   Engine for fligth simulator platform
  HiI'm working on a flight simulator platform. One with 6 degrees of freedom.The cabine that holds one person will include 3 to 5 monitors.I want these monitors to be 3D monitor types (using polarized glasses).Now I need a game engine that supports this simulator and that can be used tocreate a game in which the user is flying an aircraft.Thus large worlds (or outer space). Good LOD support. Support for multiplemonitors. Support for 3D. Preferable with (C++) source code so that we can expandif needed.Does not need to be free or cheap, but $10.000 probably is to much.Any suggestions?(And I hate it when I see the far away object pop up when coming closer,those objects should pop up when they are at most 1 pixel in size).
  melomaina,I don't know of any engines that support 3D output using polarized monitors.  That would require sending not just image data to the monitor, but also depth data -- something which is certainly not within the reach of standard graphics systems.Just to clarify, you want:1) A game engine, hopefully including source code, but not necessarily free.2) This game engine should be able to support multiple 3D monitors using politicization technology.3) The game engine should be able to hold large worlds, show objects as soon as they are visible, and show models with high poly counts.4) The game engine or some of your code needs to be able to control the platform.That said, here are my thoughts:Wow!  Ambitious project, if I am understanding correctly.  Does this have corporate backing of some sort?  It seems that building a safe system like this, with 6 degrees of freedom, will require more than $10 000.I don't know what hardware you are using, so it may be such that the GPU will convert the standard DirectX/OpenGL calls into the depth and image data required my these monitors.  I personally do not know if such technology exists, but if it does, that eliminates a major road block.With regard to the 3rd need above, most game engines can do this.  It is more a function of your hardware.  You'll need a lot of memory (which I'm sure you have, given the undertaking), and extremely good graphics and processing power.  Any game engine can do this.  Maybe just look for the most efficient/scalable.  You may need to change some parameters for the projection, which will allow objects to be drawn which are far away.Subpixel/pixel resolution as you want is definitely not necessary.  It will only add undue tolls on your hardware.  Your eye will not readily be able to notice if one or two pixels turn on.  Furthermore, with anti-aliasing, it becomes even harder to distinguish pixels.  Since you have so many monitors, it should not be a concern, and you should lessen that goal.  Your hardware will thank you greatly.Since your platform is custom built, I don't think that any game engine would be able to control it.  You'll have to do all that code yourself.Cheers,Patrick Niedzielski   ;  A display using polarized glasses does not need depth info.In my case the lines are alternated polarized.So the left eye picture has to go to the even lines and the right eye picture to the odd lines (or visa versa).And yes there is some company involved.About objects poping up, I ment that for some engines I see complete trees poping up when you are comming closer to the tree. but the tree then is already 10 or 20 pixels large. I think that is terrible. Or you suddenly see a much more detailed texture. But I think a texture should change gradually.;Quote:Original post by melomaniaAbout objects poping up, I ment that for some engines I see complete trees poping up when you are comming closer to the tree. but the tree then is already 10 or 20 pixels large. I think that is terrible. Or you suddenly see a much more detailed texture. But I think a texture should change gradually.Which may sound nice - but have you taken care of the important stuff. Do you have physicists that will work out aerodynamics equations, and a simulation specialists that will implement them?If simulating VFR, then trees aren't important, they might as well not be there. It's landmarks that matter. If doing IFR, then terrain isn't important at all, except around the runway. If simulating a glider, then clouds, fields and cliffs are important as well as other indicators of thermics.I'm not really sure I can think of any case where detail of trees would matter even in slightest. Forests perhaps, for gliders and ultralights, but for powered aircraft they don't matter all that much.Who is this simulator for? Who will its users be?   ;Quote:Original post by AntheusI'm not really sure I can think of any case where detail of trees would matter even in slightest. Forests perhaps, for gliders and ultralights, but for powered aircraft they don't matter all that much.Perhaps military training sims with CAS / helicopter focus would benefit from it?Tanks and artillery pieces tend not to wander on open fields when air superiority is in doubt. So, visual target identification training might be to a degree relevant.Still... It sounds to me alot like we are seeking for a renderer to be mounted on top of simulation instead of a "game engine" though.   ;  It is not for military.Its for entertainment.When flying slowly over the surface of the earth, it is anoying whentrees popup or texture details change suddenly.   ;  Flightgear is a flightsim which is open source.Adding multi-monitor support shouldn't be that hard if it's not already present (it's just more camera views to handle) and stereo displays are reasonably well understood in OpenGL. The difficult part (the flight modelling) is already done, you probably just need to add some extra render contexts.You can fix the tree culling yourself if it really bothers you...