The Outerra Engine

[jakerod 254]

Its not that Arma needs a world, its that we need something bigger than most maps we have now. 40x40 is about as big as you are going to get in the A2 engine without dropping terrain quality to something absurd, and at 40x40 forget any sort of decent micro terrain as well.

Playing as infantry is fine on 10x10km maps, but doing full on mechanized warfare where you might be advancing dozens of kilometers in a very short period of time is rather hard to do on most terrains out there. Also being able to really expand out the use of assets like self-propelled artillery and helicopter support would make the game a lot more fun.

Yes, A3 is going to be bigger, but its back to an island again, which feels entirely limiting.

If there was a way to have dynamic terrain like there is in Outerra but limited down to smaller, custom generated height data that would be perfect.

I mean Outerra, compared to Arma, the more terrain you see the higher the FPS you get. I find that rather amazing (and makes me wish that A3 would support similar terrain tessellation).

I always thought it would be cool if the terrain points were moveable. So if you have a flat field you could pull the terrain points from the flat field to the sides of the field and make ditches. That way you would have the same amount of terrain polys but could move them to where they were needed.

[Dwarden 1125]

awesome scenery trailer

[PuFu 4600]

indeed nicely done!

[Tonci87 163]

Nice Trailer!

Now you have to respond with a scenery trailer from Limnos :p

[Dwarden 1125]

another nice vid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptyVE7pD4oo

[Fox '09 14]

Bought the full version of Anteworld, incredible stuff. The fractal technology reminds me of Terragen. I've never seen a game use parallax mapping so efficiently with terrain mesh (or at least it looks like parallax mapping)

Edit;

One of my favorite spots IRL

Edited March 13, 2012 by Fox '09

[Mr. Charles 22]

The fractal technology reminds me of Terragen.

Totally ;D

[EricM 0]

Just got the Anteworld demo, and this tech is amazing...

The vistas are breathtaking and the small terrain detail amazing and everything runs so smooth !

When they include all their features, this is going to be a killer...

[Mr.Wolf 10]

Ooooh

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[EricM 0]

Their technology is just amazing.

The streaming, LOD, Viewdistance and performance is outstanding.

Now the grass, next real trees ?

[dmarkwick 261]

Trees are still rather "spritey" and the grass could benefit from more variance, but the overall effect is great.

Edited May 29, 2012 by DMarkwick

[Mr.Wolf 10]

Yeah, trees are still 2D sprites, but they are working on tree generator. It's curently on hold, because meanwhile they released a damo and they are working on other things...

There are some WIP screenshots from last year here:

http://www.outerra.com/forum/index.php?topic=234.0

[jblackrupert 14]

Outerra: real-time craters

[Dwarden 1125]

very nice, already was impressed with the procedural rocks and boulders and whole cliffs / jags

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYjjoX3lqNI

Edited April 5, 2013 by Dwarden

[metalcraze 290]

Great effort but they still need to improve variety. It looks big from afar, but up close it looks samey, artificial.

[papanowel 120]

It's impressive, are they planning to make a game from it (or just selling the engine)?

[progamer 14]

It seems like Arma may have a competitor. Outerra apparently will offer:

Realistically looking terrain with high detail.

Unlimited visibility, detail ranging from thousands of kilometers down to centimeters.

Real time atmospheric rendering.

Rendering of vast dense forests and grass.

Seamless transition from space down to the planet surface.

Adaptive LOD with continuous transitions. Elevation data are preprocessed using special wavelet compression, the required level of detail is extracted effectively on the fly.

Partitioned compressed dataset can be downloaded progressively over the web.

Fractal refinement mimicking the natural processes (erosion, rocks, overhangs).

Procedural texture generator combining mathematical models and climatic data.

Bitmap overlays for specific areas.

Vector data - roads, rivers, land class polygons.

Uses OpenGL 3.3

Dynamic shadows.

Fully asynchronous multi-threaded design able to utilize all available CPU cores.

Terrain and fractal algorithms runing completely on the GPU.

Stable frame rate system.

Supports arbitrary and varying resolution of elevation datasets, refined to centimeter resolution by fractal algorithms.

Embedded web browser allowing for direct web service integration.

Supports COLLADA 3D model file format.

Integrates a Flight Dynamics Model library for high fidelity simulation of aircraft, rockets.

Global physics engine for simulation of vehicle physics and collision detection.

Found on Outerra's website: http://www.outerra.com/index.html

So what do you think? Could this game be a major competitor for Arma? If Outerra goes toward a militery sim like VBS, then Arma be in some serious hot water.

[blu3sman 11]

Somehow DCS is not competitor to Arma. But you manage to see it in some procedural world tech demo.

And btw there is a thread for Outerra.

[progamer 14]

Somehow DCS is not competitor to Arma. But you manage to see it in some procedural world tech demo.

And btw there is a thread for Outerra.

My bad. I will have the thread closed. This is the forum post you are referring to right? http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?109707-The-Outerra-Engine/page7&highlight=outerra

[Harry Canyon 10]

DCS doesn't simulate infantry right now, and only slightly simulates tanks. Outerra looks to be on a direct path to being a new and better Arma.

[progamer 14]

Wonder how the engine does with a milsim?

[Harry Canyon 10]

According to what I read on their forums today, they appear to making some kind of game with it. Man BIS, I wish you would just ditch the Arma engine and all its headaches, problems, and go work with these people. Everything thrown to the GPU, multicore scaling on the CPU. Just awesome.

That terrain video above is just amazing. It looks like trillions and trillions of polys.

Edited November 7, 2013 by Harry Canyon

[progamer 14]

DCS doesn't simulate infantry right now, and only slightly simulates tanks. Outerra looks to be on a direct path to being a new and better Arma.

But i bet it has its fair share of problems. Things the game tries to hide.

[froggyluv 2136]

I think EVERY game has an Outerra wishlist in it's offtopic :p

Lets face it, everyone wants that scale but the last time I messed around with the demo -it still seems light years away from any sort of worthwhile gaming environment. Also the OFP brand has a lot more going for it than just large space and we have yet to see what game genres will actually work in Outerra. Personally I feel the space sim niche would do well with something like that -like an X game but scaled down to a few solar systems with mining resources and limited civilizations.

[chortles 263]

Somehow DCS is not competitor to Arma. But you manage to see it in some procedural world tech demo.

And btw there is a thread for Outerra.

This, and what froggyluv described.

For that matter, a features list is nice, but where's the actual game? I'm reminded of all the hype over Real-Time Immersive... and what that ended up amounting to. As for another issue with Outerra as a so-called Arma competitor...

Integrates a Flight Dynamics Model library for high fidelity simulation of aircraft, rockets.

Global physics engine for simulation of vehicle physics and collision detection.

Literally the only two features on that list that I can pretend to give even half a damn about, whereas everything else except for the Web integration seemed to be terrain stuff. For starters, on one of the longest-running Arma complaints, AI, Outerra is... from what I see, totally silent. Ditto on one of our shared pet wishlist items, the extent of maritime/naval simulation (walkability while moving, vessel solidity, "launch/recover", even "modern naval warfare" stuff like radar/ECM to more closely simulate realistic range ASUW/AAW/ASW, even single-model size with regards to boat/ship-as-a-single-model size)... Edited November 8, 2013 by Chortles