DCS WWII: Europe 1944: Kickstarter Video 3: EDGE Terrain Engine

Hello everyone,

Many of you have been really waiting for it, so here it is!

We’re showing the new EDGE landscape engine today, and meeting the people working on it.

Please keep in mind that the Normandy terrain is in the very earliest stages of development. The terrain engine itself is very mature, but is missing some features needed for a proper WWII simulation. So that’s where we started our terrain design.

We are using the famous Pointe du Hoc location to test everything we need: bunkers, trenches, and bomb craters. We are doing that with a few simple placeholders and a few low-res textures.

Our Normandy still needs most of the French 1940s buildings, airfield structures, and proper French countryside textures. All of those, while time consuming, are no-brainers at this point. Making and placing objects, or texturing terrain, are the kind of tasks the team has done before while making landscapes for helicopter and pilot training simulators. Once we have our bunkers and craters done and tested, the rest of the project is rather routine.

Unfortunately, as the other landscapes done in EDGE were done as commercial projects, we are unable to show any part of that terrain. Normandy is the only thing we can show, and it is clearly nowhere near finished.

We are also not at the stage where planes can fly over Normandy. We really tried to have a Mustang in a Normandy field today, but ran into some issues, and decided not to delay the video for it. Once we have those tests done, we’ll definitely release those shots.

With that in mind, here’s the video:

nice :thumbup:

thanks for the video and screenshots

NOW we're talking! This video was much, MUCH more interesting than the first and second ones. We get to know the team, we put faces on the people who will be building the game. I love it. We also get to see the engine in very early stage (and it's totally understandable... I expect a final terrain with a quality at least equivalent to CloD) and I feel reassured that the team will definitely deliver.

This one is missing here :)

By the way, I would take hand-crafted terrain over the photorealistic one at any time! (sorry Nevada, I still like you)

Nice video. Glad to hear that EDGE is a fairly mature technology now. Bodes well for the final quality. Maybe for the next video we can get a peek of the FW-190 cockpit so people can see the work that RRG have done there?

Agreed!Best update so far, its great to see the early stages of the project and while knowing they're far from final it looks pretty good already and that is more than encouraging.

Agreed!Best update so far, its great to see the early stages of the project and while knowing they're far from final it looks pretty good already and that is more than encouraging.

Yep - Best update by a long shot. And Ilya's Han Solo t-shirt and playing the piano at the end..

Hats off! Perhaps more a question for ED, but it popped up during the video. Will that easy to use editor be available for end-users, would surely complement the mission editor nicely.

Luthier thanks so much for your excitement and trepidation in showing early material. As a kick starter investor, progress reports like this are greatly appreciated no matter what stage they are in.

Thanks for the video update, it's hard not to be excited at the prospect of such an immersive environment.

I know it is only early days but keep up the good work!

Great update. Thank you!

Greetings to the team!!!:beer:....

.........kisses to Anya. :wub:

Yay ... hot Russian chicks. Anya, will you marry me? (^3^)

Oops ... seriously off-topic now.

^^This :D

And what bringed me here: sound's a good prospect we'll have our DCS Infantry. Nice trenches. Where's my Garand?...

WOW! Interesting video,So EDGE has been functional and included in three commercial products already? This kind of surprised me.

People keep forgetting ED doesn't just work on our game and has other obligations to fulfill. And I like the war language they use to speak to one another in this video. :D

EDIT: They've already collected 71,000 with 20 days to go! Wow!

WOW! Interesting video,So EDGE has been functional and included in three commercial products already? This kind of surprised me.

Indeed. I'm curious what kind of project it is capable of while still being incomplete enough for Nevada, which, last I read, was waiting on EDGE. :huh:

Im a bit confused ... is this part of ED's team or a 3rd party / partner.Their offices have windows :sorcerer:... though they lived in a concrete cave.

Im a bit confused ... is this part of ED's team or a 3rd party / partner.Their offices have windows :sorcerer:... though they lived in a concrete cave.

They let them use offices with windows for one week every year. I believe they are told it is a vacation. :D

I think they get lunch breaks for that week, as well.

You know it's a vacation if they bring at least one of these: synthesizer or mullet. Anyone spotted one of those two items?

WOW! Interesting video,So EDGE has been functional and included in three commercial products already? This kind of surprised me.

Commercial as in non-entertainment related. That is stuff ED has previously said, actually made a point of saying, they'd never speak about.

Nate

I am sure these commercial products arent running on anything like we have on our computer desks, so getting it squeezed down to run on our PCs might be the hold up, this is purely speculation of course...

 

I'm more interested in hearing what the commercial products are... :)

I saw a fun video where the Danish army was using Steel Beasts for tank crew training. They were running winXP.

The graphics in commercial sims are often poor, so you don't need crazy hardware to run them. It's the entertainment crowd that is usually more interested in seeing beautiful reflections than in having the systems work as they should.

I dont think that is quite true, I think most high end flight simulators, would melt our PCs... and not just graphics, but everything under the hood...

Not necessarily. I have never seen a full blown simulator, but given what can be done with proper multi-threading and well optimized code, not to mention that there is no reason for only one computer to be running the thing in the first place; it may well be possible, even probable.

Customer's, especially, the 'government' types are very interested in off-the-shelf solutions whenever possible.