Outerra - 3D planetary engine

[Disembodied]

Ooooo ...

Outerra is a unique 3D rendering engine, a world rendering engine capable to seamlessly render whole planets from space down to the surface. It can use arbitrary/varying resolution of elevation data that it further dynamically refines using fractal algorithms. The fractals try to mimic natural processes, generating fine, believable terrain with high resolution. The world is also being dynamically textured and populated with vegetation using predefined land type material sets and the computed terrain attributes.

http://www.outerra.com/index.html

[kanthoney]

That's a bit smoother than ED! It can't be real time, surely?

[Disembodied]

That's a bit smoother than ED! It can't be real time, surely?

I'm afraid I exhausted my technical assessment in my first post ... But according to the poster of this YouTube video (from four years ago!), this was "Real-time, shot in the engine":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt1mHCBKQzo

[Cody]

Yeah, it's been around a while - nice engine, waiting for a game!

[ffutures]

That's gorgeous - any chance of adapting it to Oolite planets?

[kanthoney]

That's optimistic!

[Commander_X]

They have a demo game available for download -- Anteworld (see here) -- that shows off the engine. Smoother than ED, and even SpaceEngine, but with the "advantage" that it deals with only one planet.