Comparative differences between games design and simulation design - Part 7: IG's Vs In game cameras

Introduction

So in a previous blog post in regards to engines I talked about VR Forces and VR Vantage.  Thinking about it, I never really went into details about what the difference is and what the IG is in comparison to the whole simulation system.

So what is an IG

An Image generators at a basic level provides visual scenes of the simulation environment from the perspective of the participants that will use the environment. Now an image generator can anything that needs to be displayed.  An image generator can be used to project the necessary data from anything as a desktop monitor to a majorly complex such as a multiple projector dome display.

The scenes within the simulation can be rendered for "out-the-window" views or with some alterations like in games design to give a camera an presentation to simulate optical sensors like night vision, heat sensor or any others that are needed. Overall, the Image generator must generate scenes very quickly to maintain a realistic sense of motion.

Compare to gaming engines where the engine does everything and holds all interactions and processing.  Within a simulation holds two separate programs that work on two separate parts of the simulation data.



There are many versions of the software that is usable so just because that they are under the same franchise that it HAS to work together.

BLUE IG (BIS Simulations), VR Vantage (MAK), Vega Prime (Presagis) and Mantis (Quantum3D) are different IG's that can be used as they software only collates and collects the data within their network and not from the simulation software itself like VR Forces, MACE or VBS3. Although this does have its negatives and positives, I will be providing that data within my overall evaluation of this.

How does an IG work?

An IG works specifically within a network.  Usually setup to be like the following diagram, an IG works independently and takes the information from the simulation engine and its own terrain / asset database but is used specifically to present a visual interpretation for users.

The scenario and entities within the environment are shown via data from the scenario machine, although the information is shown via the IG's; the data processing of the NPC's or Civilians are all done by the simulation machine.  The IG's are all based on the idea of showing the environment as explained above, think of it as an actual player within a game the interaction and layout specifically on just rendering the details with all the processing of NPCs and environments will be done by the scenario machine.

IG's like gaming engines can allow for the use of controllers and use from keyboards and mice but the interaction can be difficult to work with specially if the IG isn't set up to do what it is required, example is acting like a tank if the IG is specifically designed and set to be a plane but that's all in the initial configuration. 

Evaluation - Personal opinion.

IGs in a simulation world is a useful tool as it allows for diverse set up of interactive ways to see the scenario.  That said there are some issues that is annoying when using that software from the IG's that I have used over the duration of working within simulations.

For instance, the rendering settings are incredibly locked down, and specifically in the rendering set up there is nothing in the list for rendering distance and how much detail to present.  Although it's understandable that engines or IPs will be restricted, but when you need to work around certain situations in simulations and the issue that it can cause massive rendering issues within the graphics rendering or memory management, that is when it can be a massive issue.

Personally, I find it useful as I can make it within the scenario machine or simulation machine, the problem is that the simulation machine and IG machines are independent so not only do you now need two machines to do both things with separate hardware, the IG machine may work on a different architecture so you can be majorly restricting yourself.

As an example, your sims machine can work with FBX, but your IG's can't but to be able for it to render you then need a whole new model database of the same assets in a different format as an example FLT.. As a modeller, you now have to make two of the same model but in different formats that will have to be exported and handled differently from each other.  You then are restricted because if you have one model that works and one that doesn't you can't just copy and paste.

As well, if your network doesn't work properly or there is too much data information being transferred becomes a massive issue as well.

The last issue is what is around streaming data from the IG's.  In some of the IG's used, it has the ability to process to stream the visual windows over the network to other machines.  Within modern day graphics cards and software, the use of .H264 encoders allows for a more useful encoding done by the GPU and not the CPU as it'll be having a strenuous time rendering the environment as it's not optimised properly to render mostly all the data via the GPU.  I feel that a problem within IGs is that the owners of some of the IGs just don't keep their software up to date or rendering properly which can be a massive annoyance to work around.

Overall, its a useful tool but the software is soo limited its confusing to why it's not made to be more diverse or open to modification for the projects that will be using the software.  Although a pain, it would just make the software more usable in more situations.