort of thingas well. Which is to say, OSM will be used much like in X-plane. Just in the last update, you gained the ability to simply type in any geographical location worldwide and be instantly be taken there. Quote
Andyrooc Posted February 11, 2015 Report Posted February 11, 2015 The 90m is modified downwards through fractal refinement. And in all actuality, they will be using the same data sources used by everyone else for this sort of thingas well. Which is to say, OSM will be used much like in X-plane. Just in the last update, you gained the ability to simply type in any geographical location worldwide and be instantly be taken there.Kind of like X-Plane? Quote
HiFlyer Posted February 11, 2015 Report Posted February 11, 2015 (edited) One of the biggest issues I have with Outtera is that every single screenshot that people post looks like cold wintery alpine conditions. Nothing like where I live. The other problem that they have is that the more detail you have, the more detail you need.Things like a razor sharp river bank edge...No roads leading to the random shed placed on the side of a hill...One single cloud type in all those screenshots in this thread... It's like plastic cheese. Its just as easy to find deserts and rock areas. Its just that most people find deserts plain, and the same goes for coastlines, though its not hard to find outerra videos and pictures of those as well. The presentation I posted went into some painstaking detail regarding Biome support (which is currently at Phase 1) as seasonal and climate variation are considered by the Outerra developers to be a basic need for realism About the roads... the presentation also noted that there are several types of roadway (with more being added) in Outerra, and that unlike the traditional scenery methods that require painstaking mesh changes, any user can make a path to any location in just a few mouse clicks. Not only that, the created path is automatically a part of the mesh, not only perfectly level, but also able to modify the terrain on the fly. No more sideways roads on the edge of a canyon! It should be noted that the river system is intended to be a subset of the road system, meaning that users will also be able to place rivers, streams waterways etc in the same few mouse clicks, and have the water behave realistically. Finally....... those clouds!! Its probably good to keep in mind that right now the clouds are not only alpha, they are early alpha. They were just released a few days ago (and only because of user demand!) in a partially incomplete state, so I suspect a review is a bit early. (I think its actually pretty remarkable what they have accomplished so far, but there is definitely more to come, including weather) In keeping with the "early alpha" theme, the rivers as currently seen are a stock-gap usermod, as full water support from the developers (who may be a bit perfectionistic) is waiting for the ability to depict actual moving waterflow, taking into account bank angles and other minutia thats as mind-numbing as it is impressive if they can pull it off. It won't simply be a water depiction, it's intended to be more of a water simulation that will respond to seasonal variation, climate and other factors much as Outerra itself is intended to be more of a world simulation than a static depiction. Even now, its possible to actually insert climate parameters into Outerra (rainfall, tree species, temperature, season etc) and see an instant graphical change within Outerra. This capability is in use already in a climate change study at the Aspen institute, working in tandem with the Outerra developers. With the addition of lighting support, the upcoming switch to 64bit, the release of the alpha clouds..... Expect to be seeing and hearing a lot more about Outerra. Who knows, maybe the user that was trying to use Outerra as a visual driver for X-plane will decide to press forward! Edited February 11, 2015 by HiFlyer Quote
HiFlyer Posted February 11, 2015 Report Posted February 11, 2015 Kind of like X-Plane? Not quite, unless I've been missing something. I know you can call up airports in X-plane for instance, but can you type "Grand Canyon" or "West 126 street" and be taken to the correct geographical location, with an overlay from google maps? Quote
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