May FSX and Flight Comparison Screenshots

[Tierborn 188]

First off, you are awesome. Been waiting for these! Secondly, if someone says to me that there isn't any difference between FSX and FLIGHT, they are clearly stubborn and ignorant. I'm really starting to grow on FLIGHT, its really shaping up well! I suppose you could say I'm even excited! Still it seems that FLIGHT hasn't updated their cloud textures much if at all (I haven't noticed much) , they might even have volumetric clouds by the time its released! Who knows, but with about a year left of development.... I think it will definitely turn out better than we think, or at least what some of us think. Thank you very much for posting these! Now we just have to wait and see if FLIGHT will be shown at E3, Microsoft have booked a slot there and I hope its gonna showcase FLIGHT... we'll have to wait and see!Jamie ♥

+1 ..... I am amazed .. how do you confirm these locations?

[JSkorna 137]

Google Earth is a wonderful tool and the areas MS has been showing is not that large!

[HughesMDflyer4 470]

+1 ..... I am amazed .. how do you confirm these locations?

People on this forum were able to tell me all the locations. :(

[Fsau 0]

Very nice work with these screen shots! Takes a VERY passionate user to go to all this trouble.I still love the improvements made in FLIGHT so far but the screenshots have had the opposite effect for me in showing that not that much has really improved visually, sure there are better textures, shadows and what looks to be some kind of HDR effect, but that's really it. Realistically other than the shadows there is nothing here that can't be achieved with FSX. Someone here mentioned how good the waves on the coast look washing up and down on the beach leaving the sand wet, I think that is all in your head because to me the coasts look to be improved textures but you can still see the sharp cut shader laying over the top. I'm still under the impression that most of the development work at the moment is happening under the hood so to speak, so judging it too harshly this early based purely on visuals is a little misguided, but then what else do we have to go by.

[JSkorna 137]

Do you think the mesh resolution is much higher? Do you think the textures are more realistic? Do you think the auto-gen is visible further in the distance?

[Fsau 0]

Do you think the mesh resolution is much higher? Do you think the textures are more realistic? Do you think the auto-gen is visible further in the distance?

Mesh resolution is improved very slightly, of course there is only so much data you can get. Textures are much more realistic, I definitely agree. The auto-gen looks to be rendering at the same distance to me. Maybe I need a pair of those rose colored glasses, or are they beer goggles? Edit: sorry thought I read texture res.

[MarcUAL 2]

Wow,Flight sure looks good.Am I the only one starting to get worried that they plan to sell the simulator piece by piece? I am very worried that this simulator will not contain any part of the mainland (other 49 states) on release day.Marc

[JSkorna 137]

LOL, did you think the same thing after the FSX demo release?

[Chaos81 110]

Thanks for the pictures Brandon. I'll admit to being one who hasn't been too impressed with the Flight pictures we've seen so far, but you can really tell a difference when comparing them like this. Feeling much better about how it looks now.

[HughesMDflyer4 470]

Very nice work with these screen shots! Takes a VERY passionate user to go to all this trouble.I still love the improvements made in FLIGHT so far but the screenshots have had the opposite effect for me in showing that not that much has really improved visually, sure there are better textures, shadows and what looks to be some kind of HDR effect, but that's really it. Realistically other than the shadows there is nothing here that can't be achieved with FSX. Someone here mentioned how good the waves on the coast look washing up and down on the beach leaving the sand wet, I think that is all in your head because to me the coasts look to be improved textures but you can still see the sharp cut shader laying over the top. I'm still under the impression that most of the development work at the moment is happening under the hood so to speak, so judging it too harshly this early based purely on visuals is a little misguided, but then what else do we have to go by.

If you know what to look for, then you can tell its not just a few improvements.As for the coastlines, I'm not sure what screenshots you are looking at, but the transition from land to coastline is much more natural in Flight. Also, take a good look at screenshot 2. You can clearly see a darker section of sand closer to the water. I'm not sure if this is part of the coastline texture, but it seems to match the shape of the waves.The shadows, waves, water, and lighting cannot be replicated in FSX unless it's just a static texture. If it could be replicated in FSX, do you think anyone would be wasting their time here?

[Gibbage 199]

