Cryengine for sims

[Henchman14]

Yeah, I don't see that much difference in their engine then in what we have in DCS. Its prettier, but its pretty much the same simple terrain.

[y2kiah]

Is this something like a template that's being randomly distributed throughout out the map or how would you describe it?

 

Yes that's a pretty good way to think about it. The template is not stored, it is generated procedurally (in real time, though sometimes in a pre-loading or caching process) and it will always reproduce the same results given the same input, perfect for replicating the natural noisiness of nature.

 

The elevation map is very course so it can fit on your hard drive, and would produce boring terrain without much fine detail. So they add pseudo-random bumps to make it look more interesting. Trees are added in the same way, using some procedural algorithm to place them and probably using a fractal pattern to make it look more natural and "messy".

 

But if you just add the same bumps everywhere, it looks just as boring, so they use multifractals (combining different types of fractal noise) to make things more interesting and realistic looking.

 

The really impressive technology that I have seen that sets Outerra apart from similar engines are the roads and coastlines. Generating a high resolution mesh from vector data, and combining it into your elevation mesh in real time is not an easy problem to solve. Often times programmers just rasterize the vector data and end up with blocky and soft roads and coastlines. Looks ok from high above but it looks terrible when you try to drive on it. Most flight sims suffer from this problem but Outerra does not.

 

There is a really good discussion on fractal noise on this site and there are many more that you can google for.

[asparagin]

^^ interesting, thx. Looks like for small details (bushes or whatever) you can use this method without loosing the fidelity of the map.

[SFJackBauer]

I have to say that Outerra does not use cheap tricks in the sense that they are not cheap, combining everything like a planetary elevation model, realistic atmosphere lightning, landclass information that gives the right texture for the right altitude at a certain part of the globe, splines for roads, and making everything run at interactive speeds is not an easy task for a bunch of developers, let alone for a single guy (or two?) like it is at Outerra.

[zakobi]

Personally I've never liked the explosions effects in crysis.

[Witchking]

Really...those explosions are insane. Heck...waaay better than anything in lock on, DCS series. I know its about priorities..but well... looking at videos like these makes it even more evident. Heck...if I remember correctly, there was one video about rise of flight physics which had damage model, debris etc that was looking waaaay better than DCS/Lock on.

[element1108]

Really...those explosions are insane. Heck...waaay better than anything in lock on, DCS series. I know its about priorities..but well... looking at videos like these makes it even more evident. Heck...if I remember correctly, there was one video about rise of flight physics which had damage model, debris etc that was looking waaaay better than DCS/Lock on.

 

The problem with comparing a promo video (purpose to sell sell sell) and a real tangible commercial product is that one is fiction and the other isn't. The producers of Cryentine/Outerra are very selective of what they show their audience. The engine looks crazy cool, but until a commercial product is released along the same lines as DCS series/Rise of flight I think it's a completely unreasonable comparison to make.

[asparagin]

 

 

The US Army has spent $67M on a military training simulator for recruits using the CryEngine 3 engine, and developer RealTime Immersive has released some in-engine videos that show off how gorgeous the game looks, especially since it’s generating wide-open levels, instead of close quarter corridors.

[213]

you'd think with 67mil thrown their way, they'd at least be able to supply the us army with realistically proportioned characters instead of this basketball player nonsense. aside from that, this looks promising.

[joey45]

Probabaly good enough for a Decent** remake.. But for Flight Sims.. No.

 

I meen Consolemaster tried making an FPS with the Ego* Engine and look what happend.

 

*for driving games

** the game Decent > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_(video_game)

Edited December 31, 2011 by joey45

[diveplane]

Consolemasters ...lol

[joey45]

Opps ment to say Codemaster.

Cos they can't make PC games anymore

Edited January 1, 2012 by joey45

[asparagin]

Littoral operations

 

[EagleEye]

Was würde ich alles für eine Hardcore Helisim in dieser Engine geben... Sieht klasse aus.