An Interesting Future for Outerra

[HughesMDflyer4 470]

Outerra has posted an interesting article. What stood out to me the most was the section at the end of the article titled "Other News." Take a look:

 

http://outerra.blogspot.com/2014/02/2013-retrospective-2014-look-ahead.html

[simmerhead 885]

Great news!

[mgh 89]

The Other News remarks;

 

In any case, a project of this scale would require a sufficient funding, and so we are currently discussing the development of a prototype usable for launching a Kickstarter funding campaign with several interested developers.

 

 

Watch this space as they say.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I often forget about Outerra--it's a very relaxing program to use--I will be giving it more attention as time goes on...

 

John

[HiFlyer 9,360]

Yeah, I was just pushing engines of this type in another thread. I sometimes wonder if one of the most obvious partners for a venture like this: flight sim developers, will instead be the very last to consider climbing on board.....

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

Can somebody explain to me what Outerra is? Is it a world simulator with some limited flight simulation capabilities?

[HiFlyer 9,360]

Can somebody explain to me what Outerra is? Is it a world simulator with some limited flight simulation capabilities?

 

I think of it this way: there are two approaches to making a sim, particularly a flight sim. One is you make the planes and the things that go with the planes, and paste a somewhat satisfactory sketch of a world around them, and another is to create a very detailed world which also includes planes. My take is that since that's the way things naturally evolved, the latter results are a lot more complete.

 

Right now Outerra is probably one of the most advanced procedural engines for creating whole worlds in increasingly exacting detail. Such engines habitually run primarily on the GPU, unlike older programs Like FSX that are still almost entirely run on the CPU.

 

This means that engines like Outerra can leverage the steadily increasing power of today's GPUs and create super-detailed worlds while still leaving much of the remaining Cpu(s) power to their traditional roles....... like running simulations equivalent to FSX....

 

The potential is..... unreal compared to older technology's.

 

Imagine X-plane 10's cities in a much more realistic world, that can take you from orbit down to Individual blades of grass. (one day probably sooner than we think)

 

The world of Outerra is almost completely programmable. Trees "know" not to grow on highways or runways. and they also know not to "grow" when the terrain angle exceeds a certain amount. Highways "know" not to run sideways up a mountain, and will instead remain level by cutting grooves as necessary. Water running through a river will "know" the basics of how water is supposed to behave and will "Flow" realistically, etc. Seasons might even change dynamically in real-time......! (Viewterra, a previous program of this type did it convincingly more than 6 years ago)

 

Outerra has no moon in the sky right now. Why? because when the moon finally is added, it will be a fully 3 dimensional place that can be visited/flown over. Appropriate plants will grow in their correctly designated Biomes, and when planes with more complex and detailed flight models arrive, they will find themselves in a completely modeled 3D world following realistic physical rules to an unprecedented level of programmable detail......

 

I think its the real future, and we just might miss it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rocky_53 1,579]

Fascinating...

[MikeT707 1,181]

I would love to see Outerra actually deliver something.  I believe they have been working on this for quite a few years, so it would be good to see something finally happen other than extremely slow development.  I think, however, Outerra is a 32 bit application, which as we know has limitations in the flight simulation space.

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

Thank you for your extremely detailed post!

 

The way the GPU is used to draw high-detail worlds is nothing new to me since I play modern games and always take an interest in their tech. They are extremely detailed but on a very small scale. I agree that something like Outerra seems the future, because it renders great detail on a large scale. I'll definitely look into it more from now on.

 

I don't feel so glad that most people are only supporting Prepar3D and X-Plane and don't even take a look at smaller simulators that have potential, like aeroflyFS, FlightGear and this. Both MSFS and X-Plane began from something very small and with support became what they are now. But, I have the feeling that they will always be limited by their core which will never manage to take full advantage of our hardware and display a world as complex as a modern game.

[HiFlyer 9,360]

I would love to see Outerra actually deliver something.  I believe they have been working on this for quite a few years, so it would be good to see something finally happen other than extremely slow development.  I think, however, Outerra is a 32 bit application, which as we know has limitations in the flight simulation space.

 

It remains to be seen if the exact same constraints will exist with this technology, it works so differently than what we are accustomed to. For instance, X-planes terrain information is probably about 80gigs of information or more. Outerras representation of the entire earth comes in at less than 14gigs. It just doesn't work quite the same way as older programs like FSX.

 

In fact there is a proof of concept demo on an engine called PROLAND showcasing this type of tech from 4 years ago running on a machine that could barely push FSX at basic settings, yet it shows an entire world with real-time shadows from ground to space.........

 

Anyone remember when Laminar was talking about the plausible world being an earth with no human content? How the cities and everything else would be built upwards whole from the first blades of grass? Well here, in progress is that promise realized in truth.

 

 

Intelligent roads in a programmable world. Buildings, airports, trees and probably eventually even rivers can be placed using these types of tools in real-time.........

 

[Jeff Nielsen 1,386]

Nice to see it getting some steam going

[HiFlyer 9,360]

[z06z33 763]

Come on guys lets get behind this its $15 for the software less than 99% of addons and you never know this could be the future of flight sims but it'll fail if we dont help them out with a little $$$

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

 

Wow, what a great video Devon!! If we can get that with seasons, weather, night textures, and 3rd party addons I will be one happy simmer some day. Even though the video is limited by one seasons textures and no weather, it's still the best looking world and terrain rendition I have seen yet. I love the way the sky and atmosphere looks in Outerra, so close to reality.