Alpha Fade...The alpha channel of a texture (which is a channel on the texture in addition to the red green and blue ones that make up the colours) controls its opacity, i.e the alpha channel of a window on your plane model will most likely be black, so it appears transparent, or grey if you want a smoked glass effect, and white if it is not at all transparent. There are 256 levels of gray available on an alpha channel (from fully black to fully white), meaning if you could get autogen to gradually fade its alpha channel from black, through 255 levels of grayscale up to white, and have that controlled by the distance it was away from your viewpoint in FS, then trees and buildings would realistically fade in to view as they got nearer, emulating the atmospheric effect of things fading as they get more distant.Sadly FS does not do that, so what you get at present is autogen popping suddenly into view as it enters your radius of detail, and it is just as well defined when at a distance as when you are right next to it, so there is no feeling of depth with autogen colours.From a technical standpoint, it would probably not be that hard for a graphics engine to do it, based on fading the grayscale value of an alpha channel depending on its proximity to the viewpoint in the sim, and it would add to the realism of autogen, but it would also mean more work for your computer, which is why it was probably not done in FSX, as they knew it was struggling a bit on hardware at the time of its release.Al

Just to add a bit to the good explanation. Each object vertex holds an RGBA value too. In runtime the vertex values are adjusted to depict lighting from the sun or dynamic light effects (like the cabin light). While sometimes artists paint these vertices for addition control, it

Alpha Fade...The alpha channel of a texture . . . then trees and buildings would realistically fade in to view as they got nearer, emulating the atmospheric effect of things fading as they get more distant.Al

That would be a very nice improvement I would agree. Thanks for the good explanation.Noel

All these ideas are great and would definitely add to the flightsim experience. However, they'll also inflate the development cost tremendously. Whatever the next flightsim is, it's most likely going to appeal to a broader audience in order to justify the initial investment. We all dream of having a flightsim that's real as it gets....but in reality, this product will also need to cost only $50~ on the shelf. There aren't much profit to be made off of $50. Flightsims also sit inside a very small niche in the video game market. Their dev-cost to net profit margins are not high; when compared to games such as Halo, Battlefield, Mass Effect, etc. (probably the main reason why ACES was closed...it didn't bring MS much returns)So it all depends on how much investment they raised to make this sim. The higher the dev-cost, the broader the audience it must appeal to. Game dev cost has sky-rocketed in recent years. Just take a look at this article:http://www.digitalbattle.com/2010/02/20/to...s-budgets-ever/however, most of these games do make their money back since they appeal to the masses. For hardcore flightsims tho, it'll be insane to spend even 15m+ on them.Hopefully they are approaching their next game from a completely different angle. -feng

All that is true, but it does not take into account the fact that a flight sim, unlike the average computer game, has the ability to make money for its developer after the product itself has been sold, by virtue of commercial licensing for add-ons created for it, and from subsequent versions and expansions. So a flight sim developer does not have to consider the development costs purely against the amount of units sold initially, but also factor in the potential for continued income from commercially licensing add-ons etc. Could you see a game like Killzone being supported by a PMDG-style company five years after its release and them knocking out add-ons that cost 70 bucks that far down the line? Nope, but a flight sim can do that.What is more, I think the 50 bucks base price tag estimate for a flight sim is a little bit outdated too these days, and would probably be nearer the 80 bucks mark. So if you managed to sell 100,000 units at that price, that's 8 million straight away, and then probably a fair bit more when it drops to 'white label' prices after the intial early adopter creaming.Not that the income would all be profit of course, but realistically, I think it would be feasible to get a decent flight sim together with an investment of three million bucks, as it does not require the same scripting and such that an all-action megabucks shooter has to have. There is not rotoscoping, green screening, and little in the way of scripting, actor or directorial costs, or the need to out design other level-based games. So if we say perhaps a three year time period to get it going, and another million in promotional costs, that gives us roughly a 100 percent return on the initial investment. Doubling an investment in three years is not a fantastic financial proposition, but as noted, it's not the end of the profit rolling in, and as with the FS franchise, most subsequent versions were built upon the existing platform, so the potential for continued returns off subsequent versions with dramatically shorter development costs and timings, then makes the notion of investing in such a project somewhat more attractive. Shooter games are very much flavour of the month things, but as we know, FS lasted for years and years, with people coming back for more and spending vast amounts of money on hardware and software for it, so it does have the potential to draw in big bucks, it's just not so apparent on the face of it.Very rough figures of course, but basically where it is at. However, what is really needed, is a business angel who has a love of aviation and a big bankroll, as that is essentially what got MSFS going, courtesy of Bill Gates. He was less concerned about FS making a profit than any other MS product, as his motivation was that of an aviation buff. What is also a vital consideration for any potential sim developer, is making something that has the ability for people to make freeware for it easily, since that's the way to build up a big following and user base. So a good solid SDK would be a must.Al