Anyone who thinks there is not much improvement from FSX to Flight after looking at these comparisons is on CRACK. And some heavy crack at that! Just looking at these screenshots shows massive improvelemt on everything BUT the clouds. Screenshot #1 comments.FSX. The ground and trees are very monotonish (meaning single color). You really cant see the trees vs the ground since its the same color green almost. The beach line sticks out like a soar thumb and is the same the entire coastline. You can see a defined edge were the autogen ends for the trees. Ground detail is very soft and no definition. Water does NOT reflect THAT well. You can never really see defined shapes in water since the reflection is broken up by waves. Anyone who has done any sort of flying will tell you that.Flight. The ground textures have a lot of definition!! Tree's stick out and dont blend in. There are lots of ground texture types just in the 1 area. The shoreline blends in more naturally, and its hard to tell when the autogen ends since there is no hard defined treeline. Shadows on the aircraft are great and you can see the lower wheel skirts in shadow.Screenshot #2.FSX. NO shoarline. Goes from tiled city too water. The city texture has nothing to do with the buildings on top of it. The aircraft does not look all that realistic. Again, reflections should not be that clear. Buildings are almost all 4 sided square boxes with no detail on the roofs like HVAC units. No vegitation.Flight. Very nice blended shoreline! Can even see coral under the water! Buildings are not 4 sided, but have a LOT of detail in them, and even on the roofs!!! The buildings also follow the road pattern it seems. Lots of vegitation planted all over the city. Helps add a lot of detail. Aircraft has nice shadows and looks a lot more realistic. #4.FSX. Airport sticks out. Runways are plain and boring. Cliffs have streatched textures on them and stick out un-naturally. Trees blend in with the ground texture. Uniform shoreline.Flight. The airport blends in naturally, and no boring tiled textures! The scenery team did a great job on the runway and taxiway textures and the look amazingly realistic and used. You can even see tiremarks on the tarmac! Cliff texture looks a lot more realistic and the shoreline is varried and natural feeling.#5.FSX. Eeeww. Again, boring monotone green texture, and trees that blend into it. No cliff texture and whats with those big gaps in the cliffside? It looks like someone covered the hill with green shag carpeting, and cut holes into it explosing sections of marble. Very odd looking. Trees look the size of CITY BLOCKS. Water looks odd.Flight. Amazing. Varried ground textures, sharper cliffs with proper cliff texture. Ground self shadowing, and proper size vegitation! The Stearman looks a lot better in this shot showing off ribs in the wings. One of the gripes I keep hearing is "Flight looks good, but my FSX with 300$ worth of add-on's can almost look as good!". Sure! But lets face it. 99% of the people who buy a flight sim WONT SPEND $300 ON ADD-ON's! To give every user this sort of detail out of the box is still amazing, and if they can do that on top of it performing good? Sign me up for two! Even at this early stage, the screenshots clearly blow FSX out of the water. Thats clear as day. I think some people are just a little butt-hurt that they had to spend so much on scenery add-on's while Flight users will get that quality or better OUT OF THE BOX ;) Its like Apple a really excited user I think. Always need to justify over-paying for there stuff by bashing everyone else. Also, if it looks THAT good, just think of how good the add-on's will make it!

[Guest jahman]

Anyone who thinks there is not much improvement from FSX to Flight after looking at these comparisons is on CRACK. And some heavy crack at that! Just looking at these screenshots shows massive improvelemt on everything BUT the clouds.

Absolutely!

...One of the gripes I keep hearing is "Flight looks good, but my FSX with 300$ worth of add-on's can almost look as good!". Sure! But lets face it. 99% of the people who buy a flight sim WONT SPEND $300 ON ADD-ON's! To give every user this sort of detail out of the box is still amazing, and if they can do that on top of it performing good? Sign me up for two!

Um, yes, as long as you stick to flying around Oahu. Move to the other islands or even The Mainland (never mind other continents) and what will you get? Ads for Scenery add-ons for the Marketplace? And that is the real reason why we all wish to continue using our FSX scenery add-ons that we paid a chunk of money for.Further, consider when Flight is released there will likely be no scenery add-ons (or aircraft), so there better be a backwards compatibility sandbox for FSX add-ons.Me, as new add-ons for Flight are relased, I'll be happy to purchase them and gradually replace the FSX scenery and aircraft add-ons.Well, that's how I think it ought to be at least...Cheers,- jahman.

[Gibbage 199]

I really HOPE that there is no backwards compatibility in Flight. 2 big reasons.#1, having backwards compatibility locks you into old systems and old code. In order to move forward, you MUST cut ties holding you back. Thats one of the reasons why FSX was so buggy and laggy. A ton of old code in there to support backwards compatibility. Sometimes its better to start from scratch.#2, im a 3rd party artist, and work for 3rd party venders. If all my old stuff works in Flight, I wont have much of a job ;) A new engine can bring more chances to accell using new shaders and techniques not possible in FSX. The last few years since FSX has seen a lot of advances in 3D games, and I hope MS includes them in for the 3rd party's to play with! One thing I would love to see is a good wing flex system. Watching something like the 787 or even a 747 take off is exciting when you see those wings bend back. Even on landing, you can see the engines and wings wobble. It brings a static body too life! Parallax Mapping would also help us define more detail into the skin, like rivits that pop, and panel lines that sink beyond what normal maps can do. DX11 has some nice shaders that can be used on clouds to simulate volumetric's and I have seen some nice shaders that do sub surface scattering. How about a ripple effect on the water surface when you land a sea plane? All these are possible in current game engines, but not FSX. Makes an artist like me drool at the possibilities. Even just being able to push more polygons or more pixels due to a more optimized code would help greatly! Even on todays hardware, FSX can turn into a slide show for me! We will all see what Flight brings too the table once its out. Till then, its all speculation, but even that can be fun and productive. Well maybe not productive...

[mgh 89]

There can be no doubt that in the area covered the previewed Flight screenshots are significanly better than FSX.

[bsmfinegan 12]

To be honest I am surprised at the reaction to these and previous screenshots.They may be indicative of the current state of the sim, but remember MS has previous history of showing doctored screenshots, and I have yet to see any product being offered for sale where pictures were not presented in shall we say their best possible lightNot saying that is the case here, but you never know do you!!!Bryan.