Question Why not looking out for an external engine?

[Erupter]

There are lots of discontinued products with 3d engines.
Why not asking one of these developers for use of their engine?
Like the old EVE-Online DX9 engine (pre Exodus? something like that).
Orbiter would look really nice and without all the difficulties of developing one from scratch...

 

[Woo482]

we could not use any other engine because the Physics in them are not realistic.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well the physics are not so important, our problem is the huge range, we are rendering in real time. From VCs to distant moons and planets. Orbiter needs a special engine, there is no way to prevent this.

 

[Artlav]

It will be like trying to build an orbital launcher by strapping common fireworks to a barrel with a window.

 

[Usquanigo]

Well the physics are not so important, our problem is the huge range, we are rendering in real time. From VCs to distant moons and planets. Orbiter needs a special engine, there is no way to prevent this.

True. Though it'd hardly be Orbiter even with that if the physics were full-on arcade.

 

[Urwumpe]

True. Though it'd hardly be Orbiter even with that if the physics were full-on arcade.

true, but physics and rendering are separate issues. You could render a space shuttle with the physics of a fireworks rocket. The rendering is just the visual representation of the results of the physic engines.

 

[cjp]

So we want a custom physics engine anyway (that's what Orbiter is all about), and because of our unique requirement for the depth ranges, none of the existing graphics engines will do either.

Unless your graphics engine allows very low-level hacking of the Z-buffer etc.., but so far it seems to be OK to use Direct3D or OpenGL directly.

 

[Urwumpe]

A floating point Z-Buffer would be interesting for us. :lol:

 

[Master of Blades]

Using other graphic engines may be diffcult, since most of them needs to be licensed, including the "Trinity" Engine of EVE Online that you mentioned (I believe it is still in use too, for the EVE "Classic" client, which uses lower graphics, for older systems).

 

[Erupter]

Well the physics are not so important, our problem is the huge range, we are rendering in real time. From VCs to distant moons and planets. Orbiter needs a special engine, there is no way to prevent this.

If i am not mistaken (which may well be), orbiter simulates a solar system at a time. Thus distances we are talking here are some AU.
Now video cards are at maximum able to manipulate 32bit numbers, and they take quite a hit from that. So in order to rasterize AUs, you simply do a projection: after a certain distance everything is just a point. Look from earth at saturn or neptune in Orbiter, they are just like stars but colored differently. I think there is no 3d engine able to hold in memory such a vast ambient. Most probably the current engine (based on directx3? or what?) already has made allowances for such a problem.
The cited engine (EVE-Online) reproduces solar systems with different bodies and galactic distances (albeit without the possibility to enter atmosphere or land... at least until i knew it) quite accurately. Plus, as said above, phisics would be processed by another engine.

Using other graphic engines may be diffcult, since most of them needs to be licensed

In fact i said "why not ask to some developer?". Not steal an engine

Given the nature of the Orbiter project, it may possibile that someone would be willing to offer their engine for free (obviously not a state-of-the-art engine).
That would give an option to Martin while freeing a lot of development-time and still giving anyone the option to build their own.

 

[Master of Blades]

In fact i said "why not ask to some developer?". Not steal an engine

True, but isn't it more common that the publisher of <insertgamewithengine> owns the lincense rights to the engine as well? And most publishers fit very neatly into the power-hungry-money-craving-puppy-eating corporation stereotype...

On a off topic note: You play EVE Online?

 

[Urwumpe]

32 bit is not as much as you might think. Expect 10 cm accuracy for rendering spacecraft without clipping errors, and you get only 400,000 km range until you have to clip - just a bit more than the distance Earth-Moon.

 

[Artlav]

I wonder what is wrong with currently available Orbiter engines...

What is it <insertgamewithengine>'s engine can do that Orbiter's inline DirectX7, OGLA OpenGL or DirectX9 engines lack for "you"?

 

[Woo482]

Orbiter is a Simulator it does not need Amazing graphics the current engine is good enough

 

[Urwumpe]

What is it <insertgamewithengine>'s engine can do that Orbiter's inline DirectX7, OGLA OpenGL or DirectX9 engines lack for "you"?

Make the mesh format obsolete and force all people who want to make Orbiter add-ons to buy a commercial and expensive plug-in for 3D Studio?

