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Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 4:54pm PDT - promote requested by ChaosEngine.

The Comeback of the Immersive Sim has been added as a related post - related requested by ChaosEngine.

you know what... this needs to be more popular!

*promote

also...
*related=http://videosift.com/video/The-Comeback-of-the-Immersive-Sim

Funny video and the bad harmonica version of the Jurassic Park theme is hilarious however.... the game is actually really damn fun!
It's really a true space sim without much of a story line. A rough comparison can be made to Minecraft (before single player story came out) only many MANY orders of magnitude larger. Or really any great sandbox game out there without much story.
If you like space, sci-fi, exploring, and discovering, then this game is for you. One of my only wishes for this game is for a true multiplayer component, but for now it's Zen and the Art of Space Exploration. Soundtrack by 65daysofstatic is incredible, and only barely surpassed (for me) by the Eve Online ambient soundtracks.

I'm glad to see that people are now accepting that exercise does very little for weight loss. Eating the right foods is 90% of the weight loss effort. Permanent weight loss also hasn't got anything to do with calorie counting/restriction.

A whole-foods plant based diet is the only sustainable way to lose weight because you never go hungry, and you get all of the nutrients you need. No exercise, no starvation, no calorie counting, no fasting, no salads. Just eat real hearty and satiating foods, and that's it.

You'll lose an average of 2.5kg a month, which within 2 years is 60kg. It's consistent, predictable and permanent.

If you're serious about losing weight here are some resources that I've used to get my BMI back to 23 (from 30):

https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/shopping/books/starch-solution/

https://www.amazon.com/21-Day-Weight-Loss-Kickstart-Dramatically/dp/0446583820

http://engine2diet.com/recipes/

https://www.amazon.com/Foods-That-Cause-Lose-Weight/dp/0380807971/ref=pd_sim_14_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=51BiLkzcpQL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR95%2C160_&psc=
1&refRID=J9FHP0P469CCPDH0Z613

Of course, exercise is great for your heart and brain health, and to give your body some tone and shape.

ok, i'll do my best:

"It's where the program does the animation for you using physics (or other) algorithms. As the artist, you place a "flag" in the scene, and attach it to a "pole" then tell the program there's a "45 mph wind from the East".
Then you hit "Play" and you get a movie of a flag waving in the wind."

this is called a sim, and yes it's a type of procedural animation but it doesn't replace some kind of "classical" method of animating. sims are used for all kinds of things: particles, cloth, fur/hair/feathers, crowds, fluid, rigid body destruction, etc, etc. the artists who do this are not animators, they're FX artists and it isn't as simple as plugging in "45 mph wind from the east". not even close. for something seemingly that simple you're dialing in things like direction, turbulence, gravity, plus the cloth properties. once you have your settings, you sim it, which can take days on a render farm for complex sims. if that sim is approved then it goes to lighting, gets put into the scene, has textures/materials/shaders applied, and then gets rendered, which can take another several days on a render farm depending on the complexity. these sims are the only way to get realistic animations for these types of materials. and there are generally many versions made at this stage to get the sim right, fix broken frames, fix intersecting, get the lighting and textures/materials/shaders working right, etc. THEN it goes to the compositing dept for a couple dozen more versions.




"As opposed to regular animation, which can be thought of as glorified stop-motion animation. Each single piece moved by you, individually, for each frame of video."

regular animation is like stop motion except it's not every frame (it's interpolated between keyframes) and is for character animation.

anim and FX are 2 different departments and often use 2 different software packages.

mocap is also not handled by the anim dept. it would be done by match move and/or tech anim.




"You create a flag and a pole. Then the next frame you bend it here, here, here, and here, then click forward to the next frame, and bend it a bit more here, little less here, invert this bend, add another, make this corner whip a bit."

no one in there right mind would do this, it's completely impractical, and would look like complete shit.




"It basically allows less technically savvy artists play in a world where only "nerds" used to play."

the FX people are way more nerds and technical than anim people. you need to be technically savvy for every dept. but the real nerds and really technically savvy people work on pipeline who were probably heavily involved in this project building custom toolsets for it.




"Really kind of lazy way of animating."

no, it's fucking hard, requires a lot of knowledge, a lot of people, a lot of cpu horsepower, is used all the time to get high quality animations, is a collection of several departments other than animation, and is used in conjunction with animation.

I am really pleased he's going out, gathering information and reporting on all the related parties who are committing these crimes. I feel extremely bad for him that he probably had no choice but to turn his own life upside down in order to do that though, because undoubtedly he'd rather being working on his flight sim or other more constructive projects.

X-Plane is really good.

This is controlled by software, which can be tweaked... the whole point of having test pilots fly the thing. These jets are fly-by-wire as they are bricks-in-the-sky compared to a standard plane so they need automated assistance to fly the plane like 'arcade' mode in a video game. And if you've ever beta-tested a flight-sim you'll know they start off shit and eventually get better as they are refined.

The F-35 can do everything better than any other plane. It's weapons are better, it's senors are better, and it's communication and situational awareness is much better. Thanks to the stealth, it has better survivability.

The only area it has some disadvantages in performance are the acceleration and maneuverability. Which is a small disadvantage, it still accelerates incredibly fast, just slower than a lighter plane, which is just physics. But it's not a slouch by any means. Plus the maneuverability is still being worked on, it's all fly by wire and they can do some really magic things with those systems once it's all tuned. They haven't started pushing it to the limits yet from what I've heard. (and honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this whole "our plane sucks" thing was another tactic of spreading misinformation).

Here's the other thing. The F-16 can out maneuver and out accelerate the F-35. But every Russian fighter can out accelerate and out maneuver the F-16, anyway. Yet the F-16 always comes out on top. Why is that? Superior sensors, weapons, comms and tactics.

