Earth HD - 11 GB for what?

[Takatufftuff]

Hi guys, i tried the earth hd dlc, a 11GB download and i am asking me for what?

I got the same muddy textures, when i am some KM over the ground. There are no cities, animals, plants or something like that. Everything looks dead.

So i tried a view from the himalaya, but all what i saw was looking like a hilly landscape. What a dissapointment.

11 GB for some ugly textures on a dead planet? Or made i something wrong? I just installed it, have a activate something in game? I really hope so.....

Greetings and sorry for my english

[HarbingerDawn]

Earth will look much better than default when viewing from orbit (few hundred km above the ground). A global texture pack that would make it as detailed on the surface as you seem to be talking about would be so large that it would not fit on any home computer. For example, Google Earth's maps are petabytes in size, and can only be distributed by internet streaming from a server, because the total size of the textures is equal to the storage capacity of thousands of personal computers.

We don't have giant servers and millions of dollars, so obviously that's not an option for us at the moment.

[Hollow]

I doubt that that will ever happen, the best way to treat planet textures is with procedural biomes and materials.

Also whatever tech microsoft is using for the new flight simulator, some people think it might be streamed a la gearth or it could be a mix of procedural materials and images. either way it looks amazing

[Lagrange]

Unless you're making a video with the application, you can use it vanilla with no DLCs required with 0 issues.

[Takatufftuff]

Originally posted by HarbingerDawn:

Earth will look much better than default when viewing from orbit (few hundred km above the ground). A global texture pack that would make it as detailed on the surface as you seem to be talking about would be so large that it would not fit on any home computer. For example, Google Earth's maps are petabytes in size, and can only be distributed by internet streaming from a server, because the total size of the textures is equal to the storage capacity of thousands of personal computers.

We don't have giant servers and millions of dollars, so obviously that's not an option for us at the moment.

Thank you for your answer. I had no idea about the size from google earth. But for 11 GB i expect more as a good view from orbit.

Maybe in the fiuture its possible to get some more details, some more as a good view from orbit. Something between google earth and no mans sky. There are thousands of planets with different animals, plants, caves and so on. And the complete game has 10 GB and doesnt use any servers.

I know its not a good comparison, its complete different game. But personal for me, it would me much more interesting when there would be more to explore. Just travelling from a dead planet to the next dead planet?

Dont understand me wrong, the views from orbit are amazing, i like it. I made some really great screenshots. But it would be much more interesting, if i could explore and find some more. No idea whats possible in the future.

This is not a complaint about the game, just a personal feedback from me.

Greetings

[Arestris]

Yes, it's easily to underestimate, but such things are really, really big!
I had once X-Plane with added photo scenery. For this, you get the data for example from google maps and put it as texture over your scenery.
I think I had ZL16 or ZL17 (not the highest, Google Maps can do in many regions of the world), it still had, if I remember correctly, more than 120GB (textures alone), only for some places in Germany (not even complete) ...
Even considering, two / thirds of our planet is water, this is still a ridiculous amount of data for the whole thing. ;)

[HarbingerDawn]

In No Man's Sky, everything is procedural, it doesn't need to store giant textures for planets. If you want to see things like that in SE, go visit planets around other stars. There's a whole universe full of them.

But for Earth, it uses real satellite maps, and these take up a huge amount of space. There is nothing that can be done about that. If you want extreme detail using only real data, it requires an astronomical amount of disk space.

[Takatufftuff]

Originally posted by HarbingerDawn:

In No Man's Sky, everything is procedural, it doesn't need to store giant textures for planets. If you want to see things like that in SE, go visit planets around other stars. There's a whole universe full of them.

But for Earth, it uses real satellite maps, and these take up a huge amount of space. There is nothing that can be done about that. If you want extreme detail using only real data, it requires an astronomical amount of disk space.

I have no idea about progam a game and i dont know what " everything is procedural " means. Is it a complete different kind to program a game? There is no way to implement such " procedural planets " in the game?

I dont need to find any life form on every planet, its not realistic. But to have the possibility to find some life forms on some rare planets, would be so much more interesting. You would have more interesting goals than hunting for another great screenshot.

[C H A I R M A N]

There's lifeforms in SE, just not funny walking pink aliens with tentacles and trunks that you can shoot dead to loot their crafting materials. SE tries to represent the universe as it's known to us by scientific discovery as accurately as possible with the limitations that modern consumer PC hardware and the time constraints of the developers are.

[Viktor]

Originally posted by HarbingerDawn:

In No Man's Sky, everything is procedural, it doesn't need to store giant textures for planets. If you want to see things like that in SE, go visit planets around other stars. There's a whole universe full of them.

But for Earth, it uses real satellite maps, and these take up a huge amount of space. There is nothing that can be done about that. If you want extreme detail using only real data, it requires an astronomical amount of disk space.

I have a question. I don't know much how procedural technology works, but would it be somehow possible to dictate how for example the terrain and other stuff on surface of the planet would be generated? So that the textures and all the stuff wouldn't be physically stored as files, but the program would still render for example the Earth with all the details as we know it and as it should be when you approach the needed distance from which it should be naturally visible.

[Console.]

autogeneration it is only algorithm. Storage is a product that takes up space.
if I understand your topic correctly

[reicou]

The dlcs are a good free extra thing, but for many of us they are just an extra useless, because when we explore the solar system in Space Engine, we do not want to explore it from orbit, we want to think about what it would really be like to be on the surface of those planets and moons that we know from photos. I still think that a procedural Solar System (and improved with the planet editor), using the same atmospheres, and textures palette from the real planets and moons, would be an interesting alternative for those who do not seek scientific precision, but sensations.

I understand that it is a lot of work to get good results.

[DEFkon]

If your looking for a free program that lets you explore earth, download Google Earth. It's pretty good.

Now.....

If only someone could make a mod that would allow for google earths data to be streamed into SE we could have the best of both worlds. :p

[Punk]

What about partnering with Google and having Earth actually BE Google Earth, all the way down to street view if you want. They host Earth and all of the sub-orbital textures and you guys host everything else.

[NichtSchnell]

Originally posted by -Punkrawks-:

What about partnering with Google and having Earth actually BE Google Earth, all the way down to street view if you want. They host Earth and all of the sub-orbital textures and you guys host everything else.

I believe Google charges for API access to Maps and Earth by non-Google applications. From what I recall it's not absurdly expensive but it's also not cheap. Additionally, I believe the cost is based on the quantity of accesses to the API so it's variable as well.