Question Why not looking out for an external engine?

[Scrooge McDuck]

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?

Bloodspray;
Let's continue the discussion talking about the possibilities of using other/existing graphics engines. We should not argue/fight against Erupter's (or anyones) opinion on the current graphical aspects of Orbiter, that is not the purpose of this thread. Thanks in advance.

Also; using another graphics engine does not mean that you actually have to use any physics engine comming with it, does it?

regards,
mcduck

 

[Usquanigo]

Why single me out?

He felt like everyone was jumping on him, so I asked a question and he got even more upset, so I proceeded to try to add some detail.....

 

[Urwumpe]

I think the discussion should go on without any name calling... and I mean this especially for Erupter. It would be better he answers on the given arguments. Instead of saying "wouldn't it be good..." all the time.

EDIT: Yes, I know. Please delete this if read, I don't like using the report function as called for, only for being ignored.

 

[Erupter]

Well i feel kind of attacked because after years I still read the same answers (orbiter is good, doesn't need better graphics. as i said it's since 2005/2006 i hear this) and because of other threads in this forum.
Anyway maybe i am too young, but at this point of my life "immersion" has a discreet connection with the visual representation.
I could convert this thread into a philosophical discussion about real amusement and role of graphics in modern videogames, but this is not the point.
I miss quite a number of features:
smoothed textures
bump textures
anti-aliasing
active 3d cockpit
object hyrearchy (when you takeoff/land landing gear compression, or involuntary head movement due to vibrations... this could really add to immersion in my opinion)
light effects
various kind of filtering
i miss shadows a lot
3d terrain
should i really continue?
There is no point in denying orbiter age in terms of computer graphics.
Nor is my intention to criticize Martin's work (which i really appreciate and value and respect to a very high degree).

Questions like "when is the new version coming out" and "what differences are there" and "when will we see xxxxx feature" keep coming out since forever.
So since i saw this new development i thought of chiming in.
Also because being Martin a phisicist and all the rest haveing a real work, borrowing a ready-made engine would ease things a lot.

And keep in mind that, as other people said, phisics doesn't have anything to do with graphics (as Martin is demostrating with the OVP project).

Just a point about the link I posted: that is REAL ACTUAL GAME GRAPHICS.
I played that game nearly for a year. That is the DX9 engine i linked, capable of running fairly well with very dated hardware (for nowadays terms).
Regarding the calculations involved i can't speak as i don't know how many calc that engine did behind. All I can say is that i've fought battles with almost 1000 ships in the same system and all the lag came from special effects (weapons and shields) and server lag (it's a mmorpg).
So basically what i am saying is: it's doable.

 

[Scrooge McDuck]

Ok, the discussion will go fine (I assume noone here has anything agains new ideas).


@Erupter, on much aspects you are right, they have to be implemented in a graphics client.
However, some of the things you mention rely on the Orbiter core, and some can even be made as addon:

- active 3d cockpit; all up to the addon developer.
- 3d terrain; partly depending on addons, even some already exist, like Orulex, but this is not really efficient/fast, but possibly also on future Orbiter core to be made more efficient.
- Involuntary head movement due to vibrations... this could really add to immersion in my opinion); already possible with an addon (forgot the name?)

BTW, some of the other things you mentioned, that can be implemented in a graphics client, are already possible in Artlav's OGLA (worth to give a try).

regards,
mcduck

 

[TSPenguin]

I miss quite a number of features:
smoothed textures
bump textures
anti-aliasing
active 3d cockpit
object hyrearchy (when you takeoff/land landing gear compression, or involuntary head movement due to vibrations... this could really add to immersion in my opinion)
light effects
various kind of filtering
i miss shadows a lot
3d terrain

Textures aren't smoothed? I find them very smoothed. Is this limited to planetary textures?
AA can be activated by driver settings.
Active VC possible and is beeing done by some addons, and the default DG has one.
Head movement is beeing simulated by Camera Shake.
And Orulex makes great 3D terain.