Not that I don't support improving the add-on file format, for example by using containers/archives and virtual file systems. But it currently, it is very simple to work on it - I can even fix tiny mesh errors with my Visual Studio.

 

[Usquanigo]

Orbiter is a Simulator it does not need Amazing graphics the current engine is good enough

With a lot of the add-ons out there, I'd even say that Orbiter's current engine *does* look amazing.

 

[Erupter]

32 bit is not as much as you might think. Expect 10 cm accuracy for rendering spacecraft without clipping errors, and you get only 400,000 km range until you have to clip - just a bit more than the distance Earth-Moon.

Exactly my point.

True, but isn't it more common that the publisher of <insertgamewithengine> owns the lincense rights to the engine as well? And most publishers fit very neatly into the power-hungry-money-craving-puppy-eating corporation stereotype...

On a off topic note: You play EVE Online?

That's sure a point, but it's full of more advanced and discontinued engines. Since Homeworld...
Anyway mine was just a proposal. I can't understand why i get so many refusals to my propositions. I was not asking to transform Orbiter in a child toy, rather to make it more awesome. But anyway...

Regarding EVE: i used to. I growed to dislike it in time, requiring too much committment. Ultimately aligning it more to the work side then to the play side. At least for me.
Also the kind of inter-galactic caos was not to my liking. I would have preferred a more realistic (although maybe not Orbiter-realistic ) style of combat, with formations, multi-ship tactics and so on. What it became was a "lightning fast attack strategy game" with no long-time tactics at all, and just focus on uber-deadly ship configs. With ways of getting enough money in enough time to re-buy/re-build lost goods.
Not my kind of game ultimately...
But graphically and also socially fascinating reality.

Orbiter is a Simulator it does not need Amazing graphics the current engine is good enough

Keep hearing such thing since the beginning of Orbiter (or almost).
Why has it improved then?
Why don't you go around with a 1950 car and spectacles and trousers and all? Come on it's sterile a subject as ever.
The World moves forward, why can't, or more precisely shouldn't, Orbiter?
Would you really suffer from having such a simulator with also latest gen graphics, if it ever existed? If anyone wishing to give you it existed, would you refuse it? I can't understand such lines of discussion in perpetual refusal...
But again, i am nobody.

But just out of kindness, have a look at this -> http://www.gametrailers.com/player/10867.html

This game has had such graphics since 2006 (year in which i was a tester) and ran smoothly on non-lethal machines (i think i had an ahtlon 1800 and an ati 9600... and pumped it quite nicely).

 

[Usquanigo]

Erupter,

Just what is it about Orbiter that bothers you, visually? Have you really taken the time to get all the enhancements that are available for it?

 

[Erupter]

Erupter,

Just what is it about Orbiter that bothers you, visually? Have you really taken the time to get all the enhancements that are available for it?

It was not me who started the OVP forum, i merely added my proposal.
If it was only me, why the OVP at all?
Why Martin working on a revised graphics engine?
Why Artlav working on the OGLA?

What is in seeking perfection that bothers you all?
All I would really like is if Orbiter approached perfection.
But just seeking it seems kind of eretic around here...

Ok, i won't talk about this anymore.
Feels like the old linux console feticists complaining about the new visual environments takeing out all the fun...

 

[Usquanigo]

lol It was just a question man. You made a suggestion for a reason and get bent out of shape when people ask why.

Nobody is against visual enhancements or improvements. Regarding the OVP, AFAIK it is to make it more OS portable more than anything else.

A couple of things you need to keep in mind -

• That movie was canned animation, that always looks stunning, from nearly any era/age
• Just how much actual physics is going on under the hood of Eve? Physics calculations are hardcore cycle hogs. All real simulations always look "worse" than arcade games because more of the system resources and time are being devoted to the physics that make them simulations. Eye candy IS important, but it's secondary
• If you play Orbiter a lot, what I think you'll find is that most of the time, when you're actually doing something (getting a ship to or from orbit, docking, setting up interplanetary burns, etc), what you're really doing is playing with numbers almost more than anything. Staring at the MFDs and making adjustments as needed. The eye candy becomes even more secondary here than it would in say, a prop flight sim.

Try getting all the visual enhancements that are out there and see how you like it.

People are against "game engines" because they aren't able to handle the physics of Orbiter, and as also mentioned here, they tend to make add-on development much more difficult, and that is really the lifeblood of the application and community.