Jump to content

Offshore Landmarks-: North Sea (released)


Recommended Posts

  • Aerosoft
13 minutes ago, DC6Pilot said:

Will you have animated people on these oil rigs?

 

When it makes sense. Humans are very tiny on the scale of an oil/gas rig and seeing them from an aircraft or helicopter is not very likely. So we will try to place them where you see them, so around helipads etc.

 

 

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Aerosoft
9 hours ago, ravenn22 said:

@Mathijs Kok - all joking aside - the 1.4 mil poly ship will be optimized, right?  my AAA game dev instincts are freaking out, thinking about that, esp since you're paying like 1000 polys per porthole :P   It might run by itself ok, but add a few other HD objects and aircraft nearby...

 

Well, yes and no. All objects have 7 LOD levels so if you see a lot of them they will have reduced polygons. But when you get very close (or landing) you will get every polygon the model has. 

 

We are learning a lot from this project. The most important thing is that this graphics engine is bloody amazing. You can see the wind parks from FL280 and landing on a 1 million+ rig still gives me 75 fps on my very mediocre machine. Keep in mind that we are out at sea, without mesh, without houses, without trees. We are also juggling thousands of objects and the sim does not even blink.

  • Like 4
  • Thanks 1
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Aerosoft

Here is one of the ships I shown yesterday inside the sim. This ship is also capable of handling small oil spills, that's is why it has these big drums on the back, they deploy big inflatable booms with a collecting thing.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Aerosoft

As we made clear we are working with a lot of other companies. The https://www.hypeperformancegroup.com/ group is one. They make a super helicopter that is used a lot on the wind parks and even have a module that allows winching people and things up and down.

 

Here you see that in action:

 

Please login to display this image.

A maintenance crew winched onto a wind turbine.

 

Please login to display this image.

A VP of the company visiting one of the production platforms.

  • Like 2
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Aerosoft

You will probably never see this ship so close up in the sim, but that is the quality of objects we are getting.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Mathijs Kok said:

 

Well, yes and no. All objects have 7 LOD levels so if you see a lot of them they will have reduced polygons. But when you get very close (or landing) you will get every polygon the model has. 

 

We are learning a lot from this project. The most important thing is that this graphics engine is bloody amazing. You can see the wind parks from FL280 and landing on a 1 million+ rig still gives me 75 fps on my very mediocre machine. Keep in mind that we are out at sea, without mesh, without houses, without trees. We are also juggling thousands of objects and the sim does not even blink.


Fair enough, as long as the poly count adds value to the scene ;)

 

I'm tempted to go back and look at some ready-built models of platforms for Alaska and Santa Barbara now...

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Aerosoft

The MSFS simulation and graphics engine does not stop to baffle us.  I honestly think nobody outside Asobo actually knows what it can handle.

Remember the 1.2 million polygon objects we were so happy to import? Well that was nothing.

 

Please login to display this image.

This is a 3.5 million polygon object.  

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

And I landed on that helideck in the HPG Airbus chopper and had a solid 60 fps. No stutters, no long loading times, just without any drama. Even while it has as much polygons as a major airport. Of course we would never have made such a model. It simply makes very little sense actually. But as you know in this project we buy most objects and this one is dirt cheap.

 

More and more we learn that polygons are not important in a scenery object (they are in an Virtual Cockpit). The sim eats those with ease. It is bitmap size that matters.  6K or even 8K textures take a heavy toll. But that is because it is old technology, nobody needs 8K textures where 2K textures with decals simply look better and use a fraction of the graphical memory. 

 

  • Like 6
  • Thanks 1
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing that bothers me a bit in MSFS is the fact that wind turbines are always in sync with each other. Phase angle is always the same at each and every turbine in view.

Is that a requirement of the sim, or will it be different in your product?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Aerosoft
55 minutes ago, George Curious said:

One thing that bothers me a bit in MSFS is the fact that wind turbines are always in sync with each other. Phase angle is always the same at each and every turbine in view. Is that a requirement of the sim, or will it be different in your product?

