An Interesting Future for Outerra

[simmerhead 885]

Not necessarily at all!

I mean, just look at the videos posted here at #160 - and this is just one example.

It shows complexe structures, basic physics and movements - and all running together super smooth!

Or please feel free to check out the Outerra webiste and see for Yourself what can already be done there by now.

 

 

I have been using Outerra extensively since they released their game "Anterworld", so I know it very well. There is nothing inside Outerra yet that is anywhere near FSX/P3D in complexity. Even at it's very limited size you still have "popping" issue caused by the gradual loading of scenery details. Start adding thousands of more unique textures, vegetation, 3D models, realistic weather engine, seasons, AI traffic, ATC, realistic physics model, complex avionics etc. and we're talking a major technological challenge.

 

The proof will be in the pudding and I will support Outerra with a fistful of dollars if they start develoiping a world & vehicle simulator! The FSX/ESP/P3D engine is outdated and with such a small team present at LM I don't see them being able to make P3D a next generation simulator (Microsoft had a good start with FS11/Flight).

[HiFlyer 9,359]

Unfortunately that's very likely to happen. Civil flight simulation is a very niche market and Outerra might never find enough people to support it as a flight simulator. Other gaming genres on the other hand...

But of course The developers are well aware of the niche status of the civil simulation market and its actually been discussed on the forums. Our ace is that the developers are fans of the "true" simulation idea and favor it personally. There has been discussion of dividing the world into "true simulation" and arcade areas with the assets being interchangeable. Or maybe even a sim-earth and a Battle earth.

 

Sim earth coming first if they can find somebody to partner with. I just wonder if they might be purchased. If I was a venture capitalist, I would probably gobble Outerra up like a nice steak dinner. Heres to Kickstarters!!!

 

Even at it's very limited size you still have "popping" issue caused by the gradual loading of scenery details. Start adding thousands of more unique textures, vegetation, 3D models, realistic weather engine, seasons, AI traffic, ATC, realistic physics model, complex avionics etc

 

That's our bag, heaping things on until they break, and I think the Outerra developers will wisely cede that ground to us by leaving the cpus free, and letting us push things way past the point of sanity. 

 

In my own use, I have placed large buildings and flown dozens and dozens of miles away only to turn around and see the building still as clearly visible as it would be in real life. Tricks to conserve resources like those common in current sims such as fading the buildings to invisibility, popping them into visibility at a certain distance, culling etc seem to not be implemented yet, and I am not even sure Outerra is using basic LODs.

 

In other words, there is an awful lot of room for optimization, which is why I presume the developers still consider it to be in the Alpha stage. More than once they have pointed out that despite the amazing things it already does, they don't consider the engine to be optimized yet.

 

The only popping I really notice is that in the far distance trees are greener in defined squares, in circles around the plane, and the developers describe this as a simple color mismatch in the long distance trees that they are working on to make it practically invisible........

 

In this picture, those buildings would be long gone. In X-plane, for instance they would have been faded to invisibility. In Outerra they remain until lost in the atmospheric haze. In fact, there is yet another single building in the upper center of the screen; so small that I have to press my face against the monitor to see it, but its still fully there. Very impressive, but hardly optimized..... I also wince at what would happen if a traditional sim was asked to show all of those trees.  :blink: As for lots of textures etc, I assume that's why they are going 64bit.  :unsure:

 

Though nowadays, there are ways to create buildings barely even using textures at all!

 

[HiFlyer 9,359]

@Simmerhead;
 
EDITED:
 
Quick question. Are you using Anteworld as is, or did you download the entire earth? If not, the entire world elevation data files are here: http://forum.outerra.com/index.php?topic=645.msg8073#msg8073
 
As far as the view distance and tree loading I think the answer is here from a question on the Outerra forum.
 

