PMDG 777 preview: check.

 

Microsoft Flight experiment abandoned: check.

 

Could this day get any better? Well, only if Lockheed Martin announced that they were officially offering Prepar3D to the public without having to pretend to be a developer... :lol: B)

Checked B)

I think the Engine fan blades need to be pitch black [check the difference below between the center of the engine and the fans, black to grey, where you shouldn't be able to see the difference.

 

 

VS

 

 

 

vs

 

 

Our screenshot depicts the 777 with the sun in front of it (it was a sun set that day when we were coming in from our test flight), the other two images you reference to have the sun to the side of it (as depicted in the BA shot) and behind (as in the ANA shot). Besides, those images are underexposed so things are darker than they appear. I have personally spent hours at YVR airport watching the 777s come in at all times of the day, the effect we have done here is what I saw in real life.

 

There are many shots of the 777 with the fan reflecting a little bit of the sunlight off of the blades when the sun is in front of the aircraft, that is what we have done here. When the sun is beind our 777, the intake and fan blades are pitch black (not necessarily solid but it is black - just like you wanted)

 

We - CANNOT - please everybody so it seems but we all have to understand that FSX is 7 years old, the lighting engine is terrible and we do a ton of shadow baking on our textures to compensate for the terrible FSX lighting. What we have achieved here is a good balance between FSX and real life. Don't forget - everybody's video cards are different, monitors have different gamma levels and so on.

 

Anyway, I need to get some dinner here, spent a good chunk of the day here modeling reverser blocker doors and a whole bunch of other things that I'll refrain from saying because we're gonna do another round of screenshots later.

 

Regards,

 

Wow that was just rude.

 

 

Oh come on dude, lighten up, I was being sarcastic.... Perhaps I should have looked for a tongue-in-cheek smiley instead of a smiley.

 

Its all good mate, no harm no foul...

Oh come on dude, lighten up, I was being sarcastic.... Perhaps I should have looked for a tongue-in-cheek smiley instead of a smiley.

 

Its all good mate, no harm no foul...

 

I know you were joking ha. I guess it didn't come across that way, us Brits and our 'sens of humour' :P

Nothing could be better than this in FSX. (Well the NGX is as good as this. )

Good Work! PMDG

For those complaining about the engines - please try doing some photography and learning about metering and exposure levels before you use real life pics as an example of what things should look like.

 

Even the best cameras see only a fraction of the dynamic range the human eye sees. Most cameras by default meter on a specific area near the center of the field (called center weighted-average metering) - on most of the shots you find the metering is being done on the fuselage or cockpit area, not on the dark shadow areas inside the engine nacelles. When the metering is done on those bright areas, the darker areas are necessarily going to be underexposed vs. what the eye would see. The only approximate ways around this are to do 3 or more exposures at say -1EV, normal, and +1EV and combine them into a high dynamic range (HDR) photo or else spot meter (a different mode high end cameras have) directly on the engine - if you do that however, you're going to necessarily overexpose the bright highlight areas of the image that you'd normally want to be able to see in detail. It really is the truth that no photo can really fully accurately show an entire scene with a lot of dynamic range the way the eye really sees it. For this reason trying to use photos to prove the relative brightness/darkness of different parts of the airplane is really difficult - you would have to set up the exact same shot multiple times but with each one metering on a different part of the airplane to even begin to approximate it.

She's looking great Jason!! Hope your getting a little time to enjoy the nice weather were getting... Finally!

 

Thanks for the update Robert. This bird will certainly have its own parking spot on my HD.

Gents-

 

I can't give you much detail here- because it is something that you haven't seen done yet in FSX... however...

 

We just had a breakthrough on something that is a huge technology advance for simmers who wish to fly the 777...

 

Can't tell you what it is yet- but we will show it to you in a video- and I think you will be quite excited.

 

I just had to tell someone. B)

 

You know what you've done now, don't you Rob? People aren't going to be asking about the VC pics, they're going to be asking about this mysterious video. You ought to go work for the film studios in Hollywood - you're great at building the suspense and interest!

For those complaining about the engines - please try doing some photography and learning about metering and exposure levels before you use real life pics as an example of what things should look like.

 

Even the best cameras see only a fraction of the dynamic range the human eye sees. Most cameras by default meter on a specific area near the center of the field (called center weighted-average metering) - on most of the shots you find the metering is being done on the fuselage or cockpit area, not on the dark shadow areas inside the engine nacelles. When the metering is done on those bright areas, the darker areas are necessarily going to be underexposed vs. what the eye would see. The only approximate ways around this are to do 3 or more exposures at say -1EV, normal, and +1EV and combine them into a high dynamic range (HDR) photo or else spot meter (a different mode high end cameras have) directly on the engine - if you do that however, you're going to necessarily overexpose the bright highlight areas of the image that you'd normally want to be able to see in detail. It really is the truth that no photo can really fully accurately show an entire scene with a lot of dynamic range the way the eye really sees it. For this reason trying to use photos to prove the relative brightness/darkness of different parts of the airplane is really difficult - you would have to set up the exact same shot multiple times but with each one metering on a different part of the airplane to even begin to approximate it.