 

Well it would not be a requirement of the sim but a limitation. I will ask.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Really looking forward to this, having worked in the industry for many many years, albeit in rig construction onshore was still very proud of the work we did at the Scottish fabrication yards, will be awesome to to see all this and much more in the simulation.
 

Very excited about this.

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/23/2022 at 8:49 AM, George Curious said:

One thing that bothers me a bit in MSFS is the fact that wind turbines are always in sync with each other. Phase angle is always the same at each and every turbine in view.

Is that a requirement of the sim, or will it be different in your product?


I'd assume it's the same single asset copy/pasted or procedurally placed and if it was animated in a 3D package - then that's the issue. IDK if you can add any randomization in the SDK, and it's probably way too costly to calculate actual wind on each of the turbines in game ;)    Asobo could copy the windmill, and save off variants with different animation speeds - but that's the brute force way to do it.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi, you are doing a great job ... the main problem remains the lack of suitable helicopters to exploit this work ... Years ago I already developed an identical project in Prepar3D V4, but developing each platform with its own 3D model with thermal parameters to be used with P3D FLIR. Each platform can be used in our virtual airline.

here is some info

Map (North Sea)
https://lakestorm.it/?page_id=907

Model example

KITTIWAKE RIG
https://lakestorm.it/?page_id=594
ENI GOLIAT FPSO
https://lakestorm.it/?page_id=1251

Video
https://youtu.be/Ey4SSkw0KE8

I personally created the 3d models, imported into Prepar3d. The Sikorsky S92 in the video, is the Pay model for Xplane converted for P3dv4 and in development


I follow your project with great admiration. good job
Lakestorm Staff

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Aerosoft
12 hours ago, ravenn22 said:


I'd assume it's the same single asset copy/pasted or procedurally placed and if it was animated in a 3D package - then that's the issue. IDK if you can add any randomization in the SDK, and it's probably way too costly to calculate actual wind on each of the turbines in game ;)    Asobo could copy the windmill, and save off variants with different animation speeds - but that's the brute force way to do it.

 

Ahhh but all wind related objects do spin up and down when the wind changes and they also rotate into the wind.  Down to the tiny wind thing on the weather buoy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Aerosoft
11 hours ago, Rik-LK- said:

Hi, you are doing a great job ... the main problem remains the lack of suitable helicopters to exploit this work ... Years ago I already developed an identical project in Prepar3D V4, but developing each platform with its own 3D model with thermal parameters to be used with P3D FLIR. Each platform can be used in our virtual airline.

here is some info

Map (North Sea)
https://lakestorm.it/?page_id=907

Model example

KITTIWAKE RIG
https://lakestorm.it/?page_id=594
ENI GOLIAT FPSO
https://lakestorm.it/?page_id=1251

Video
https://youtu.be/Ey4SSkw0KE8

I personally created the 3d models, imported into Prepar3d. The Sikorsky S92 in the video, is the Pay model for Xplane converted for P3dv4 and in development


I follow your project with great admiration. good job
Lakestorm Staff

 

I'll contact you by email!

 

And helicopters, yeah, not very strong right now, but I know quite a few people working on that. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Aerosoft

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

3.5 million polygons......  In one single object and I still get 60 FPS.

 

 

  • Like 1
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Mathijs Kok said:

 

Ahhh but all wind related objects do spin up and down when the wind changes and they also rotate into the wind.  Down to the tiny wind thing on the weather buoy.

 

True - they have the data ( windsocks - direction and speed )  I just don't see a lot of devs taking advantage of it...   WindyThings ( addon windsocks and flags ) does a great job, but most other people are using static flags.


 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Aerosoft

This is the next ship being worked on... by tonnage it is the biggest ship in the world. Pick up a complete oil rig (30.000 tons). Did cost 2.600.000.000 euro to construct. 

 

Please login to display this image.

 

We are now also sure this will be the biggest DLC for flight simulator (counted in polygons) ever. We are now over 450 million polygons. In comparison, a very high end airport like our Brussels has under 5 million. I still get 60 fps btw.

  • Like 5
  • Thanks 1
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Privacy Policy & Terms of Use