I know it is completely random and slightly off topic, but getting back to looking at cool pictures.... look at this heat blur!

I know it is completely random and slightly off topic, but getting back to looking at cool pictures.... look at this heat blur!

where did that pic come from?

Hi Mike he got it from this directory http://www.x-plane.com/wp/wp-content/gallery/f-4-carrier-operations/ The Heat blur is a new feature in XP10 which they demonstrated over a year ago you can see how it looks like here:http://dev.x-plane.com/download/X-Plane%20movie_c4_4.movalso here is another shot of the engine heat effect:

It's a valid question Phil and it may scare developers, but that is their problem to overcome because it's simply not true as it was many years ago. IMO, developers who THINK that xplane's development format is unstable...or think it is any more unstable than any other application, FSX included will simply miss the boat in a few years. If they don't do the research and figure this out, then I am more than happy to take the business, which will probably happen anyhow because a developer making big bucks in MSFS doesn't want to have to deal with the reduction in income that comes with x-plane's smaller market share....but if that changes in the next 2-5 years, then savvy people will do what they have to do make sure they're where they want to be when the time comes. The question for them is whether or not they want to be in the game. A big bucks developer in MSFS may be happy with their money, call the MSFS chapter in their life closed and move on to something else if the market there wanes. I'm still convinced the FSX market will cruise for while and by the time x-plane becomes "equal" with it's add-ons...however long that takes, then "certain developers" won't be needed in x-plane as x-plane will have grown it's own by then...still, we would like to see them come over, but we can only say so much to convince them...at some point they have to convince themselves.Sure x-plane's introduces a change here and there, but usually for the better and a smart developer usually only needs to invest very minimal time (sometimes less than an hour) to adapt. Why did PMDG decide to do a NGX.....wasn't FS2004 and their existing product stable enough? ...... New flight model? better 3d? Software is change, period and you either get used to it or get left behind. x-Plane is no better or worse than any other software package in this regards....good developers are always doing something whether its better 3D or fixing a change in the format...in the end, it's still hours of work.Now if by "certain developers", you're referring to PMDG or ORBX (which is a common theme so forgive my assumption if it's wrong), then you should know that many within the x-plane community really don't care about that because teams like IXEG will probably be the "PMDG of x-plane" in short order and several scenery developments are underway also....people don't want PMDG or ORBX, they want the products these guys provide and if they don't provide it for x-plane, them someone else will at some point. X-Plane's success does not hinge on "certain developers" coming over....though I would agree the "rate of success" would; however, the opportunity will spur the developers who are not afraid to forge ahead, whomever they may be and the demand will drive the products and eventually you'll see x-plane have most of the products FSX has.... and who gets it done is anybody's guess.-Tom KylerXP10 aircraftXP10 airports

I am taking a bit of a different perspective, as I am a customer, not a developer. As a customer, if I invest 50 $ in an addon, I expect to be able to run it still half a year or a year later. Now, if the sim gets updated in a way, that I cannot use this addon any more, I will be very reluctant to invest this kind of money in a second addon (independent if it is from this developer or another one). If it happens not only once but a second time and I invested more that the cost of the base sim in addons I cannot use any more, I may decide to leave Xplane altogether and invest my money and time in another platform that I don't expect to change, even if it looks less good.

Hi Mike he got it from this directory http://www.x-plane.c...ier-operations/The Heat blur is a new feature in XP10 which they demonstrated over a year ago you can see how it looks like here:http://dev.x-plane.c...0movie_c4_4.movalso here is another shot of the engine heat effect:

I must have missed that one. Very nice indeed. I also like that this is a feature that the flight sim community has been asking for, for a while. Glad to see that it will be implemented.

I am taking a bit of a different perspective, as I am a customer, not a developer. As a customer, if I invest 50 $ in an addon, I expect to be able to run it still half a year or a year later. Now, if the sim gets updated in a way, that I cannot use this addon any more, I will be very reluctant to invest this kind of money in a second addon (independent if it is from this developer or another one). If it happens not only once but a second time and I invested more that the cost of the base sim in addons I cannot use any more, I may decide to leave Xplane altogether and invest my money and time in another platform that I don't expect to change, even if it looks less good.

Not to worry. Tom stated very clearly that XP core functionality code is very stable from a third party development standpoint. A third party developer will not have to implement much if any update to their code as the XP10 platform goes through the incremental release cycle. That makes me, as a customer, feel very comfortable.