Is there a way to push back render distance of trees? You can clearly see where the trees end and I wanted to expand the distance to make it look better, hope that's possible! Tried playing around with the terrain settings but nothing seems to make a visable change
http://i.imgur.com/hmlDx2p.jpg

Terrain quality affects it, together with tree coef. But the problem here is that there's a known bug when color of trees isn't properly matched in the distant part. Once this is fixed, the transition should be practically invisible.

One of the first things I ever did was set terrain quality to max, so maybe that's why I never really noticed an issue, and also default atmospheric scattering tends to negate it altogether. There are alternative solutions to draw distance available to the developers though. (of the trees, since the buildings are fine)
 

[Noel 4,502]

ChaoticBeauty, on 26 Feb 2014 - 07:02 AM, said:

Unfortunately that's very likely to happen. Civil flight simulation is a very niche market and Outerra might never find enough people to support it as a flight simulator. Other gaming genres on the other hand...

 

But of course The developers are well aware of the niche status of the civil simulation market and its actually been discussed on the forums. Our ace is that the developers are fans of the "true" simulation idea and favor it personally.

 

I wonder if we underestimate the civil simulation market in these discussions.  We base this likely on all we can, starting w/ FSX & Xplane.   These products, especially maybe FSX over XPlane, require so much user knowledge to get to work very well.  Just think about the 'enthusiasts' here who get in deep and want decent performance & visuals.   Very few people who bought FSX probably got in that deep, and just lived with its inherent flaws and limitations, leading ultimately to less loyalty in using these products.   Think about what was happening in the smartphone market before iPhone debuted.   Because iPhone just was so cool you had to have one, and so the market grew greatly.  I can see, years out, someone with a Steve Jobs vision coming up with a killer flight simulator:  details to immerse the user fully thought thru and developed, killer ATC w/ voicing that is...perfect.  64-bit native code, fully DX11+ & multicore threaded.   Build the SDK's exceedingly robust, but also protected relatively from potential for incompatibilities.   Publish, up front, that the core version 1.0 will remain the core for a 7 year cycle, during which all SDK-created content is fully compatible.  The 3PD community knows what they are in for, can count on it, creating a durable and growing content development community.   Very little time tweaking this product--it's rock solid, at least as solid as Win 7 which runs great out of the box, period.  I think if we ever get to this space then the market will improve for civil aviation simulation.  Tie in satellite photo-real 3D modeling and you're doing literal, albeit virtual sight seeing.

 

Now given this hopefully positive vision of a future civilian (and military, and more) platform, how much would you pay for a copy of it?  How about for a PMDG T7-class add-on, that works flawlessly w/ a rock solid locked frame rate of 30-60, always?  I'd cough up way more for this core & add-on scheme than I have for what I own now, and I've purchased a bunch.

[simmerhead 885]

@Simmerhead;

 

EDITED:

 

Quick question. Are you using Anteworld as is, or did you download the entire earth? If not, the entire world elevation data files are here: http://forum.outerra.com/index.php?topic=645.msg8073#msg8073

 

As far as the view distance and tree loading I think the answer is here from a question on the Outerra forum.

 

One of the first things I ever did was set terrain quality to max, so maybe that's why I never really noticed an issue, and also default atmospheric scattering tends to negate it altogether. There are alternative solutions to draw distance available to the developers though. (of the trees, since the buildings are fine)

 

 

Thanks Devon! I'm using it as is, but I will download the elevation data. The "popping" issues is in mountains which seem to increase in LOD as I approach them. Trees have never been a problem.

[HiFlyer 9,359]

Thanks Devon! I'm using it as is, but I will download the elevation data. The "popping" issues is in mountains which seem to increase in LOD as I approach them. Trees have never been a problem.

In that case, what you may be seeing is the fractal refinement, which does get more detailed as you get closer. The quality and resolution settings can affect that as well if your machine can handle it!

[wolke85 150]

This is the real question:  is the Outerra engine fundamentally much more efficient than current offerings from P3D V2.x?  Others have pointed out the issue how what we are seeing is not the full depth environment of P3D V2 or XPlane.  If, somehow, it is fundamentally much better than truly it is the direction to exploit.

