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SB Pro PE 4.1 New Features (and stuff)


Ssnake

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I've noticed that the roads don't seem to be following the terrain that well, or they seem a tad bit off. Are there any plans on improving it? You know, to match the awesome terrain engine. It's ok with me, but I'm curious if there are any plans for it. 

Edited by drcancerman
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12 minutes ago, Yskonyn said:

As said before, the 4.1 tag is lame. It's AT LEAST 4.5 or perhaps even 5.0 with all the new toys.

Esim’s and North Carolina’s motto: „To be, rather then to seem“ (to be)

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1 hour ago, Chiquito said:

In 4.1 We will be able to video record from an after action mission file created together with mission?. e.g. like in iL-2 and DCS do

Don't know how other games do it...SB AAR files record events and 4 second snap shots.  otherwise they would be much to big

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1 hour ago, Grenny said:

Don't know how other games do it...SB AAR files record events and 4 second snap shots.  otherwise they would be much to big

Well 4 seconds is not worth it to make a video of the after actions. So seem we will keep the 4 second snap shots. Doing live is missing the best actions for a video. About the size is not that crazy big when the whole actions full frame are recorded talking about other games already have it.

Edited by Chiquito
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3 hours ago, drcancerman said:

I've noticed that the roads don't seem to be following the terrain that well, or they seem a tad bit off. Are there any plans on improving it? You know, to match the awesome terrain engine. It's ok with me, but I'm curious if there are any plans for it. 

The roads are now being projected on the terrain rather than floating above it (as they did from version 2.251 until 4.023). To that extent they follow the terrain closer than ever, maybe "too much" insofar as we haven't yet found a way to smoothen paved roads from underlying terrain jitter (in the case of LIDAR based maps; most maps of course are still the converted old style, so the "pot hole syndrome" doesn't manifest).

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18 minutes ago, Chiquito said:

... About the size is not that crazy big when the whole actions full frame are recorded talking about other games already have it.

 

I suspect other games don't record the same AAR information as SB Pro PE does and therefore the video files wouldn't be as large.

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DCS track file are basically recordings of control inputs by the player and AI. Playing back the track feeds the recorded inputs back into the sim to (hopefully, it's not 100% reliable,) reproduce the original events. They don't work anything like AARs in SB.

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18 minutes ago, Rotareneg said:

DCS track file are basically recordings of control inputs by the player and AI. Playing back the track feeds the recorded inputs back into the sim to (hopefully, it's not 100% reliable,) reproduce the original events. They don't work anything like AARs in SB.

I don’t want keep discussion on this. About your comparison above is not 100%, but it is at least 80%. That after action help a lot to the simulation quality and correct yourself a lot as well the media promotion with videos 

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51 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

As an engineer, I take such criticism as a compliment.

4.5 or 4.8, on the least! 

And in regards to the roads, that's  interesting. And what's the explanation for the sharp/polygonal bends we see on some screenshots and videos from the 4.1? I find those things fascinating. 

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LIDAR scans only provide the elevation data.

The road network is based on vector data. Depending on how detailed the road network has been vectorized there may be sharper or softer angles visible in curves. We have added a toggle in the Map Editor to apply road splining to soften such edges. But of course you are then "inventing data" (=making shit up) that may look more plausible but which is no longer conforming to the original.

 

Another problem can be that LIDAR scans are the "direct measurement" of the terrain from the point of observation. As such, LIDAR scans aren't based on an underlying Earth model which would then be the basis for a map projection. But all the vector data are. So there will be divergences between the LIDAR profile of, say, railroad embankments and the actual rail lines where the source of error lies in the different map projection formulas. These errors may have already been there in the past, but due to the low resolution you didn't notice such divergences. Now they become more apparent.

 

 

So... We included these new LIDAR based maps to give you an impression of the quality boost that high-res source data can offer over converted DTED-3 (or worse) height maps of the past, but we left these new maps unedited. You can of course enable the road splining and save the result as a new delta map. Likewise you can try and apply road smoothing in selected places. I'm sure, it will look prettier, possibly also more plausible in places. But as a collective, you PE players have infinitely more manpower than our small team ... so we provide you with some data and the tools to brush them up. But that's the limit of what we can actually deliver.

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34 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

LIDAR scans only provide the elevation data.

The road network is based on vector data. Depending on how detailed the road network has been vectorized there may be sharper or softer angles visible in curves. We have added a toggle in the Map Editor to apply road splining to soften such edges. But of course you are then "inventing data" (=making shit up) that may look more plausible but which is no longer conforming to the original.