I am taking a bit of a different perspective, as I am a customer, not a developer. As a customer, if I invest 50 $ in an addon, I expect to be able to run it still half a year or a year later. Now, if the sim gets updated in a way, that I cannot use this addon any more, I will be very reluctant to invest this kind of money in a second addon (independent if it is from this developer or another one). If it happens not only once but a second time and I invested more that the cost of the base sim in addons I cannot use any more, I may decide to leave Xplane altogether and invest my money and time in another platform that I don't expect to change, even if it looks less good.

ManuelIt has been mentioned many times. X Plane updates very rarely "break" an X Plane add on. If an update DOES do something to cause an add on to behave incorrectly, the developer or customer sends a log to Laminar, and Austin and/or Ben Supnik will release another update to fix it. I think I remember Ben Supnik actually encourage developers to inform him of any problems so he can get onto them asap. However, in the 3 years I have been involved in X Plane, I have only seen 1 product do something weird and that was fixed within minutes by the developer. The updates in X Plane are not meant to ruin anything. On the contrary, they are meant to enhance, add to, and improve the simulator.

Manuel, I have many planes from 2yrs ago that still work fine, and same with scenery. That is not a concern, even version 8 stuff will work in 10

It's a valid question Phil and it may scare developers, but that is their problem to overcome because it's simply not true as it was many years ago. IMO, developers who THINK that xplane's development format is unstable...or think it is any more unstable than any other application, FSX included will simply miss the boat in a few years. If they don't do the research and figure this out, then I am more than happy to take the business, which will probably happen anyhow because a developer making big bucks in MSFS doesn't want to have to deal with the reduction in income that comes with x-plane's smaller market share....but if that changes in the next 2-5 years, then savvy people will do what they have to do make sure they're where they want to be when the time comes. The question for them is whether or not they want to be in the game. A big bucks developer in MSFS may be happy with their money, call the MSFS chapter in their life closed and move on to something else if the market there wanes. I'm still convinced the FSX market will cruise for while and by the time x-plane becomes "equal" with it's add-ons...however long that takes, then "certain developers" won't be needed in x-plane as x-plane will have grown it's own by then...still, we would like to see them come over, but we can only say so much to convince them...at some point they have to convince themselves.Sure x-plane's introduces a change here and there, but usually for the better and a smart developer usually only needs to invest very minimal time (sometimes less than an hour) to adapt. Why did PMDG decide to do a NGX.....wasn't FS2004 and their existing product stable enough? ...... New flight model? better 3d? Software is change, period and you either get used to it or get left behind. x-Plane is no better or worse than any other software package in this regards....good developers are always doing something whether its better 3D or fixing a change in the format...in the end, it's still hours of work.Now if by "certain developers", you're referring to PMDG or ORBX (which is a common theme so forgive my assumption if it's wrong), then you should know that many within the x-plane community really don't care about that because teams like IXEG will probably be the "PMDG of x-plane" in short order and several scenery developments are underway also....people don't want PMDG or ORBX, they want the products these guys provide and if they don't provide it for x-plane, them someone else will at some point. X-Plane's success does not hinge on "certain developers" coming over....though I would agree the "rate of success" would; however, the opportunity will spur the developers who are not afraid to forge ahead, whomever they may be and the demand will drive the products and eventually you'll see x-plane have most of the products FSX has.... and who gets it done is anybody's guess.-Tom KylerXP10 aircraftXP10 airports

Thanks for the reply Tom.You couldn't have answered that any better.Yes I did mean PMDG & ORBX - although others developers for XP10 could maybe fill their shoes somewhere down the line, having the big 2 create their stuff would be a powerful catalyst in getting XP10's market share up.I've been an FS9 & FSX boy and never touched XPlane. However I simply cant wait for this to come out. Looking grand.

X-Plane 10 will support scenery made for X-Plane 8 & 9 ... however, the older ENV scenery format from version 6 & 7 will probably not work in v10. Use Marginal's Env2Dsf tool to covert your v6 & 7 scenery to the newer format.X-Plane 10 will support all v9 planes and will support all v7,8, and 9 airfoils. Version 6 airfoils are not supported.X-Plane 10 will support all plugins made for X-Plane. To ensure compatibility with v10 out the box they recommend running Airplane-Maker and Airfoil-maker to batch convert all of your planes and their airfoils to X-plane 9.

