Peter- I agree!!!! That's why releasing an addon airplane in sections can reduce the cost! I don't want or use any outside views of the airplane. All I use is the 2D cockpit. You are asking me to pay for your exterior views. Lower beginning cost = more new simmers.Those who want the extra exterior views should pay the additional cost.And in the process, the developers can speed up the introduction of new products.(Car dealer to customer- "whadiya mean you don't want the super big 1000 cu in. engine with the gee whiz 10 speed automatic tranny and three tone paint job and leather convertible top and gold plated wire wheels? We don't sell 'em any other way! We'll put you on the wait list. Only takes 2 1/2 years)Alex Reid.

That would kill the ability to use it in multiplayer, which is what tends to be the most popular use of flight sim in the youth community. In general, us youth tend to play more multiplayer games than anything else. If you remove features based on tiers, it can break the multiplayer usage of the aircraft. Also, you need that external model so you can see other people using that model in multiplayer, otherwise, well let's just say I have learned to turn off collision with other aircraft for a reason.Also, did you read my first sentence, it would most likely cause prices to increase for the same quality of product. Greed will take over, as it is human nature.

Well I agree with Alex but for a different reason.I feel developers have duplicated the outside view of an aircraft to an incredible degree-while the inside is still pretty much on the level of 8 years ago.Steam gauges have glass reflections, parallax, much more detail and smoothness, particular makes and manufactuers, and 3d cockpits while much improved in fsx and instruments update faster, still have for the most part a hasbro look and need more precision.In the meantime the outside view has every rivet, bug splat, oil stain, animation, and sun shading you can imagine-the detail is incredible.I am with Alex in while I think the outside views are cool-I care more about the inside views-and they are way behind the outside views (case in point the obsolete generic and terrible artificial horizon still used by many-or the generic fs gps display that is used but doesn't come close to function to anything real-thank god for Reality-Xp!).We need real world instruments that resemble their real world counterparts with the same detail as the outside views-and not ones that look like some hand painted perfection that is perfectly circular no matter what view-but that look like the real thing including pilot perspective, effects of sun, and parallax.I'd gladly do without any outside view for a greater reality of the inside view-which is where I spend 99% of my time other than the preflight and admiration of my bird from the outside which I enjoy also-fs does this now with great reality-let's get the same on the inside-way overdue!

Well I agree with Alex but for a different reason.I feel developers have duplicated the outside view of an aircraft to an incredible degree-while the inside is still pretty much on the level of 8 years ago.Steam gauges have glass reflections, parallax, much more detail and smoothness, particular makes and manufactuers, and 3d cockpits while much improved in fsx and instruments update faster, still have for the most part a hasbro look and need more precision.In the meantime the outside view has every rivet, bug splat, oil stain, animation, and sun shading you can imagine-the detail is incredible.I am with Alex in while I think the outside views are cool-I care more about the inside views-and they are way behind the outside views (case in point the obsolete generic and terrible artificial horizon still used by many-or the generic fs gps display that is used but doesn't come close to function to anything real-thank god for Reality-Xp!).We need real world instruments that resemble their real world counterparts with the same detail as the outside views-and not ones that look like some hand painted perfection that is perfectly circular no matter what view-but that look like the real thing including pilot perspective, effects of sun, and parallax.I'd gladly do without any outside view for a greater reality of the inside view-which is where I spend 99% of my time other than the preflight and admiration of my bird from the outside which I enjoy also-fs does this now with great reality-let's get the same on the inside-way overdue!

