On the rex forum, topic named "rex for ms flight".Look at post 11 from Tim 4 march 2012. "we aren't at liberty to discuss rex in Flight".Interesting answer considering that some others 3PD went public they are not in any discussion with Flight. So we know at least that a NDA is still there between Flight and Rex.Your shoot at the rumor mill?

Yeah I follow the REX forums as well, and when I saw that comment it raised an eyebrow no doubt.Of course any " reading" into that, would be just pure speculation - however it did plant a little glimmer of hope down in the recesses of my mind, as I envisioned the beautiful scenery of Flight enveloped by the incredible clouds/weather of REX...I could see the Flight team perhaps negotiating with REX to develop a DLC for them, based on their - REX - textures at the very least.Pure speculation, but it doesn't hurt to hope...

but it doesn't hurt to hope...

Indeed

You should bear in mind that not being at liberty to discuss something does not mean anything other than what it says; i.e. the developers could be making a model of a control tower for Flight, or acting in a consulting role or something like that, and are therefore unable to comment on anything to do with Flight because of an NDA. Thus, inferring that them remaining schtum confirms that REX is going into Flight could be a conclusion too far. Of course we know that they are more likely to be creating something along the lines of weather-related visuals than a control tower model, but keeping a reign on your hopes is not a bad idea where things like this are concerned. Nevertheless, there is no doubt they are the recognised masters of cloud visuals for flight sims, so it would make sense for MS to employ them to do so, and if I was in charge of developing stuff for Flight, they would certainly have been the first people I would have phoned.Al

The head developer just said it'll be 2-3 years before they even think about 3PD's. Don't get your hopes up.

Want to really fuel the speculation?REX announced in December, and are hard working, on the Essentials update for REX. Based on the several features of Essentials that have been announced to date, it is basically a whole new program, you could say REX3.They have already stated , Essentials will be a whole new program/download - it does not just simply update REX2. And after that, they have also stated there will be an Overdrive expansion for Essentials, though there will be some time passed before that one becomes available.Now what is even more amazing, is Essentials will be released " free" for current REX users. Many users have commented how surpised they are , that a program such as this would be offered for free - this was announced around the time Active Sky released AS 2012, a competive product that included textures, making it even more of a competitive product to REX- that was not free.So hmm, one ould speculate that perhaps there will be a form of revenue for Essentials that we don't know about as of yet...Disclaimer: the above is nothing more than complete wild speculation on my part based on a thought that crossed my aging mind this morning...

Check the Flight credits to see of there are any names of people from REX in there. Hook

They are releasing it for free because they realize they fell well short of their promises they made for their weather engine with their original customers of REX1/2. That's not going to be their official position, but it's common sense.

^{Lets fuel rumors...Lets not!}

Brings all kinds of interesting thoughts, all good! Could it be?Kind regards,

If i take my businessmen point of view. If i had a product still selling well on another platform, i would never let float a statement to the effect that i may be discussing on another competing platform. For customer comparing fsx and flight, they can just decide to postpone buying rex and wait and see for a flight version. A statement like that have the potential to erode your customer base and future revenues and you want to avoid that unless .......Could be technology licensing or dlc. My bet in the rumor mill is technology licensing. You don't need to create a SDK that any third party can use. You buy the know-how and you have your project team sitting down with the guys owning the technology and the knowledge you want to incorporate.That's my reading of it.Rumors, rumors. ...... And speculations, almost as fun as flying this morning.

You should bear in mind that not being at liberty to discuss something does not mean anything other than what it says; i.e. the developers could be making a model of a control tower for Flight, or acting in a consulting role or something like that, and are therefore unable to comment on anything to do with Flight because of an NDA. Thus, inferring that them remaining schtum confirms that REX is going into Flight could be a conclusion too far. Of course we know that they are more likely to be creating something along the lines of weather-related visuals than a control tower model, but keeping a reign on your hopes is not a bad idea where things like this are concerned. Nevertheless, there is no doubt they are the recognised masters of cloud visuals for flight sims, so it would make sense for MS to employ them to do so, and if I was in charge of developing stuff for Flight, they would certainly have been the first people I would have phoned.Al

The Microsoft NDA is quite comprehensive! I wouldn't talk if I were REX, either!

Ms said they weren't going to have 3pd selling their wares for a couple of years (if ever). Having a 3pd provide work/consulting advice etc as a contractor for ms is quite a different kettle of fish - and this appears to be already happening to a limited extent.Ms must know their fair weather cloud depiction is sub-par. Hopefully they'll get the existing experts to help them out with some textures.Does anyone know if the rex clouds (just a sp2d sprite, at 4096 pixels in overdrive?) would work in Flight? I don't really know much about how flight's clouds work.

^ what Rob said. I totally agree..no 3pd means what it says, but external 3pd is a specific form of addon for a game. There are lots of ways MS could get "non-MS" content into the game by licensing technology, as Pierre says above.And I read no SDK to mean no publicly available one for modders and 3pd alike..However, we have seen already that people, if they really want to, can already break into the game and change/add/edit stuff..if this develops, there's no telling what MS may or may not do in regard to a "limited" SDK..One thing, can we have ASE instead of REX please :Dbestjake

Every 3PD who were (are, will be) involved with MS on Flight had to signed a NDA (dahhh).....this NDA still in full force, just try to ask a question about Flight1's involvement in Flight in their forum....I predict you'll get the same answer as Tim gave, that does not mean REX is working on Flight right now as it does not mean they are not.