Outerra: New realistic terrain graphics engine and future flight simulator!

[Airhogg]

I've stumbled across the below site and thought I would share the news. Watch the sample videos if you have a chance. It really gives a good idea of the capabilities of our current consumer technology. It also appears that an alpha test may be coming available....hopefully sooner than later. Also, in one of the forum posts, they give insight to the fact that the graphics engine is GPU driven (vs CPU in FSX), but does utilize multi-core CPU for the actual simulation or game code.

(Notice the smoothness of rendering and resolution of the terrain in the videos.)

http://www.outerra.com/wfeatures.html

[Airhogg]

Great news! An alpha test version is now available for the Outerra engine. The download is free and you can explore the world, but if you want to "fly around" in a very scaled down version of a Cessna and a helicopter then there is a $15 USD charge. This is to go towards further development and I think you will find it well worth the cost.

Sibwings is also working on a very nice Cessna L-19/O-1 Birddog to work with the Outerra engine. This could be the 1st 3rd party add-on for our next full world flight simulator.

I'm very excited about these developments and hope you'll at least, if nothing else, check out some videos at www.outerra.com to see what this new engine has to offer. Rememer that this is in an "alpha" state and is very scaled down, but I think you'll find that its potential is very promising.

[fordgt40]

The site is down

[Airhogg]

The site is down

Try it now! lol

[Tom_G_2010]

Great news! An alpha test version is now available for the Outerra engine. The download is free and you can explore the world, but if you want to "fly around" in a very scaled down version of a Cessna and a helicopter then there is a $15 USD charge. This is to go towards further development and I think you will find it well worth the cost.

Sibwings is also working on a very nice Cessna L-19/O-1 Birddog to work with the Outerra engine. This could be the 1st 3rd party add-on for our next full world flight simulator.

I'm very excited about these developments and hope you'll at least, if nothing else, check out some videos at www.outerra.com to see what this new engine has to offer. Rememer that this is in an "alpha" state and is very scaled down, but I think you'll find that its potential is very promising.

Looked at the videos, very impressive! Of course they usually are... No one puts anything but their best on display. Being so heavily invested in FSX as a SIM engine, I wonder if it would be possible to get the needed outputs from FSX and integration with Outerra to use FSX as the Aircraft/Flight Dynamics Engine and Outerra as the Scenery Engine to drive the projected out the window view...

[Airhogg]

Looked at the videos, very impressive! Of course they usually are... No one puts anything but their best on display. Being so heavily invested in FSX as a SIM engine, I wonder if it would be possible to get the needed outputs from FSX and integration with Outerra to use FSX as the Aircraft/Flight Dynamics Engine and Outerra as the Scenery Engine to drive the projected out the window view...

The demo that they offer confirms that the engine is of the same quality that the videos portray. It really is a very "smooth" engine for generating the world. FSX can't touch the frame rates that I'm getting with Outerra. Much of this is due to the use of the GPU processor vs that of the CPU (like FSX). Of course, there is very little as far as scenery complexity goes, but there's just something about this engine that gives me hope for an excellent new platform.

I'm with you though. I would very much like to see FSX flight dynamics in Outerra, and that type of quality could still be on the horizon. There is a forum on the Outerra website that asks what things flight simmers want for a "perfect" flight simulator. I'm keeping in mind that this is still an alpha-test, but I'm seeing signs of an already excellent engine getting even better as time progresses.

I think the important thing now is for the simulation community to show interest in Outerra as a flight simulator. They're getting some recognition from developers and although flight simulation does seem to be the main interest (as far as the Outerra forum goes), there are others screaming for an FPS or massive online game of some sort. It could of course go in all directions depending on which developers pick it up, but the fact that Sibwings is creating a plane for Outerra is a VERY good sign IMO.

Cheers!