 

Another problem can be that LIDAR scans are the "direct measurement" of the terrain from the point of observation. As such, LIDAR scans aren't based on an underlying Earth model which would then be the basis for a map projection. But all the vector data are. So there will be divergences between the LIDAR profile of, say, railroad embankments and the actual rail lines where the source of error lies in the different map projection formulas. These errors may have already been there in the past, but due to the low resolution you didn't notice such divergences. Now they become more apparent.

 

 

So... We included these new LIDAR based maps to give you an impression of the quality boost that high-res source data can offer over converted DTED-3 (or worse) height maps of the past, but we left these new maps unedited. You can of course enable the road splining and save the result as a new delta map. Likewise you can try and apply road smoothing in selected places. I'm sure, it will look prettier, possibly also more plausible in places. But as a collective, you PE players have infinitely more manpower than our small team ... so we provide you with some data and the tools to brush them up. But that's the limit of what we can actually deliver.

Fascinating. And how one, such as us, players would go to obtain a LIDAR of a place, is it too expensive? In regards to roads, would OpenStreet Map be out of the question? I assume, an integration like that would help you guys and us, the players, with a more accurate map, including... prettier curves! haha 

On that note, that feature of softening road edges is most welcome! Giving us the choice to use or not use such a feature is always the best choice!

Thanks for the explanation!!

Edited by drcancerman
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Hope so! Those ingenious gadgets can really help the BMP-1 & 2 ^_^ + Can't wait to see those ERA bricks disappears once again under a HEAT rain :D Nothing against the T-72 (play a lot inside it and outside it living the "fly me to the moon" turret dream), just really like the "arkanoid" effect B|

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26 minutes ago, drcancerman said:

And how one, such as us, players would go to obtain a LIDAR of a place, is it too expensive? 

I really don't know, but internet search engines might. I suspect that for some countries (most of Scandinavia, for example) the data are free (wherever they would be offered), in other countries they might cost a lot or aren't avialable at all. But no matter what the situation is _right now_, I think there is a trend towards lower and lower costs (eventually approaching zero), and increasing availability, so it's only a matter of time before you will find sources.

 

Quote

In regards to roads, would OpenStreet Map be out of the question?

I don't know what that's supposed to change. OSM data are vector data like any other, so they share the same characteristics,

  1. quality of vectorization (OSM tends to be "very good" in populated areas, and "no better or worse" in rural territory with reliance on the same more or less shitty/outdated public data)
  2. Projection method/accuracy
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37 minutes ago, drcancerman said:

And how one, such as us, players would go to obtain a LIDAR of a place, is it too expensive? In regards to roads, would OpenStreet Map be out of the question?

In the US the USGS and state GIS departments would be a good place to look for free data.

Edited by Rotareneg
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At any rate, I hope the community will be open minded with sharing edited maps.

The ‘unlimited manhours’ argument only stands if we consolidate the efforts and post everything in the/a repository.

 

This community has been great with this so far, however.

Unlike, for example, DCS, where a player has to know people to get the multitude of awesome skins that have been made for various aircraft.

 

Good Tankin’ times ahead!

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10 minutes ago, Yskonyn said:

The ‘unlimited manhours’ argument only stands if we consolidate the efforts and post everything in the/a repository.

...and this is where our map server, and the Map Tools, will come in handy. The Map Tools will also allow you to upload selected maps to the public map server. That way you will be able to share your work results. We may need to find a way to somehow regulate this and we cannot guarantee that our server will work as a substitute to your own backup. But in principle this is how it can be done.

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7 hours ago, drcancerman said:

Fascinating. And how one, such as us, players would go to obtain a LIDAR of a place, is it too expensive? In regards to roads, would OpenStreet Map be out of the question? I assume, an integration like that would help you guys and us, the players, with a more accurate map, including... prettier curves! haha 

On that note, that feature of softening road edges is most welcome! Giving us the choice to use or not use such a feature is always the best choice!

Thanks for the explanation!!

LIDAR data is more and more available. You can already find data available for the US, for free. Also, with a drone and camera, one can also DIY "LIDAR" scans of their own regions with open source apps. If you think about it, it has imense potential.

Edited by stormrider_sp
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1 hour ago, Ssnake said:

...and this is where our map server, and the Map Tools, will come in handy. The Map Tools will also allow you to upload selected maps to the public map server. That way you will be able to share your work results. We may need to find a way to somehow regulate this and we cannot guarantee that our server will work as a substitute to your own backup. But in principle this is how it can be done.

Yes. It has great potential. During the last few years, I felt a bit of difficulty in find the "latests" maps, because people were just not sharing them in the official downloads sections of steelbeasts.com, but instead, keeping them in their own forums, which, most of them time, offered at least language barriers and only made the data more difficult to find. One really had to know where to look for.

Edited by stormrider_sp
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