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Yup, agreed where Aerosoft are concerned, they are really a take charge kind of company, so if anyone can do it, it is them. And lets be honest, if they could find a market for a bus driving sim and a farming sim, then they ought to be able to get a flight sim off the deck.Al

What is more, I think the 50 bucks base price tag estimate for a flight sim is a little bit outdated too these days, and would probably be nearer the 80 bucks mark. So if you managed to sell 100,000 units at that price, that's 8 million straight away, and then probably a fair bit more when it drops to 'white label' prices after the intial early adopter creaming.Al

it's actually a lot more complicated than that. In a perfect world, sure, $80 at 100,000 will net you 8mil. But in the real world, if the game sold for 80$, the actual net profit the developer would see is roughly around 3$...if even that. For average $50 games, the developer gets about $1. It's sad, but very true (and i'm not basing this on random stuff i read on the internet. I've founded and owned several game studios, and the numbers are very real). It's hard to make a profit in this biz unless you can clear a ton of units....But like you said, ultimately it takes an investor who is willing to take the BIG risk to develop a niche product. I hope we get a FS11 or something similar. I don't even mind if the next version is online only and you have to pay-to-play each plane...as long as it's fun! (i believe Rise of Flight does something similar...same with Wings of Prey). btw, here's an interesting article about the cost of game development: http://www.forbes.com/2006/12/19/ps3-xbox3...nsivegames.html (click on "Pictured..." link towards the bottom) -feng

Improved rotory wing flight model!Improved vectored thrust/tilt thrust flight dynamics.Turboshaft engines that don't go through erratic torque fluctuations.Multi-engined helicopters.

Whoever makes the next FS, I just hope they release it without a rubbish and restrictive DRM.

I've given up. This is my first trip back to this forum in about a year, simply because I just heard of the double edge happenings of Cascade Game Foundry and Games For Windows Live.I gave up because I got tired of all the tweeking, modifications, and need for speed computer purchases. And still a bunch of blurr when I got done. It was never ending. They will never please everyone, but for me it's headroom. The game needs lots of headroom, and abolish that "need to tweak" forever. Let the customer decide if they want 3 or 4 video cards, a high-end CPU, and the like. But if they do, give them some headroom and let it "fly" all on it's own.1. Big time multi-core support. (Clear up to 7 and 8 now)2. State of the art video card support.3. 64 bit option.4. Maybe even some overclocking support.They spell "headroom" to me. Then, and only then will I be back.BobPS... I've said it before and I'll say it again. The game needs real time critical data offload options to another PC. This brings certain third party people into the scene big time.

Whoever makes the next FS, I just hope they release it without a rubbish and restrictive DRM.

Why? I think it needs to be more restrictive. The piracy of software is at an all-time high.

Why? I think it needs to be more restrictive. The piracy of software is at an all-time high.

Because it doesn't work:http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2009/05/game_arshttp://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080929/0058322394.shtmlhttp://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081119/1256502889.shtmlhttp://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/spore-d...-pc-gaming/2617Marco

Because it doesn't work:http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2009/05/game_arshttp://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080929/0058322394.shtmlhttp://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081119/1256502889.shtmlhttp://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/spore-d...-pc-gaming/2617Marco

But it would be even higher without it.

I've given up. This is my first trip back to this forum in about a year, simply because I just heard of the double edge happenings of Cascade Game Foundry and Games For Windows Live.I gave up because I got tired of all the tweeking, modifications, and need for speed computer purchases. And still a bunch of blurr when I got done. It was never ending. They will never please everyone, but for me it's headroom. The game needs lots of headroom, and abolish that "need to tweak" forever. They spell "headroom" to me. Then, and only then will I be back.Bobquote]Forever is such a long time Bob!Bob, this seems to me, a dated sentiment. I think FSX had lots of headroom. I don't have cutting edge hardware, but you know what, it's over, ie the need for incessant 'tweeking, modifications, and need for speed computer purchases . . . and still a bunch of blurr . . .' And that is not because I have tired of that per se.Performance, IQ, smoothness, are now all at 98 or 99+% of perfect, and I am running the sim at close to maximum. That's for all intents and purposes, good enough for most. And it really was headroom that arguably led to all of our tweeking, modifications, and need for speed computer purchases, wasn't it? If FSX had released with only the lowest of settings, and you had the horsepower to run it, you would not have been tweeking. But you knew more could come out of it, because the sliders suggested so, and then came the tweeking. Headroom leads to tweaking, no? Take what you think FSX should look like right now, and then try imagining other features that will add to the realism, ones you could hardly have dreamed of. There's your maximum headroom, and shortly thereafter, the impetus to start the endless pursuit of getting more out of your platform than it basically can handle, untweaked, because you want to be able to use those features. Noel