 

... I - and i assume all of us here - wished i had a clear answer.

But as for now all i can say is:

Only time will tell.

 

I have been using Outerra extensively since they released their game "Anterworld", so I know it very well. There is nothing inside Outerra yet that is anywhere near FSX/P3D in complexity. Even at it's very limited size you still have "popping" issue caused by the gradual loading of scenery details. Start adding thousands of more unique textures, vegetation, 3D models, realistic weather engine, seasons, AI traffic, ATC, realistic physics model, complex avionics etc. and we're talking a major technological challenge.

 

The proof will be in the pudding and I will support Outerra with a fistful of dollars if they start develoiping a world & vehicle simulator! The FSX/ESP/P3D engine is outdated and with such a small team present at LM I don't see them being able to make P3D a next generation simulator (Microsoft had a good start with FS11/Flight).

 

... well then:

Let's see - and try to remain positive and enjoy these "exciting times" ahead for us flightsimmers.

Although i must admit that i usually prefer having a clear picture/perspective.

:smile:

[HiFlyer 9,359]

There was a thread on the Outerra forum where somebody was going to convert an Aerosoft jet. Mathijs showed up to nip that in the bud, so instead the person will be looking to convert some freeware tubeliners.

 

Hopefully he can get permission or even some assistance.

[simmerhead 885]

 

... well then:

Let's see - and try to remain positive and enjoy these "exciting times" ahead for us flightsimmers.

Although i must admit that i usually prefer having a clear picture/perspective.

:smile:

 

Going somwhere feels a lot better than going nowhere

There was a thread on the Outerra forum where somebody was going to convert an Aerosoft jet. Mathijs showed up to nip that in the bud, so instead the person will be looking to convert some freeware tubeliners.

 

Hopefully he can get permission or even some assistance.

 

How narrow minded... Just the kind of behaviour that is extremely counterproductive in this small niche hobby of ours. Thanks for the head's up. I've just bought my last Aerosoft product. I wish Francois/FSAddon would get more deals to publish addons. Francois is a strong supporter of the community spirit in this hobby and balances the comemrcial side of things admireably.

[HiFlyer 9,359]

How narrow minded... Just the kind of behaviour that is extremely counterproductive in this small niche hobby of ours. Thanks for the head's up. I've just bought my last Aerosoft product. I wish Francois/FSAddon would get more deals to publish addons. Francois is a strong supporter of the community spirit in this hobby and balances the comemrcial side of things admireably.

 

Well he was very nice about it, actually. And he does have a point. They spend a lot of money making those planes, and can't really allow people to grab them at will.......

 

Its to the Outerra creators benefit as well, since by linking/supporting such a project on their site, they could potentially get tangled in legal crap as well. If they made a habit of it, it could get very messy.

 

http://forum.outerra.com/index.php?topic=2494.0;topicseen

On a lighter note, Outerra seems to be Birthing its own version of Redpiper1  :lol:

 

 

And some fun: Wild Migrating Cessnas!  B)

 

[simmerhead 885]

Well he was very nice about it, actually. And he does have a point. They spend a lot of money making those planes, and can't really allow people to grab them at will.......

 

Its to the Outerra creators benefit as well, since by linking/supporting such a project on their site, they could potentially get tangled in legal crap as well. If they made a habit of it, it could get very messy.

 

 

Yeah, Mathijs seems like a gent compared to some other players in the addon biz, but still, I can't see the harm at this point. It's just an extremely limited demo... I would have seen it as an opportunity to earn som goodwill from the community.

[wolke85 150]

 

 

Going somwhere feels a lot better than going nowhere

 

Indeed!

:lol:

[User72 28]

This is a very interesting and informative thread gentlemen, thank you all kindly. I had looked at Outerra some years back and happily forked over another $15 yesterday to have another look. I will also join their forums which is perhaps one of the easiest ways to show support as should we all who have an interest in FS. I would also happily support a kickstarter initiative.