The F-35 is the best plane to achieve air superiority, because not many pilots have a death wish. Air combat is about survival, not about kills. Even in the Gulf war, the Iraqi's didn't want to fly against the F-15s because they knew they'd get just get shot down. They never even took off. So imagine how they would feel against a plane that can't be detected, let alone locked onto. A plane that can lock onto you and fire without you knowing. Not a good feeling knowing that at any moment you could explode without warning.

The A-10 is bullet proof, but not missile proof. It's a sitting duck against shoulder mounted IGLA's. Only the cockpit is bullet proof BTW which is great for the pilot, but not so great for the rest of the plane

I agree that the F-35 for the current war is overkill, but electronics and technology keeps getting cheaper day by day, and in 10 years time, even the current enemies will start buying more sophisticated systems. It's better to be prepared. As being reactionary like in WW2 and Vietnam was quite costly to the lives of allied forces. The F-35 will probably be in service for another 30 years, so it needs to try to meet as many requirements as it can for that time period, until the next plane comes out shooting lasers instead of missiles.

Also close air support these days is already done mostly by soft skin planes like the F-16. So not much difference there. Apart from the expense I guess. It's not low and slow either. You have a plane fly at such speed and high altitude the people on the ground never even know about it.


If you feel like it I'll give you a game of DCS World some time. It's a free flight sim (also used to train US national guard and other nations too). It really demonstrates the value of good sensors and weapons over flight performance

Now when it comes to being a waste of money, only time will tell. I guess either way it's win win though, because if there is no conflict that needs this plane it's only a good thing. And if there is a conflict we have the plane ready. But for the time being it really does seem like it's a waste of money. A lot of money, especially in a time of debt.

As a lifelong flight sim addict (with a decent bit of real world experience), there is a twisted part of my brain that wills exactly this scenario to happen whenever I'm on an airliner.

I have no doubt that I would swiftly regret this if it ever did happen and I was mad enough to volunteer.

@mxxcon Unless a qualified pilot happened to be on the plane it would likely be the senior attendant that takes responsibility yes.

I imagine there is some procedure in place, but the scenario is so massively unlikely and modern avionics so good that there would be little point in doing much if any formal training (I can't see most airlines warranting the expense).

I dare say they might be shown how to work the radio though.

@Jinx

I am a bit confused. Earlier you used the word "conned" to describe the game, now you say it's not a hoax.

Aside from that, you certainly have voiced legitimate concerns. I'm also sick and tired of the usual pre-order business model. I decided that after playing the utter mess that was the Halo: Master Chief Collection for Xbox that I would never pre-order a game again. It's one thing to buy a game on day one, but yeah, in the usual sense, pre-orders need to die.

Thing is though...this is a kickstarter, thus the rules are different, by it's very nature, you HAVE to sell promises and pre-orders, or at the very least, contribution promises/swag/perks/etc. It's an alternative to going to a publisher and begging them for money to make the game and risk having the publisher exert creative control over the game/product/etc and whatever other compromises a publisher might force a developer to make. How many games have been utter shite because the publisher meddled and forced a game out before it was ready. Too many.

With kickstarters, it's the other way around. Backers demand that a game not be released before it's ready, but now the hype train has to start chugging along WAY earlier than a publisher-backed game in order to generate interest, because now the publishers are the backers and this is happening long before a game even gets to an alpha stage.

There is a risk with any kickstarter. If it was anyone other than Chris Roberts, I doubt I would have backed it. I backed the Shadowrun games mainly because it was being run by the guy who created the game originally and that turned out to be successful...twice. I'll be going for the hat-trick with the Battletech game they're working on now. Chris Roberts and Jordan Weisman both have solid reputations and have demonstrated they can make solid games. If it was Derek Smart or someone relatively unknown, I doubt I would have backed.

I find it interesting how the detractors are coming from various levels. Some of the detractors seem to be against kickstarters in general. Some seem to be against SC specifically and I think others are simply against it just because they want to see something ambitious crash and burn....and then there's Derek Smart who seems to have a personal, unhinged, vendetta against Chris Roberts.

Regardless of how successful SC will or won't be. SC is still a niche game by the very fact that it's a space sim. Even if it is a complete and total success, it's going to be a very complex game with a crazy amount of information to absorb and it will be difficult to be good at it. It is not for the casual gamer. So it will never reach mass appeal or become a widely recognized franchise like, say, Halo or Call of Duty. I think that is part of the appeal. A couple decades ago, publishers as a whole gave space sims the middle finger, but now thanks to crowdfunding, space sims are making a comeback.

Roberts has clearly tapped into something or people wouldn't be giving him money. He originally only asked for 2 million dollars, so even he didn't think it was going to be this big. (Europe is going absolutely bonkers for Space Citizen, they're way more into SC than we are in America)

Me, flying helicopters in GTA 5. Weird thing is, I remember playing helicopter sims back in the day and I don't have any memory of it being as hard as it was in GTA.

Remains to be seen if EVERY star system contains life or if he just didn't properly describe the systems. More than likely, like similar games where you explore the universe, you will have a sustainability of life detector.

Also, you do realize that the exploration of a planet is one aspect fo the game? Assuming this is a sim, there will be city creation, ship creation, etc. I mean, really think about all the aspects of things in the actual universe and those things may all be possible.

I don't know anything about their plans for creativity, but if it's anything like Minecraft, you can do a youtube search to see the endless possibilities of that game. Now imagine it in an entire universe?

Or an entire planet's worth of ecology, ranging from desert to tundras to barrier reefs to Himalayanesque mountain ranges -- That's amazing.

But only as amazing as our imaginations can project. Not as limiting as we only see in the small space of time allowed to air on Colbert.

If I got me an oculus rift I think I could happily live in this sim.