by date
Is that really Mars?
Is that really Mars?
| Name: | Stephen Zepp |  |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | Oct 15, 2005 | |
| Rating: |  4.8 out of 5 | |
| Public: | YES | |
| Comments: | YES | |
| RSS Feed: |  or Subscribe with  . | |
| Profile Page: | View profile page for Stephen Zepp |
Blog post
I got some (valid) heat for my last .plan, where I mentioned things that I wasn't allowed to talk about (yet), and how that type of "tease" wasn't fun for the community as a whole. While I'm still very excited about some of the incredibly cool stuff I'm working on that I can't talk about....I did get permission to talk about (and show!) some of the really cool things being done with Torque in the commercial/military space (pun intended!) that I am aware of (even though I'm not working on it myself)...so here we go.
Many people have played around with getting real world terrain into TGE, and while some have been successful, the restrictions of the TGE terrain implementation (as strong as it is) really don't allow for much in the way of real world/large size terrains. With milestone 2, the Atlas terrain implementation in TSE allows for some incredibly amazing terrain capabilities, including the ability to bring large (and extremely large) real world terrain into your simulation.
But why limit ourselves to just one world? Earth is cool and everything, but other planets are even cooler...and when it comes to cool factor, it doesn't get much better than real terrain data (captured from satellite surveys) of the planet Mars:
Yes, for those still in doubt: that is actual terrain information from the planet Mars loaded into TSE, with a very nice model of the Mars Rover(s) in place. Here's another:
Ok, so we don't see any amazing shaders in play here, nor do we really see anything that couldn't have been done in Photoshop, but if you attended IGC this year you may have seen Valador's demo running on the main screen during session breaks on Sunday. The Rover is fully controllable, and has a "weapon" that gives you a beam to check line of site distances and rangefinder target coordinates of terrain impacts:
And let me tell you what--this was simply a proof of concept demo for a money saver project designed to package Rover capabilities in a less expensive presentation format. Once this little demo made it's splash, the brains at NASA started thinking about some really nifty stuff! I apologize for pulling the "can't talk about that" card again, but let me put it this way: would you rather see a Mars Rover in action, or read about it via lines of text?
One last shot:
Many people have played around with getting real world terrain into TGE, and while some have been successful, the restrictions of the TGE terrain implementation (as strong as it is) really don't allow for much in the way of real world/large size terrains. With milestone 2, the Atlas terrain implementation in TSE allows for some incredibly amazing terrain capabilities, including the ability to bring large (and extremely large) real world terrain into your simulation.
But why limit ourselves to just one world? Earth is cool and everything, but other planets are even cooler...and when it comes to cool factor, it doesn't get much better than real terrain data (captured from satellite surveys) of the planet Mars:
Yes, for those still in doubt: that is actual terrain information from the planet Mars loaded into TSE, with a very nice model of the Mars Rover(s) in place. Here's another:
Ok, so we don't see any amazing shaders in play here, nor do we really see anything that couldn't have been done in Photoshop, but if you attended IGC this year you may have seen Valador's demo running on the main screen during session breaks on Sunday. The Rover is fully controllable, and has a "weapon" that gives you a beam to check line of site distances and rangefinder target coordinates of terrain impacts:
And let me tell you what--this was simply a proof of concept demo for a money saver project designed to package Rover capabilities in a less expensive presentation format. Once this little demo made it's splash, the brains at NASA started thinking about some really nifty stuff! I apologize for pulling the "can't talk about that" card again, but let me put it this way: would you rather see a Mars Rover in action, or read about it via lines of text?