Overall there are a lot of things that are simply not there and that would indeed increase immersion a lot.
But isn't it just incredible what developers have squezed out of the current engine?!

That beeing said, I see no problem with attaching any engine to orbiter. How well it would work and perform is a completely different question.

 

[Arrowstar]

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.

Exactly. I tend to spend a fair amount of time away from anything of visual value, so I'm not particularly concerned with not having FSX graphics or the like.

 

[Scrooge McDuck]

so I'm not particularly concerned with not having FSX graphics or the like.

We know that a lot amongst us don't really care for heavy graphics, including me sometimes in case of Orbiter. But that's not what this thread is about.
This is completely up to the person(s) creating the graphics client. There is no reason to argue against new ideas. If you don't like it, there is no reason to reply here, so please keep this discusion related to the original subject..

 

[Tex]

EDIT: Yes, I know. Please delete this if read, I don't like using the report function as called for, only for being ignored.

Just want to clear this up, you were not ignored. Anytime a post is reported a discussion is automatically created in the Staff Forum in which the moderators discuss each issue in detail. Our moderators invest many hours of their time to handle reported issues.

That being said let's keep this thread on topic.


Best Regards,
-Tex

 

[Usquanigo]

Anyway maybe i am too young, but at this point of my life "immersion" has a discreet connection with the visual representation.
I could convert this thread into a philosophical discussion about real amusement and role of graphics in modern videogames, but this is not the point.

Is actually quite a valid point, and an interesting discussion idea. Because there are 2 sides to that. Just to take a quick second - which is more immersive, something looks stunningly like an F16, but has no connection to how the real thing behaves and none of the switchology, or something that looks "dated" but 'flies' just like the real thing and has all the systems implemented? (not arguing your point or ideas, just taking a quick side step down that discussion path )

I miss quite a number of features:
smoothed textures
bump textures
anti-aliasing
active 3d cockpit
object hyrearchy (when you takeoff/land landing gear compression, or involuntary head movement due to vibrations... this could really add to immersion in my opinion)
light effects
various kind of filtering
i miss shadows a lot
3d terrain
should i really continue?

Can't say much about the textures. But AA is doable on the hardware end, shadows are coming in the next version (and I beleive lighting too? not entirely sure there), but all the rest are already doable or done.

Check out the XR5 by dbeachy/Altea. That has the landing gear motion, highly intricate internal systems modeling (as do all XRs), and that combined with the other mods mentioned, you can get pretty much that entire list already.

And keep in mind that, as other people said, phisics doesn't have anything to do with graphics (as Martin is demostrating with the OVP project).

Just a point about the link I posted: that is REAL ACTUAL GAME GRAPHICS.
I played that game nearly for a year. That is the DX9 engine i linked, capable of running fairly well with very dated hardware (for nowadays terms).
Regarding the calculations involved i can't speak as i don't know how many calc that engine did behind. All I can say is that i've fought battles with almost 1000 ships in the same system and all the lag came from special effects (weapons and shields) and server lag (it's a mmorpg).
So basically what i am saying is: it's doable.

This here is really why I wanted to chime in one more time. Physics aren't related to graphics directly, no, but it burns up the CPU cycles and that puts a very large load on the whole system. Even when you offload to the GPU, you still have CPU overhead to account for and right now, it's very tough to get all of that going at the same time, which is why sims tend to look less stunning than arcaders. We simmers like eye candy too ya know.

Edit to add - I would certainly love to see some of those "add-on" enhancements become part of the core, and perhaps a little better implemented by being (part of the core). Most especially 3D terrain. But the biggest thing I'd love to see in any Orbiter development, is collision detection.

