Simulation of a Carboniferous Coal Forest
May 21, 2015 13:58:00 GMT -6
kdog, Mystic Wanderer, and 3 more like this
Post by Deleted on May 21, 2015 13:58:00 GMT -6
So.
We all know I'm not a gamer. When it comes to playing video games, I might as well have twenty toes and no hands. Can't make 'em do a DAMN thing. But recently, due to this thread of a scientific nature, I stumbled across a "game" on the internet which caused me to run screaming away from my comfort zone to embrace a big scary unknown like it was some kind of brother. It's a simulation of a Carboniferous period coal forest, 300 million years ago.
Here's a video to showcase it:
It can be downloaded from here, and a forum thread detailing it's creation and ongoing development can be found here, at The Fossil Forum. It's a 366 MB download, most of which appears to be the textures for the plant models. System requirements are listed as:
The minimum requirement is a 2.4 GHz Core I5 processor or similar, 4 GB of RAM and a 1GB 3D graphics card (at least Geforce 560TI or similar).
But it ran on this system which only has a dual core processor, 4 GB of RAM, and probably on-board graphics.
The developer is a German , a graphic artist game designer by profession. He lives in a coal mining region of Germany, and I guess it's a function of living in such an area, with all the fossils from the Carboniferous at one's finger tips, that must engender this manic interest in the Carboniferous period. Other kids usually go through a period of dinosaur mania, but us coal country kids go past that, straight for the giant dragon flies flitting through inpenetrable forests of ferns, tree ferns, and giant tree-sized lycopods, wondering what that organism looked like before it was just a black film of carbon on a piece of slate we are holding in our hands. For some of us, it's not a phase - it sticks with us for life.
I spent an inordinate amount of time recreating the local coal forest of 318 million years ago, countless hours scouring the internet for 3D models of the flora that could be found in that forest, and discovering that there was damned little of it to be had as 3D models. I ran with what I could find - about 7 species, I think - and created static views from a multiplicity of those 7 forms. Heiko took a different route. Being a game designer, and with the assistance of like-minded friends, he and they created his models from scratch, and truly magnificent models they are, in a wide variety of species.
The simulation is based on the Ogre 3D engine. As you walk through the forest, the swamp water flows and gurgles. Insects - a dominant form of life back then - chirp, buzz, hum, and sing in the background. The plants, trees, and leaves sway in the breeze. You have to climb over, under, or around fallen, rotting logs... logs that will one day in the far distant future be burned again, nowadays to generate electricity. When I was a kid we burned those remains - now coal - to heat our house. 300 million years old, and still being put to a use trees are put to even today. Now one can walk through that ancient forest and see them as they were, before millions of years of heat and pressure turned them into what they are now.
Not only does the water gurgle, and splash as you slosh through it, but occasionally, when you're standing still, it will splash unbidden, as something, out of your field of vision, splashes big as it breaks the surface. that something is in the same water YOU are in... and since you can't see it, it sounds pretty darned BIG... and HUNGRY.
Heiko has put a lot of time, effort, and research into it, to make the simulation as real as current science can make possible. The vegetation looks exactly as it did then - or as close as current thought can make it. He's a stickler for accuracy, and that makes the effort all the more impressive... he and the other primary modeler, Paolo, appear to have put in countless hours of research to make the models accurate, down to the last detail. You can click on the "eye" icon at the bottom of the screen, beside the onscreen navigational controls, and then click on any plant in the scene to get an info box on that plant.
As yet, there are no creatures in the simulation, just the sounds of them. Heiko says that a Meganeura, a giant dragonfly with a 30 inch wingspan, is currently in the works to be added in to the simulation. As far as insects go, I'd also like to see him include Arthropleura, the 8 foot long centipede of the times, some of the giant cockroaches that dominated the forests of those days living off the leaf litter, and perhaps some of the 2 foot long scorpions that ran the ground in those days. Many, or perhaps even most, of the insects are probably really too small to include... but you can still hear 'em hum like an electric thread of life running throughout the forest.
What IS that thing splashing in the water? An extinct tetrapod? A Crassigyrinus maybe? In the same water with ME? (SHUDDER - BIG shudder!). What about other amphibians, maybe a few Diplocaulidii, or a few little Tully Monsters? They didn't turn into coal of course, but they left fossils, and would serve to help complete the picture.
Other amphibians and reptiles like Hylonomus on land and near the edges of the water might help, too.
It's free, and he says it's always going to be free. His target audience is home users, educational institutions, and museums. The program is already impressive as it is, but it's still only in alpha stage, and Heiko says he's going to add more to it, and refine the realism even more. I can't wait. He might turn me into a lightweight gamer after all.