One last shot:
Recent Blog Posts
| List: | 05/15/08 - TGB 1.7.3 released for PC and Mac! 04/29/08 - Announcing TGB 1.7.3 Open Beta! 10/18/07 - Transparent Development, Torque 2, and You! 02/16/06 - Torque Boot Camp for Game Builder Announced! 01/12/06 - Torque isn 12/03/05 - I/ITSEC trip--(blog removed due to extreme photo content) 11/23/05 - Torque isn't just for games any more! 10/15/05 - Is that really Mars? |
|---|
Submit your own resources!| Matt Sayre (Oct 15, 2005 at 07:35 GMT) |
| Matt Fairfax (Oct 15, 2005 at 08:13 GMT) |
| Martin Schultz (Oct 15, 2005 at 08:14 GMT) |
| Stephen Zepp (Oct 15, 2005 at 08:29 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
@All: While my name is the one becoming attached to "Torque Boot Camp", and the military/commercial space for Torque, Matt (and Bravetree as a whole before they became part of GG, not to mention Paul Dana, Justin Mette and 21-6, and a couple of other community entities) started off the entire "Teaching Torque" movement--I'm just standing on their shoulders while reaching for the stars (or planets in this case).
| Jesse (Midhir) Liles (Oct 15, 2005 at 08:34 GMT) |
I bought Torque originally so I could make a persistent RPG that used real mars surface topographical data. Unfortunately mars surface topographical data is almost impossible to find in any reasonable form.
This is really cool, hopefully someday you can release a demo for us =)
| FruitBatInShades (Oct 15, 2005 at 08:38 GMT) |
| Stephen Zepp (Oct 15, 2005 at 08:51 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Hehe...I'm not an image kind of guy unfortunately...hell, at least I HAVE pics in this .plan :P No apps or even ideas about resizing 'n stuff...I just teach for a living!
| Mark McCoy (Oct 15, 2005 at 09:44 GMT) |
Big props to Valador for pushing on engine limitations and making them move.
| Aaron Ellis (Oct 15, 2005 at 09:46 GMT) |
Nice pics, and really cool news. It bugged me that you got slammed over your last .plan. One of the reasons why I enjoy this community so much is because you guys at GG seem to genuinely love your jobs and get really excited about the stuff you're working on. I see these .plans and forum posts as evidence of this. And that's something the rest of us should hope for in our own development spirals.
Anyway, thanks for posting the pics.
.
Edited on Oct 15, 2005 09:51 GMT
| Nauris Krauze (Oct 15, 2005 at 11:37 GMT) |
| Alex Rice (Oct 15, 2005 at 12:27 GMT) |
At the Natural History Museum in Alb., NM there is a full size mockup of the mars rover and the video cameras are remote control-able and hooked up to a monitor. That's pretty fun. It might be a good enhancement to your TSE tech demo, to have like picture-in-picture display showing the rover's eyeball view.
| Todd Pickens (Oct 15, 2005 at 15:54 GMT) |
So when do we see "Sim Mars", or would it be "Planet Tycoon" :O)
Congratulations to everyone involved, and best of luck with whatever its future holds.
| Treb Connell(formerlyMasterTreb) (Oct 15, 2005 at 16:32 GMT) |
Edited on Oct 15, 2005 16:33 GMT
| J Mills (Oct 15, 2005 at 17:56 GMT) |
| Vashner (Oct 15, 2005 at 18:27 GMT) |
But I am not using atlas. That terrain in the shots above looks so sweet.
| Gary Preston (Oct 15, 2005 at 18:49 GMT) |
Would be nice to have thumbnails linking to larger piccys so we don't have to scrolll right then back again to read your inbetween text.
Those pictures are really firing the imagination :)
| Rubes (Oct 15, 2005 at 18:57 GMT) |
| Mike Kuklinski (Oct 15, 2005 at 19:42 GMT) |
| Stephen Zepp (Oct 15, 2005 at 23:17 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
@All: Not sure if that is water or not...they mentioned they were playing around with waterblocks just to "pretend", but I don't know if it was this particular mission or not.
@Mark McCoy: It's possible this is still TGE, but the Rover demo at IGC was certainly TSE, and I'm reasonably confident these shots are as well. Valador is working with both TGE and TSE in various projects.