 

[Erupter]

Is actually quite a valid point, and an interesting discussion idea. Because there are 2 sides to that. Just to take a quick second - which is more immersive, something looks stunningly like an F16, but has no connection to how the real thing behaves and none of the switchology, or something that looks "dated" but 'flies' just like the real thing and has all the systems implemented? (not arguing your point or ideas, just taking a quick side step down that discussion path )

Well i tend to think i am quite balanced but then i cannot be perfectly unbiased about myself.
I do think substance is needed. For example i never liked Doom3, which sported the best VG graphics for some time, because it was only graphics. While i praised and loved HalfLife2 which what lacked in graphics added in feeling, story-telling, immersion.
That said what can i say about Orbiter?
It looks like what it is: a computer program. And all the difficulties inherent to it (from "simple" scenario creation, to vessel implementation) while adding to the elite-feeling, do substract from easiness and transparency (imo). A kind of "virtual traffic" for example would really add to the "alive and real" feeling.

But here what is the most basic point?
Simply put: technology evolves and gives us new possibilities, why not exploit them?
I can see you saying that graphics are not so much important when flying to neptune. Bus is flying to neptune all there is to it?
Or maybe takeing off at night and arriving at the iss at dawn may be part of it too?
By the way even orbiting around neptune, with nice materials, lighting effects and high dynamic range, could be spectacular...
And why not add a beautifull view to the satisfaction of having achieved orbit after days of carfull manouvering?

Edit to add - I would certainly love to see some of those "add-on" enhancements become part of the core, and perhaps a little better implemented by being (part of the core). Most especially 3D terrain. But the biggest thing I'd love to see in any Orbiter development, is collision detection.

You know?
Mesh intersection detection could be one of the most processor intensive tasks ever. More so then graphics.
No surprise it's usually done with "bounding geometry" with shape approximation being fairly gross.

 

[Urwumpe]

Just to be annoying once more:

I miss quite a number of features:
smoothed textures
active 3d cockpit
object hyrearchy (when you takeoff/land landing gear compression, or involuntary head movement due to vibrations... this could really add to immersion in my opinion)
3d terrain

Orbiter already uses texture filtering. Without you would get eye cancer on some vessels.

Active 3D cockpit or virtual cockpit (how we call it in Orbiter) is add-on work. We create one for SSU, as you might already know and kev33 already recreated a number of his aircraft with a virtual cockpit. But if the add-on developers don't use the feature of Orbiter, you won't see it.

Orbiter's animation API also makes use of what you call an object hierarchy. Just as well as the SDK allows you to implement the physical phenomena in an add-on module you want. The Black Dart has realistic rotating wheels, and I plan to port the code into SSU, once I have cleaned and encapsulated it.

You ask for many things which are already possible to be implemented. Bump mapping for example is not yet possible because old engine and mesh file format don't permit it (AFAIK). But the new engines written (OGLA, DirectX9) could do this, so only backwards compatibility is a problem.

Orbiter can do a lot, but the problem is not in the rendering or the physics engine, but in the add-on developers side. If add-on developers don't use features, for example because of the lack of time or skills, you don't see it. But this does not mean that it is an Orbiter problem - you have similar problems in the Microsoft Flightsimulator world, with only few hobbyists delivering the same quality as the commercial add-ons of professional add-on developers.

 

[Jake]

Does Orbiter support any kind of dynamic LOD? Or the old DX 7/mesh thingy doesn't allow it? If it did, I think it could've done wonders for the planet surface level of detail. The farther you got from the surface, the less polygons/lower res texture could've been implemented.
And while at it, I always find it hilarious when I land in the middle of the Atlantic just as well as on the runway at KSC . Is implementation of some sort of water surface possible? I mean, when you land on a lake you should make a splash instead of hearing the tires screech.

 

[Urwumpe]

Does Orbiter support any kind of dynamic LOD? Or the old DX 7/mesh thingy doesn't allow it? If it did, I think it could've done wonders for the planet surface level of detail. The farther you got from the surface, the less polygons/lower res texture could've been implemented.

Already done that way. But we don't have many optimizations for vessel meshes.

