Thought this superb video was very interesting. http://www.youtube.com/user/lhrabcak#p/c/D2CCF9762373EA16/8/gf8YQ9WSdiwOuterra is looking more like a Flight Simulator each day. It looks like it has a lot of potential.Rhydian

Outerra is looking more like a Flight Simulator each day. It looks like it has a lot of potential.Rhydian

That's true, however, it is also part of the problem, and one which many overlook the importance of in a flight simulator's 3D engine capabilities; it is one thing to look like a flight simulator, but it's far more important for something to feel like a flight simulator. The primary purpose is in the name 'flight simulator' in that it is intended to simulate flight, rather than simply enable floating along over pretty terrain rendering, otherwise it would merely be a terrain simulator with a moving camera viewpoint.Look past the visuals on that video and concentrate on the Cessna's behaviour, and you will notice that it looks like it is flying along a set of rails in the sky. When you consider that it is depicted as being over mountainous terrain on a bright sunny day, if that isn't a recipe for vast amounts of thermals causing a bumpy ride and some serious updrafts and downdrafts, then you would never find anywhere that was. Anyone who has ever flown a Cessna on a day like that will readily confirm that the aircraft bumps around a lot in the thermal activity. Up higher, there is a good chance that the air would smooth out into wave activity over peaks like that, and would indeed be very smooth air, but the aircraft would be going either up or down like a rocket in the air mass, depending on which part of the wave it was in.New Zealand, the Swiss Alps, the Pyrenees, the Peak District, the Grampians and Minden, these are all similarly undulating terrains to what appears in that video. There is a reason why they also happen to be the amongst most famous gliding locations in the world, and it isn't because the air is still and there are no thermals or standing waves. Eye candy is all very nice, and I like it as much as the next person, but eye candy alone is not what makes a convincing flight simulator, thus there is just as much work to be done on the geographic interaction of the air mass and the simulation of aerodynamic behaviour if that software is to be the basis for a decent flight simulator.Al

It's using JSBSim as the FDM, and I don't think JSBSim has thermals support yet (I would have to look through the code to confirm however).

That's true, however, it is also part of the problem, and one which many overlook the importance of in a flight simulator's 3D engine capabilities; it is one thing to look like a flight simulator, but it's far more important for something to feel like a flight simulator. The primary purpose is in the name 'flight simulator' in that it is intended to simulate flight, rather than simply enable floating along over pretty terrain rendering, otherwise it would merely be a terrain simulator with a moving camera viewpoint.Look past the visuals on that video and concentrate on the Cessna's behaviour, and you will notice that it looks like it is flying along a set of rails in the sky. When you consider that it is depicted as being over mountainous terrain on a bright sunny day, if that isn't a recipe for vast amounts of thermals causing a bumpy ride and some serious updrafts and downdrafts, then you would never find anywhere that was. Anyone who has ever flown a Cessna on a day like that will readily confirm that the aircraft bumps around a lot in the thermal activity. Up higher, there is a good chance that the air would smooth out into wave activity over peaks like that, and would indeed be very smooth air, but the aircraft would be going either up or down like a rocket in the air mass, depending on which part of the wave it was in.New Zealand, the Swiss Alps, the Pyrenees, the Peak District, the Grampians and Minden, these are all similarly undulating terrains to what appears in that video. There is a reason why they also happen to be the amongst most famous gliding locations in the world, and it isn't because the air is still and there are no thermals or standing waves. Eye candy is all very nice, and I like it as much as the next person, but eye candy alone is not what makes a convincing flight simulator, thus there is just as much work to be done on the geographic interaction of the air mass and the simulation of aerodynamic behaviour if that software is to be the basis for a decent flight simulator.Al

Totally agree with you. Outerra is at the moment more of a terrain generator with a couple of bolt on's like JSBSim's flight dynamics module as Peter mentions. It's seems to be developing at a very fast rate though. I think the developers said it may be more suited to something like Nomissoft's Airline Simulator where the graphics would be an additional plug-in rather than a fully stand alone simulator by itself. The question is in which direction are they taking this software. The developers seem to be mentioning something like a vehicle/world simulator hence the other vehicles seen in the video. I suppose what Outerra needs is a multi-million dollar company to step in and develop it with a team of programmers to make it into a flight simulator. Still... pretty interesting project though, especially since the Outerra team is so small. I read they may be able to add Open street map data to get roads into the engine. They are already starting to look at rails and rivers. http://www.outerra.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=99http://outerra.blogspot.com/2010/05/integrating-vector-data-roads.htmlCheersRhydian

Grassroots middleware collaboration...that dog can hunt :)Don’t know where this is going, but it’s got a lot of momentum.