You can see some screencaps of my short, 10 minute, walk on the wild side here. Ten minutes was all I could stand before I had to run over here and make this thread. See? It's already changed my behavior somewhat!
We all know I'm not a gamer. When it comes to playing video games, I might as well have twenty toes and no hands. Can't make 'em do a DAMN thing. But recently, due to this thread of a scientific nature, I stumbled across a "game" on the internet which caused me to run screaming away from my comfort zone to embrace a big scary unknown like it was some kind of brother. It's a simulation of a Carboniferous period coal forest, 300 million years ago.
Here's a video to showcase it:
It can be downloaded from here, and a forum thread detailing it's creation and ongoing development can be found here, at The Fossil Forum. It's a 366 MB download, most of which appears to be the textures for the plant models. System requirements are listed as:
The minimum requirement is a 2.4 GHz Core I5 processor or similar, 4 GB of RAM and a 1GB 3D graphics card (at least Geforce 560TI or similar).
But it ran on this system which only has a dual core processor, 4 GB of RAM, and probably on-board graphics.
The developer is a German , a graphic artist game designer by profession. He lives in a coal mining region of Germany, and I guess it's a function of living in such an area, with all the fossils from the Carboniferous at one's finger tips, that must engender this manic interest in the Carboniferous period. Other kids usually go through a period of dinosaur mania, but us coal country kids go past that, straight for the giant dragon flies flitting through inpenetrable forests of ferns, tree ferns, and giant tree-sized lycopods, wondering what that organism looked like before it was just a black film of carbon on a piece of slate we are holding in our hands. For some of us, it's not a phase - it sticks with us for life.
I spent an inordinate amount of time recreating the local coal forest of 318 million years ago, countless hours scouring the internet for 3D models of the flora that could be found in that forest, and discovering that there was damned little of it to be had as 3D models. I ran with what I could find - about 7 species, I think - and created static views from a multiplicity of those 7 forms. Heiko took a different route. Being a game designer, and with the assistance of like-minded friends, he and they created his models from scratch, and truly magnificent models they are, in a wide variety of species.
The simulation is based on the Ogre 3D engine. As you walk through the forest, the swamp water flows and gurgles. Insects - a dominant form of life back then - chirp, buzz, hum, and sing in the background. The plants, trees, and leaves sway in the breeze. You have to climb over, under, or around fallen, rotting logs... logs that will one day in the far distant future be burned again, nowadays to generate electricity. When I was a kid we burned those remains - now coal - to heat our house. 300 million years old, and still being put to a use trees are put to even today. Now one can walk through that ancient forest and see them as they were, before millions of years of heat and pressure turned them into what they are now.
Not only does the water gurgle, and splash as you slosh through it, but occasionally, when you're standing still, it will splash unbidden, as something, out of your field of vision, splashes big as it breaks the surface. that something is in the same water YOU are in... and since you can't see it, it sounds pretty darned BIG... and HUNGRY.
Heiko has put a lot of time, effort, and research into it, to make the simulation as real as current science can make possible. The vegetation looks exactly as it did then - or as close as current thought can make it. He's a stickler for accuracy, and that makes the effort all the more impressive... he and the other primary modeler, Paolo, appear to have put in countless hours of research to make the models accurate, down to the last detail. You can click on the "eye" icon at the bottom of the screen, beside the onscreen navigational controls, and then click on any plant in the scene to get an info box on that plant.
As yet, there are no creatures in the simulation, just the sounds of them. Heiko says that a Meganeura, a giant dragonfly with a 30 inch wingspan, is currently in the works to be added in to the simulation. As far as insects go, I'd also like to see him include Arthropleura, the 8 foot long centipede of the times, some of the giant cockroaches that dominated the forests of those days living off the leaf litter, and perhaps some of the 2 foot long scorpions that ran the ground in those days. Many, or perhaps even most, of the insects are probably really too small to include... but you can still hear 'em hum like an electric thread of life running throughout the forest.
What IS that thing splashing in the water? An extinct tetrapod? A Crassigyrinus maybe? In the same water with ME? (SHUDDER - BIG shudder!). What about other amphibians, maybe a few Diplocaulidii, or a few little Tully Monsters? They didn't turn into coal of course, but they left fossils, and would serve to help complete the picture.
Other amphibians and reptiles like Hylonomus on land and near the edges of the water might help, too.
It's free, and he says it's always going to be free. His target audience is home users, educational institutions, and museums. The program is already impressive as it is, but it's still only in alpha stage, and Heiko says he's going to add more to it, and refine the realism even more. I can't wait. He might turn me into a lightweight gamer after all.
You can see some screencaps of my short, 10 minute, walk on the wild side here. Ten minutes was all I could stand before I had to run over here and make this thread. See? It's already changed my behavior somewhat!
