rFactor3 - Dream Big, Dream Outerra

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Now, I am sure it may seem premature to be talking rF3 here, but big things usually take time to develop and with an official ISI forum at my disposal there is a greater chance of someone taking a suggestion into serious consideration.

Let me introduce you all to the world of Outerra, literally the world. Outerra is an OpenGL powered "3D planetary engine for seamless planet rendering from space down to the surface. Can use arbitrary resolution of elevation data, refining it to centimeter resolution using fractal algorithms. Unlimited visibility, progressive download of data, procedural content generation. Integrated vehicle and aircraft physics engines. Embedded web browser for web service integration." -brano.kemen(creator and my personal hero)

Maybe a video could explain better. I would watch the entire thing but the "ground vehicle" section starts at 8:20.

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Now, the only vehicle currently implemented is a Tatra 8x8 and the physics engine currently in use is the open source "bullet" engine. Note: This is an old video and Brano has since apologized for leaving the ground collision mesh so large (I think it was 30CM?) and it is now lowered to "I think" a 15CM grid, if you didn't notice the wheels not perfectly driving over the visible ground mesh don't worry, nobody else did either! Brano from my personal experience on the forums is a very very VERY meticulous coder with an almost relentless ability to improve details that any normal human would have said "good enough" ages ago, and for that I respect him!

Brano says, any physics engine could be implemented into the Outerra game engine and therefore take advantage of all the other features in it. So a custom made rFactor vehicle specialized physics engine could simply be plugged in.

It is almost hard to put into words the benefits of using Outerra for just about ANY type of sim and yes "Flight-Simmers" have already latched on like leaches all over it for a future replacement to M$ Flight Sim and other specifically built plane simulators. But to me that just seems like a waste of the insanity that Brano has put into the surface interactions and other extreme and insane details on the ground. EXAMPLE

"The engine has no problems with terrain resolution (as is apparently the case with many planetary engines), to the extent that asphalt can have actual thickness - I think it's 3cm now (~1.2inch)." -Brano

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That blurb above is taken from his developers blog (http://outerra.blogspot.com/) explaining roads in Outerra - http://outerra.blogspot.com/2010/05/integrating-vector-data-roads.html

Now how do you make roads? Why let me clue you in.

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So can you imagine going to the Eiffel mountain in Germany and having Outerra lay down some laser scan data for the entire Nordschliefe with an accuracy of <1CM. A custom model or two and I could guarantee a race environment unmatched in the virtual world. So now can you imagine every race track on earth in its correct spot on a 1:1 scale map of the entire world? Can you imagine outside of those race tracks a fully automatically generated road system as complex and wide-spread as the real road systems it is based on.

Want to drive the Stelvio Pass? Outerra can lay it down rough and all it would need is some touch up work adding stone Walls and choosing correct road textures and I can guarantee sim racers would line up for miles.. Literally!

Now Don't think I am looking for Need for Speed World clone here. Far from it. rFactor: World of Conquest and Glory © would no longer need to fake skyboxes or billboard trees. Lighting would be perfect there is no other word. Clouds would be perfect (not yet implemented but do you doubt it will be exceptional?) You wouldn't have to concern yourself with map edges and collision or clipping errors. Drive out of Bathurst and you would just be in Australia instead of falling through an imaginary world.

Want to talk about immersion to me? Try getting more immersive then the entire earth and 2.2 billion miles into space! And keep this in mind. Currently Outerra has 3 textures.. Dirt, grass and snow and no clouds and one tree model and it still looks like this!

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Discuss your thoughts here and on the official Outerra Forums - http://www.outerra.com/forum/

Sim Racers need more representation there anyways.

 

You are talking about rFactor 3? rFactor 2 is still in development. Maybe you can start thinking of it when rFactor 2 is out of the box.

 

Didn't know thinking is limited by events .. I'm pretty sure I won't refuse the opportunity to drive from my home city on public roads up to Nurburgring, Germany, and then go for a spin on the green hell in actual time-of-day and weather.

This is an outrageously interesting prospect, ZeosPantera.

 

rFactor 3.... I like how you think beyond. Lets wait the arrival of rFactor 2 until we start thinking that far

 

This sounds interesting.

 

Interesting. My only concern is that sounds like way too much data for any home PC.

 

Actually.. The entire earth would be about 190 Gigs. BUT the engine has a built in torrent protocol so it only downloads what you need and in the level of detail required (flight simmers wouldnt need every bump and crevice).. I think he said 100 square miles was like 40 megs.

I think I will mention a feature every post.. Realistic star placement and movement http://www.outerra.com/shots/k291.jpg

 

Thats pretty cool to have 100 square miles at around 40mb. I would imagine thats just raw terrain thou, not any 3D Objects, different surface areas, grip levels, etc?

 

Correct. But I assume a large batch of those 3d objects would be stored on you HD after install (walls, cones, lamp posts, people) and then you would just have to download some coordinates which are like 223 bytes.

Lets put it this way. I would be completely willing to put aside 250 gigs for outerra as an empty world. Put rFactor in it or ArmA.. And I would totally throw a $60 Five Hundred gig HD at it!

Oh he just updated the atmospheric model..


Look how terrible it looked with the old one http://www.outerra.com/wallpapers/outerra_007.jpg

 

I would like this world with DCS A-10C Thunderbird and Blackshark

And it would be perfect for ArmA as well

 

This is really interesting.
An open world driving sim would be a dream.

 

WoW! The possibilitys are almost limitless, very, very interesting project!

 

This is to good to be true .

 

This is most probably the coolest simulation related thing I've seen this year. Integrating this with something like rFactor would be unbelievably awesome.

Thanks for posting this.

 

Looks incredible. I am a big time flight simmer as well.. I would love to be able to drive a nice classic car to my local airstrip, fly to one of the airfield based tracks around Europe, land and jump in a race car for some laps.

Awesome possibilities with that engine.

 

I have been following the project for several months and I in no way want to rush Brano or Angrypig. The more time they have the better Outerra will get.

My favorite apology was when a month or two ago brano said the snow was "faked" onto the mountain by just replacing the texture after a certain altitude. He said when it is done properly, snow will have depth and should even support tire tracks.

During a war sim discussion he stated that craters could not only be made almost instantly (3ms) but could be saved to a file and be persistent.

And for the off-road enthusiasts.

 

This looks very interesting but for me its something beyond rF3, not forgetting you still need to cater for the lower end PCs. This is rF5 I think!

The idea of Free Driving I've always like though, Grand Theft Auto has always been fun for me in this department because of the freedom of driving around and having fun, not something i'd ever associate with a racing simulation like rFactor though.

 

Well, I'm impressed. It's a truly amazing engine. Thanks indeed for sharing. I hope the next rF/IL2/Arma uses it

Regards

 

Yeah then I can play Ghostrider or Getaway in Stockholm in realistic

 

This is the most impressive engine I've seen this year. There's very little to criticise about it. Maybe the look is too perfect... a fictional model room, i.e. real life doesn't look as beautiful, but that would be a mire artistic flaw compared to the huge potential on what is essentially a blank canvas for any game atm.

The roads are slightly raised as spotted, but I actually like the way it enhances road edges like parallax maps would. -rF2 needs this to help define the track surface, painted lines, verges and rumble strips. FFB should accompany this when your wheels run over those painted lines on rigid suspension.

Secondly, high fidelity suspension and bumps. Subtle animation is crucial for a good physics even if it has nothing to do with the actual physics model behind it. It's important that physics are visually represented. I sincerely hope animation fidelity has had a major boost in rF2.