I am taking a bit of a different perspective, as I am a customer, not a developer. As a customer, if I invest 50 $ in an addon, I expect to be able to run it still half a year or a year later. Now, if the sim gets updated in a way, that I cannot use this addon any more, I will be very reluctant to invest this kind of money in a second addon (independent if it is from this developer or another one). If it happens not only once but a second time and I invested more that the cost of the base sim in addons I cannot use any more, I may decide to leave Xplane altogether and invest my money and time in another platform that I don't expect to change, even if it looks less good.

We send out copies of x-plane to the top payware guys and to a large beta team with the instructions...."try everything, let us know what breaks....all V9 stuff needs to be compatible with V10". I would say that's a pretty good commitment and effort to make sure customers don't get screwed with their existing add-ons. My MU2 is sailing along it's 3rd year through two versions of x-plane (8/9) with almost no issues. I had a minor one and fixed it in less than a week and sent out an update. XP10 does alter a few things on it and I already have that list of things to adopt (as opposed to fix...because the change is a refinement in simulation) in hand and I'll adjust and support my customers appropriately.X-Plane went through a major pardigm shift from version 7 to 8. Up through version 7, x-plane WAS very unstable with formats changing constantly. Now recall that Austin is an engineer who programs...and what xplane needed was a professional programmer and we got that in Ben Supnik for Version 8. Version 8 was the first version properly "software engineered" IMO and was designed to be very stable and the core formats are still in use in V10...in fact, 3D objects in x-plane are commonly called "OBJ8" objects. Ben Supnik is much to modest to flaunt his experience and education, but he is absolutely brilliant and highly educated programmer and he has pretty much alleviated a lot of the worries users had right up through version 8. Because version 8 was the a major change...people still had that uneasy feeling about format changes...and really, Version 9 was the first version to use essentially the same formats as the previous one...and Version 10 is using it too. So while I can see that people with xplane experience in that V8 era can be apprehensive, I am telling them.....not as a marketer who gets money from x-plane sales (which I don't) but as a long time x-plane user AND developer...that x-plane is a very stable platform nowadays. It started with version 8...anything before that is fair game for criticism. That is the message from "the inside" and once again, it will be up to both customers and developers to convince themselves in their own time.

When you say you sent out an update-where does it go and how does one get it? I started up xplane after almost a year of not using it last night-updated it to the latest version and was greeted with a message that my payware dutchess airfile was no longer valid. I also need to update your MU2. It sure would be nice if payware manufactures sent out updates or the links directly to their customers (and I speak also of fsx customers) as we usually have to give our email address at purchase time...I saw some new things in xplane I liked very much (I could be wrong but I don't remember the windshield crazing when turning into the sun) and the flight model felt much less squirly than the last time I used it.

Hey Geoff,Notifications of updates are the responsibility of the software author, so updates to xplane will come from laminar generally through their web site...they have a "download / demo / update" page which I simply bookmark myself... or via an announcement on xplane forums. It's not terribly practical for xplane to send updates directly to their customers given the DVD nature of the distribution. Laminar would have to harvest and maintain a few hundred thousand emails and some folks don't want to be on mailing lists. So for xplane at least, you simply check their site from time to time or catch the news on a forum.Now for add-on developers, it's different for each. I can only speak for x-aviation.com stuff....they send out email notifications to all their customers for every single update. The most common reason an email wouldn't make it to the end user is usually due to a spam filter....but sometimes we see ISP issues where emails don't get through. I myself would like a more informative system about updates and versions should email break down and a user wants to go looking for an udpate. I can't speak for other authors though...each has their own method, much like in fsx I would guess.-Tom Kyler

I am speaking only of add in authors-and no I have never gotten an email notification. Being the owner of well over 100 add ins in multiple sims I really can't keep up. It would be nice as some authors have done having an automatic update button as in the iphone/ipad or as xplane the program itself does.<edit> I just logged into the x_aviation site-I see my purchases but no links for updates. Can you help me out where to look?

I am speaking only of add in authors-and no I have never gotten an email notification.

Well I definitely can't argue if you got a notification on my stuff Geoff, but I can tell you one was sent to whatever email address you supplied.As to the automatic updates....we have experimented with that before and had limited success but there were some issues related to computer access and it moved to the back burner, though not forgotten. I think in time, you will most definitely see this feature...I would like it too.