Very cool! We will all probably have to wait until Levi and his Flying Fingers O' FlameTM return from hiatus to get any further houses converted, though. I miss Levi! 

What format does Outerra use? Perhaps I can just write a script to autoconvert them?

Jezus I really hope you guys make a success of Outerra...

Indeed. I really want to work on this platform, I'm just without an SDK and Mac version at the moment. I'm very keen to get working on a tool to convert GIS/OSM data into scenery and I think a lot of the work I've done for X-Plane can be ported across

Here are two ways..... Outerra supports Collada and FBX

 

This subforum may help with any problems encountered. http://forum.outerra.com/index.php?board=22.0

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=11&v=joY7G1iRUL4

You're doing an incredible job, especially considering the tools you have to work with. I've been working on some higher quality regional models for the autogen in X-Plane (http://forum.avsim.net/topic/433700-introducing-world2xplane/page-34?p=3239469#entry3239469), and I think these would also look great in Outerra as they also have ground textures so they look less random placed on grass.

Thanks

 

These buildings look really good! Ground for objects is a bit complex to handle because there is only a limited set of textures available (it's basically a road based on the object dimensions). Since the terrain is extremely detailed at close distance in Outerra, it requires a lot of manual tweaking. But we may be able to do some interesting things sooner or later, things that you may be interested in, so I'll keep you updated

 

What format does Outerra use? Perhaps I can just write a script to autoconvert them?

Levi is the specialist, but since he managed to convert up to 600 of your models in a single day, I guess there is a way to do this quick. Outerra is using the Collada 1.4 format for input files, which are then processed in a build-in tool to produce output files used by Outerra. The whole process is documented here : http://xtrac.outerraworld.com/wiki/Importer

Thanks for the info. The DAE format seems like an intermediate format which Outerra then processes and creates its own. That being said, I could probably help Levi out by creating an .obj to .dae script which will save him the step (and his sanity) of opening up each model in Sketchup/Blender and reimporting. Hats off to the guy who managed to do this 600 times in one day.

 

The only thing I can say after watching the tutorial videos is that people really need to cut back on the polygon count if they want large scale scenery (it's very easy to go town on detail, but forget that most flight simmers won't see the model close up). I'm not sure how Outerra internally handles models and LODs, but having 1000 triangles to represent a single building is going to cripple even modern hardware when rendered on the large scale. This is why generally I avoid converting Google warehouse buildings directly into X-Plane as often the models are far too complicated for a flight simulator. Generally highly detailed models are restricted to the airports only (where the user is on the ground), and the rest is low detailed and made for volume. The house models people are creating for Outerra are fantastic, but unusable in the long term for a flight simulator (But Outerra is much more than just a flight simulator)

 

The recent models I've created look detailed close up, but when about 300m away, they'll degrade into a low poly model. It seems like this still makes X-Plane briefly struggle, it judders briefly as the higher detail models are rendered, but once drawn the GPU instancing seems to kick in and it becomes smooth again. I'm still experimenting with the engine and what it can/can't do.

 

The only thing I can say after watching the tutorial videos is that people really need to cut back on the polygon count if they want large scale scenery (it's very easy to go town on detail, but forget that most flight simmers won't see the model close up). I'm not sure how Outerra internally handles models and LODs, but having 1000 triangles to represent a single building is going to cripple even modern hardware when rendered on the large scale. This is why generally I avoid converting Google warehouse buildings directly into X-Plane as often the models are far too complicated for a flight simulator. Generally highly detailed models are restricted to the airports only (where the user is on the ground), and the rest is low detailed and made for volume. The house models people are creating for Outerra are fantastic, but unusable in the long term for a flight simulator (But Outerra is much more than just a flight simulator)

 

I agree. But it's also important to realize that before I started to work on Talkeetna, nobody really tested impact of large number of buildings (the devs did it, but in a different way). So everyone was mostly placing a few detailed models here and there and that's all. Hell, even Levi started his career by importing full detail models of GTA IV major buildings without LODs .

Talkeetna was a good experience: for a flight sim scale, using simple models is the best solution. The Alps scenery is using World2Xplane models only and the result is really good:  framerate is perfect. Outerra is a well optimized engine and can handle a large amount of buildings/polys even with the terrain detail, but it can't make miracles and if you start spawning thousand instances of detailed objects the framerate will drop.

 

Actually, since then, majority of the modders have started to take more attention to the perfs. M7, for example, started by converting heavy detailed models (like the one in this video) but switched to more simple yet good objects with a low impact on perfs: http://forum.outerra.com/index.php?topic=3175.0.

With Outerra, if we are very very lucky and the stars are right; maybe something truly new will come into the world of simulation.

 

A look at the newest update: http://forum.outerra.com/index.php?topic=3547.0