Podcast about Outerra

I've never been much of a speaker, not in my native language and even less so in English. When Markus Völter, the man behind SE Radio and omega tau podcasts, contacted me to make a podcast about Outerra and some of the technology behind it, I initially hesitated. But then I decided that it cannot hurt, and that I must force myself to train my tongue a bit.

So, after some time we recorded a hour long interview and you can listen to it here:

omegataupodcast.net/2011/06/67-rendering-the-world-with-outerra


Beware that I'm really slow speaker with pretty monotonous voice, and together with the technical nature it's probably not consumable for everyone. Enjoy if you can :-)

Bumpy grass effect

Some time ago when I was modifying how dirt roads are being generated, to achieve their better integration into the terrain, I noticed that after one operation the grass close to the dirt tracks got a bumpy look, that had a potential in it to produce a better looking low grass fields.

Recently I have got to those code corners again and decided to play with it more. It's using fractal channels to generate the bumps, subjecting it to several treatments - the effect being smaller on some types of grass, and also changing together with modulating colors.
Here's the result:

For comparison, here's how the same scene looked until recently:

The effect is most visible when the sun is lower, it's achieved just by normal lighting. It should be probably combined with another effect that will make it more attractive during noons - shades from grass blades, visible from the side.

Of course, an important thing will be to combine it with real 3D blades smoothly appearing up close, and to apply the effect on other types of vegetation visible at distance.

A short video showing the thing in motion:

A comparison of the old and new datasets

Here's the promised comparison between the old and new data. Despite the base terrain resolution being the same in both cases (3" or roughly 90m spacing), the new dataset comes with much better erosion shapes that were previously rather washed out.

The new data come from multiple sources, mainly the original SRTM data and data from Viewfinder Panoramas that provide enhanced data for Eurasia. It appears that the old data were somehow blurred, and fractal algorithms that refine the terrain down didn't like it.

The difference shows best in Himalayas - the screens below are from there, starting with Mt.Everest.

 old   |   new

There are also finer, 1" (~30m) resolution data for some mountainous areas of the world, and we plan to test these too - interested to see how it affects the size and changes the look.

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