Orbx CrowdFlow tech demo

[GBrutus]

Very impressive indeed!

 

[koorby]

Just some thoughts I've been sharing on our forums, about the next phase we'll probably take this tech:

- Passengers walking from terminal to apron to stairs to aircraft in a loop (they would have only 60 seconds to make the journey so it will be tricky, but do-able), i.e. they will begin from inside the terminal and end inside the aircraft, so it will rely on very careful positioning of static aircraft and having an open door and a partial interior so they can disappear into the cabin. On the terminal side, it will rely on an open door or worst case, the passengers will simply walk through the terminal wall/door, probably something we can live with, given the contraints we have

- Lolipop marshallers that are somehow conditionally triggered by approaching aircraft

- Airside maintenance engineering and refuelers working underneath and around the static airliner library

- Moving airside vehicles with animated ground staff

- More 'rural' animations like:
- Bush flying mechanics working on Piper Cubs inside a hangar (with speech and fx attached)
- Guy sitting on a stool casting a fishing line
- Two old guys sitting under a porch reading a newspaper or whittling wood
- Young lovers in a welcome or farewell embrace at the FBO

etc etc.

You also need to realise we have released our 'ObjectFlow' technology, meaning any of these animated people can be automatically triggered to only appear at certain times of the day etc. Slowly but surely we're extending the functionality of FSX to make it do things it really was not meant to do

 

[jdhaenens]

This looks very impressive, John. Looks a bit like the 3DS animation with rigged models. Translating that into keyframe animation and keeping the framerate hit un-noticible is indeed impressive technology.

Will you folks use this in the rest of the community or is it going to be for Orbx area use only?

Jim

 

[koorby]

Will you folks use this in the rest of the community or is it going to be for Orbx area use only?

Jim

Orbx libraries for our internal use only, so this won't be available to other developers, no.

You're correct in that this is built with 3DSMax.

 

[warchild]

Man, wouldn't that be something to see. . . .Figures that move along the deck triggered to certain movements by your aircraft's position on the deck. That would really give Carrier Ops a whole new meaning.

yeah.. I can just see them running for cover and jumping overboard whenever i come in for a lading...

 

[SADT]

yeah.. I can just see them running for cover and jumping overboard whenever i come in for a lading...

And you test flight dynamics

 

[Francois]

Interesting concept, but I'd like to see 200 or 300 of 'em without frame rate hit before I will burst into fits of excitement.

Buy Call of Duty and stop messing around with FSX.......

 

[Daube]

Interesting concept, but I'd like to see 200 or 300 of 'em without frame rate hit before I will burst into fits of excitement.

I have the same concerns about the performance.
The fact that we will be able to see some life in the airports is absolutely GREAT ! Especially fi there is some kind of interactivity, like it has been mentionned a little bit above (thanks for those info, by the way ).
I imagine that the "amount" of visible people will be adjustable with some settings. I'm quite optimistic about the balance between the performance and the number of visible people that will be able to be obtained. I'm just a little bit worried because of the impact of the airport vehicules, but I don't know if this can be compared to those animated characters...

 

[vora]

... and of course it will be selectable from the airport control panel also

No sweat, Daube, as John stated in the opening post this feature will be switchable in the control panel of the respective airport.
I don't think that the amount will be adjustable, though, just "on" or "off". Since this feature does not seem to be AI or Living World making it adjustable would be a lot of work for every airport. Or so I guess. Only John or Russ know for sure.

 

[Francois]

Of course nothing is impossible, assuming you have money to throw at things.

See this.... talking of 200 people.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqBSNAOsMDc&feature=player_embedded#!

By the way, there's a CrowdFlow plug-in available for RealFlow 5...

http://www.realflow.com/rf_prod_rf5_whatis.php

 

[vora]

oooooh yes, the future looks bright for games....

Here some other engines you can drool about:

Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0:
http://bit.ly/9QsvYj

Geomerics Enlighten 1.0 (Radiosity engine to be included into EVE-Online - Incarna Expansion 2011)

Just not for our good ole FSX



PS.: Sorry for OT

 

[skyhawka4m]

- Young lovers in a welcome or farewell embrace at the FBO



how about young lovers in a car or out on the beach???
topsless wonders at poolside....:salute:

 

[crashaz]

Now that is cool!

It would be awesome if other scenarios can be developed, i.e. moving flight deck personnel on a aircraft carrier!!!!!!!!!!

NC

Amen brother!!

 

[mike_cyul]

Wow, me like. :ernae:

Mike

 

[Navy Chief]

Man, wouldn't that be something to see. . . .Figures that move along the deck triggered to certain movements by your aircraft's position on the deck. That would really give Carrier Ops a whole new meaning.

Even something as simple as a plane captain in front of a aircraft, motioning the pilot to pull forward, turn, brake, etc.... That would be so cool!

NC

 

[n4gix]

FSX has about the crudest form of animation support possibly known, with a max of 60sec loops and very few kinetic 'bones'. Result - very crude, very basic animations. What Russ on our team has done is nothing short of a miracle given the absurd constrains of the FSX engine.

John, it is entirely possible to create animations of much greater length, but it does require some manual editing of the intermediate files and recompiling for each .mdl file. Details on how are discussed at FS-Developer...

Even without that though, it's a truly marvelous breakthrough and should add a very needed dimension to your scenery products! :ernae:

 

[Bjoern]

Why would you want hundreds of peeps running around? Do you land on football fields?

Anything bigger than an A321...

very few kinetic 'bones'.

Wasn't the limit at something like 120 bones?

I remember Mike (Lotussims) mentioning something like this when I was showing off an all "boned up" landing gear.

I think you're perhaps being slightly cynical here?

*Shrug*

Buy Call of Duty and stop messing around with FSX.......

Call Of Duty has 20 live opponents and 50 dead ones at best.

The "Total War" series on the other hand...

See this.... talking of 200 people.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqBSNAOsMDc&feature=player_embedded#!

Shweet!

how about young lovers in a car or out on the beach???
topsless wonders at poolside....:salute:

*Chuckle*

 

[koorby]

Well I just placed a whole bunch of these critters at KORS and there's zero FPS impact. However, the place looks insanely cool as you taxi to a parking spot and see all these people moving about in your peripheral vision. It's nothing like I've ever experienced in FSX before!

@Bill - yep Holger linked us to the FSDeveloper tweak for >60sec loops so we'll be sure to exploit that

 

[Dexdoggy]

Really looking forward to this; well done!

 

[dexthom]

The original KORS had a guy in the FBO and two mechanics in the hanger walking back and forth but this appears to go to the next level to add realism.