Not sure why the rover in the shots doesn't have a shadow...could be these shots weren't from their most recent build. Pretty confident the IGC demo had a shadow, but again can't be sure.
| Matt Vitelli (Oct 16, 2005 at 01:52 GMT) |
| Valador, Inc. (Oct 16, 2005 at 17:15 GMT) |
I'm one of the programmers working on this app for Valador and I wanted to take the time to thank Stephen for showing this in his .plan as well as answer some of the questions/statements that I read above.
This demo is built in TSE. Atlas, the terrain engine, is essential for us to make terrain from real world data. We should probably be able to double texture resolution of the terrain without any texture swapping (read as: good performance). We are working on satalite images right now. For those of you not on TSE, you should consider it. This is especially true if you don't mind working on a mildly "floating" codebase.
About the demo: This is a technology demo that we are using to show off the capabilities of TSE. Our main project is a TGE app that we are currently building for NASA. Using TGE, we were able to complete tasks for them in weeks that others weren't able to complete in months. Maybe some screen shots on that in the future. We are going through the permission procedures right now.
Dynamic shadows aren't in TSE yet, but as soon as they are (next milestone) we will add them.
Hrm...I have never really done much community based development before. But it's a nice way to find bugs...like say a misspelling of the word "Site"? Or a test water block lurking in the corner of a screen shot. I'll fix that tomorrow.
A long time ago I gave up the ability to spell and write to make room for linear algebra and quaternions.
Thanks to Stephen for all the support. I know it's not as fun as making entertainment games ( unless you work for a slave driving game company ), but making "serious games" with Torque products has been very positive for me.
Edited on Oct 16, 2005 17:46 GMT
| Vashner (Oct 17, 2005 at 02:02 GMT) |
| James Laker (BurNinG) (Oct 17, 2005 at 08:07 GMT) |
| Chris Labombard (Oct 17, 2005 at 14:25 GMT) |
| Paul Dana (Oct 17, 2005 at 16:12 GMT) |
I often say how the TGE for $100 is not just a bargin it is an *insane* bargain, especially for people in the simulation space. This contract work just provided the real-world proof to that opinion that I have held for a long time.
| Mike "Tango Whiskey" Lawrence (Oct 17, 2005 at 16:35 GMT) |
Have you tried here? --> http://webgis.wr.usgs.gov/
| Vashner (Oct 17, 2005 at 17:32 GMT) |
| Valador, Inc. (Oct 17, 2005 at 18:53 GMT) |
But in the simulation world, where people were speding 1 mill on simulators less than 15 years ago, the cost of the comerical license is just noise. Maybe I should post a .plan that discribes the differences between sim work and game devp and the pros and cons. The sim space is a great place for someone with no titles to make a decent living and work on tuning their graphics chops.
| Davey Jackson (Oct 18, 2005 at 20:08 GMT) |
@Randy-- Thank you for clarifying the point on the commercial vs. indie license.
@All-- As Paul and Randy have mentioned there is money out there for experienced Torque developers who want to pick up contract work. As GG receives more requests for consulting work we will be looking to the community for people to fill these positions. Community members who have displayed expert knowledge of Torque and have contributed strong Resources will be the first people we turn to. Also, members who have the correct license for the work they are doing.
Note: If you are doing ANY contract work with Torque or are working on a simulation, serious or educational game, please contact me to upgrade your license.
| Alexandre Rangel (Oct 19, 2005 at 11:48 GMT) |
| Michael Hense (Oct 19, 2005 at 14:33 GMT) |
Quote:
is that water in the first picture? bottom right.
hey... didn't anyone get it...
ROTFLMAO... good one MasterT
water... on Mars... hahahahahaaaa....
ok... sorry, im alright now...
--Mike
| Denis Linardic (Oct 23, 2005 at 00:11 GMT) |
Cool Stuff!!!
| Vashner (Nov 01, 2005 at 04:49 GMT) |
Also I remembered that I need to add a little blue star (earth) to the background.
You must be a member and be logged in to either append comments or rate this resource.