There is obviously huge potential there for a flight sim as any optimist will see very quickly. I hope the potential is realised and will watch that space carefully. It would be nice to see one of the addon developers finding their way to see the potential and jump on board in even a limited exploratory fashion. It would take some vision on their part but would garner great interest in the project from the community.

I supported Star Citizen on kickstarter based on potential alone and look at what they accomplished in terms of funding. Such things can take off quickly indeed, if you'll forgive the pun, with the help of a community forming behind them and though we may now be a niche community a well executed flight sim surely has the potential to garner wider interest. I for one will do all I can to support these guys.

[cameni 9]

This is the real question:  is the Outerra engine fundamentally much more efficient than current offerings from P3D V2.x?  Others have pointed out the issue how what we are seeing is not the full depth environment of P3D V2 or XPlane.  If, somehow, it is fundamentally much better than truly it is the direction to exploit.

 

The main difference is that FSX, X-Plane and most others use traditional streaming-type rendering engines: optimized to stream prepared terrain meshes, textures and other geometry, that is then almost directly rendered by the GPU, without using many of its computation capabilities. That puts a high load on the CPU and the CPU->GPU bridge which have to select and stream a lot of data, while the GPU mostly waits for the data and its utilization is usually fairly low. It also means that a streaming engine usually only renders what it's got prepared in advance - only so many levels of detail, and if you want to double the resolution, it will quadruple the amount of data.

 

OT, in a simplified view, is a procedural, "generating" engine: its terrain data are prepared in a special format that allows producing any required level of detail on the GPU, and continue refining it below the resolution available in the dataset, using a set of statistical rules. This allows us to get a detailed terrain even from coarse world data. The data are highly compressed and fully unpacked only on the GPU, and thus there's much less traffic going from the CPU to GPU, and the CPU has to do less.

 

The second part is the vector engine that overlays and modifies the base world. Again, the data come in a highly compressed vector form and are effectively expanded and applied only on the GPU, lowering the internal bandwidth and relieving the CPU side. It's currently used for roads & runways and craters, but it's being extended to handle rivers, lakes, fields & pastures, parks and other civilization effects on the natural world. All being in the vector form, it's again procedurally refineable and takes a tiny space compared to the traditional approach.

 

There are, of course, some disadvantages. The increased complexity requires a relatively powerful GPU. Outerra predecessor was actually done way back before programmable graphics appeared, and it was a wild guess that one day there will be a hardware suitable to handle the approach.

One of the disadvantages is also that new tools have to be created for scenery editing, to fully take advantage of the architecture. It's possible to combine it with the streaming style though; for example the current buildings are technically streamed and not procedurally generated (yet). In practice, no engine is purely streaming or procedural, e.g the autogen in FS.

 

The advantage is clear: this design is able to fully exploit the programmable graphics hardware, which scales much better than CPUs can. It also leaves the CPU resources for the simulation.

 

 

By the way, while looking up info on Outerra, I noticed they're using OpenGL 3.3 which is a little old and meant for DirectX 9 hardware. Have they said anything about moving to OpenGL 4.x which is much better and supports all DirectX 11 functionality?

 

Note OpenGL 3.3 is the minimum required version, but we actually create a 4.x context when available and use some functions from higher OpenGL versions, or some extensions when they are available.

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

Note OpenGL 3.3 is the minimum required version, but we actually create a 4.x context when available and use some functions from higher OpenGL versions, or some extensions when they are available.

 

Thanks for this explanation and the rest of your post, it's very informative.

 

By the way, I don't know if you've already learnt about this, but both Microsoft and Khronos Group announced a few days ago that DirectX and OpenGL will go low-level in their next iteration (to compete with Mantle), and as a result, the CPU overhead will be massively reduced, providing huge performance benefits when you're CPU-limited or in a SLI/CrossFire configuration. Do you have plans to support that too?