hi all, i am in the beginning stages of planning development of a flight simulation game. the game will require high speed (30-100fps) rendering of detailed terrain (1920x1080) on a 'reasonable' spec gaming pc. the idea is to fly very close to the ground, though canyons, valleys, mountains, etc against the clock or another player (or AI). there will be obstacles to fly through along the way so it will need collision detection. besides that, i don't need a lot else. animated waterfalls would be nice but not necessary. lots of trees good, but again not essential. no special lighting or environmental effects.
the most important thing is terrain detail at the highest level you would find on google earth over say Yosemite valley and frame rate.
i've flown the google earth flight sim around Yosemite and its actually very cool, so something like that but much faster (smoother animation, no cache loading) and with game elements like racing against another plane, shooting the other player, flying through gates, keeping score, maybe networked multiplayer, etc.
the most important thing is terrain detail at the highest level you would find on google earth over say Yosemite valley and frame rate.
i've flown the google earth flight sim around Yosemite and its actually very cool, so something like that but much faster (smoother animation, no cache loading) and with game elements like racing against another plane, shooting the other player, flying through gates, keeping score, maybe networked multiplayer, etc.
i don't need a lot of GUI stuff and i don't care about rendering inside a cockpit or any of the standard flight sim stuff. i'll have a simple HUD (heads up display) for flight parameters like airspeed, altutude, heading, etc, which i can do with a simple 2d overlay.
i'm a c++ programmer, so irrlicht looks like a good choice vs. say orge3d (maybe too slow and not enough built in) or torque (maybe more stuff than i need), but i don't know. any advice please?
also, i'd like to import terrain from google sketchup (which can grab from google earth). i know there are licensing issues there, but besides that, i also need an engine with good, large scale but high detail terrain management
oh, and i should also mention, free, or almost free, this is a hobby project at the moment but maybe morph into freeware or paid game
i'm thinking a game a bit like this
but more realistic, less cartoon looking graphics
thx