Is implementation of some sort of water surface possible? I mean, when you land on a lake you should make a splash instead of hearing the tires screech.

Possible, but always remember the why behind it. The most realistic implementation would be "bang, you are dead" when landing NOT on any runway.

 

[Jake]

The most realistic implementation would be "bang, you are dead" when landing NOT on any runway.

Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with that. As long as I can turn it off from the settings section if I find it too frustrating at first .

If Orbiter supports dynamic LOD can't something be done about planet surface in some future versions? Like, a higher resolution at ground level, so it can actually look like ground when you're close (maybe some procedural generating techniques?), with cut-off at a certain distance... And when you're at a higher altitude (5, 10, 15 km) it switches to a lower res mesh/texture and so on. The way it looks now, even on L10 textures, while orbiting at 200 km alt you can still see pixels the size of a goddamn county.

 

[Urwumpe]

If Orbiter supports dynamic LOD can't something be done about planet surface in some future versions? Like, a higher resolution at ground level, so it can actually look like ground when you're close (maybe some procedural generating techniques?), with cut-off at a certain distance... And when you're at a higher altitude (5, 10, 15 km) it switches to a lower res mesh/texture and so on. The way it looks now, even on L10 textures, while orbiting at 200 km alt you can still see pixels the size of a goddamn county.

The problem is the needed flexibility. Look for example at Microsoft flight simulator: They only do ONE planet, but they needed years for doing this one right enough.

A procedural terrain algorithm for Mars is completely different to the one for Venus or Titan. And gas planets would go better with volumetric cloud layers.

Maybe the OVP project will one day add such features.

 

[Jake]

Actually, I'm looking at MSFS. I think that's a perfect example of how NOT to do things.

I have an e8400 C2D processor overclocked at 4.2 ghz, 4 GB of RAM and a HD4850. And FSX runs like ****. I had to set the details on medium and spent several hours recompressing the textures of the damn thing to get a half decent framerate (medium of 20 fps). So I still play FS 2004 and hope the next version of FS will be better optimised... Or i'll get better hardware and finally get a decent performance in X.

While at it, probably most of you know those FAMOUS Genesis vids, with all the smooth transitions from space to the planet's surface and viceversa. How the hell did they pull that crap off? And are there any chances of seeing something like that in Orbiter anytime soon?

 

[Urwumpe]

While at it, probably most of you know those FAMOUS Genesis vids, with all the smooth transitions from space to the planet's surface and viceversa. How the hell did they pull that crap off? And are there any chances of seeing something like that in Orbiter anytime soon?

Do you mean a video not rendered in real-time?

 

[Jake]

Yeah. So what if it's vaporware. Seems legit to me .

What.

 

[Hielor]

Actually, I'm looking at MSFS. I think that's a perfect example of how NOT to do things.

I have an e8400 C2D processor overclocked at 4.2 ghz, 4 GB of RAM and a HD4850. And FSX runs like ****. I had to set the details on medium and spent several hours recompressing the textures of the damn thing to get a half decent framerate (medium of 20 fps).

Funny, I have an Athlon 64 3400+ (2.2GHz), 1.5GB of DDR400 RAM, and an AGP GeForce 6800GT, and I can run FSX on medium-low settings easily at 20fps. I'd be inclined to think that there's something else wrong there.

So I still play FS 2004 and hope the next version of FS will be better optimised... Or i'll get better hardware and finally get a decent performance in X.

There will be no "next version" of FS. MS fired the ACES team in January.

While at it, probably most of you know those FAMOUS Genesis vids, with all the smooth transitions from space to the planet's surface and viceversa. How the hell did they pull that crap off? And are there any chances of seeing something like that in Orbiter anytime soon?

They have a very good rendering engine? And their site still claims to be active and that they are not vaporware. I have hope yet, because that would be freaking awesome. It's Infinity, BTW: http://www.infinity-universe.com/Infinity/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=26