The problem is Geofa, that most of that stuff is engine side, not aircraft side. To my knowledge, FSX does not support certain things you are asking for, such as paralax. Most of what happens outside is bump mapping and texturing, and yes, bump maps on the VC would be nice on some things, but most of what you are asking for is actually stuff that is done engine end, which unless the payware developer gets a hold of the FSX source code, will not happen.Also, the sunlight in a cockpit would be a major FPS killer. To give you an idea, most CGI feature films take days or more to render a single scene on render farms of hundreds of processors, so it's not like you can just render that much stuff like you see in the renders. Most of the limit in FSX is hardware and FSX wise, not payware devs not taking it seriously. Maybe some of the new DX11 features may help, but that won't be in FSX.In the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of games for example, you have a major emphasis on shadows, but you don't see anything as complex shadows wise as an aircraft's cockpit because it would bring it down to less than 1 FPS, here's a sample of something at a good 30 fps if you're lucky:

(how appropriate I make a reference to a game about Chernobyl 2 days after the 24th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.). A aircraft's cockpit, combined with the terrain around the aircraft, would kill your computer faster than you would care to believe, even with a perfectly optimized engine and a Geforce GTX 280 or a GTX 480.

The problem is Geofa, that most of that stuff is engine side, not aircraft side. To my knowledge, FSX does not support certain things you are asking for, such as paralax. Most of what happens outside is bump mapping and texturing, and yes, bump maps on the VC would be nice on some things, but most of what you are asking for is actually stuff that is done engine end, which unless the payware developer gets a hold of the FSX source code, will not happen.Also, the sunlight in a cockpit would be a major FPS killer. To give you an idea, most CGI feature films take days or more to render a single scene on render farms of hundreds of processors, so it's not like you can just render that much stuff like you see in the renders. Most of the limit in FSX is hardware and FSX wise, not payware devs not taking it seriously. Maybe some of the new DX11 features may help, but that won't be in FSX.In the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of games for example, you have a major emphasis on shadows, but you don't see anything as complex shadows wise as an aircraft's cockpit because it would bring it down to less than 1 FPS, here's a sample of something at a good 30 fps if you're lucky:

(how appropriate I make a reference to a game about Chernobyl 2 days after the 24th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.). A aircraft's cockpit, combined with the terrain around the aircraft, would kill your computer faster than you would care to believe, even with a perfectly optimized engine and a Geforce GTX 280 or a GTX 480.

Of course parallax can be done-my Beech Debonair that I did for fs2002/2004 not only used parallax (parallax meaning instruments look like what they look like from the pilot's viewpoint-not from a straight on viewpoint-almost all fs aircraft make instruments that look like you are centered directly on them).Each instrument was made painstakingly from photos from real instruments from the viewpoint of the pilot-not generic gobbly gook from fs basics or hand drawn which is what one most often sees in fs. Instruments need glass reflections-in bright sunlight one sometimes needs to cup their hand over the instrument to see it. True sunlight in the cockpit may not be perfectly modelled now, though fsx manages to do something-but the glass look of the instruments can sure be modelled now by making the instruments from photos and not hand drawings. There need to be more avionics that match their real world counterparts-and that includes the basics. The fact is more time has been spent making the outside of the aircraft look very real (which it does ) than the inside in my opinion.There are a very few excellent aircraft that are close, but they are very few. Take the compare of the two images here. Now compare almost any outside view of an aircraft to a real one. I just think more attention and energy has been put on the outside than the inside in all respects and detail..Also notice as you look down at the bottom row of instruments in the real shot that they are not perfectly round and a different look. I find the sim shot look bothers me after a while-instruments don't look perfectly round unless you are sitting directly in front of one, and they sure don't have that pasty hand drawn generic look!

The parallax deal is taken care of when the instruments are actually modeled.. not just a gauge mapped onto a polygon.I fully modeled the compass in my Bonanaza... ball, glass and all. You most definately get a parallax from the pilot's seat, beacause it's virtually a compass. This works for any gauge. You can model, then animate, the whole thing.. the body, the bezel, the needle and the lens.. You'll get parallax, because the needle is a model part and DOES sit a bit away from the background.

Sorry, I was confused, I had my mind set on thinking you were talking about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_mappingI can see doing it using actual polygons, and that is a very good point, however normally if someone mentions Parallax, I'm thinking of the technique linked above.

I will agree with Geofa on this single point; too little attention has been paid to the interior modeling, especially the 3d cockpit... ...in much the same way that too little attention has been paid to cockpit/instrument lighting in the past! :(