 

Lol whatever that means. Looks good peeps. I wonder what this 'technical break through was....'

Can people stop complaining about things like the shade of color used on the fan blades. I am sure they have pictures of a lot of 777 engines by now.. Stuff like this is why a lot of devs don't post previews. I swear every time one of these previews are posted you have a group of people heading over to airliners.net to look for any little visual problem they can find.

 

 

I don't know about the rest of you guys but I fly from the cockpit, How often are you going to be watching the fan blades when they are facing the sun..

Can people stop complaining about things like the shade of color used on the fan blades. I am sure they have pictures of a lot of 777 engines by now.. Stuff like this is why a lot of devs don't post previews. I swear every time one of these previews are posted you have a group of people heading over to airliners.net to look for any little visual problem they can find.

 

 

I don't know about the rest of you guys but I fly from the cockpit, How often are you going to be watching the fan blades when they are facing the sun..

 

A lot of time is spent on the model and exterior textures. In fact, PMDG employs 2 (or more) individuals to do just that. No one is bashing PMDG for their lack of knowledge in these areas, they are simply trying to add their input to help make the product the best 777 for FSX.

 

For future previews, I urge Robert to gather all intel from devs on things which people might find wrong with the plane and include those in his post.

For those complaining about the engines - please try doing some photography and learning about metering and exposure levels before you use real life pics as an example of what things should look like.

 

Even the best cameras see only a fraction of the dynamic range the human eye sees. Most cameras by default meter on a specific area near the center of the field (called center weighted-average metering) - on most of the shots you find the metering is being done on the fuselage or cockpit area, not on the dark shadow areas inside the engine nacelles. When the metering is done on those bright areas, the darker areas are necessarily going to be underexposed vs. what the eye would see. The only approximate ways around this are to do 3 or more exposures at say -1EV, normal, and +1EV and combine them into a high dynamic range (HDR) photo or else spot meter (a different mode high end cameras have) directly on the engine - if you do that however, you're going to necessarily overexpose the bright highlight areas of the image that you'd normally want to be able to see in detail. It really is the truth that no photo can really fully accurately show an entire scene with a lot of dynamic range the way the eye really sees it. For this reason trying to use photos to prove the relative brightness/darkness of different parts of the airplane is really difficult - you would have to set up the exact same shot multiple times but with each one metering on a different part of the airplane to even begin to approximate it.

 

I'm surprised with the wealth of knowledge you guys know about computers, games, etc, and flight sim, that you haven't designed your own flight sim yet.

A lot of time is spent on the model and exterior textures. In fact, PMDG employs 2 (or more) individuals to do just that. No one is bashing PMDG for their lack of knowledge in these areas, they are simply trying to add their input to help make the product the best 777 for FSX.

 

For future previews, I urge Robert to gather all intel from devs on things which people might find wrong with the plane and include those in his post.

 

These guys have taken thousands of photos and have gotten up close with the plane before starting work on it. I am sure they have it right. You have to remember this is still FSX with a old light engine.

 

How is robert supposed to know what kind of stuff people are going to come up with? I can go on airliners.net right now and find pics of the NG with yellow backlighting, red backlighting and green back lighting.. That does not mean the real plane has that backlighting. All of that is caused by the photographer..

 

 

Lets let the pro's do their jobs. I know I hate it when people that have not done my job try to tell me how to do mine. I am sure these guys feel the same way.

I don't know about the rest of you guys but I fly from the cockpit, How often are you going to be watching the fan blades when they are facing the sun..

 

Nail on the head - well said!

 

Lets let the pro's do their jobs. I know I hate it when people that have not done my job try to tell me how to do mine. I am sure these guys feel the same way.

 

& again for good measure!

These guys have taken thousands of photos and have gotten up close with the plane before starting work on it. I am sure they have it right. You have to remember this is still FSX with a old light engine.

 

How is robert supposed to know what kind of stuff people are going to come up with? I can go on airliners.net right now and find pics of the NG with yellow backlighting, red backlighting and green back lighting.. That does not mean the real plane has that backlighting. All of that is caused by the photographer..

 

 

Lets let the pro's do their jobs. I know I hate it when people that have not done my job try to tell me how to do mine. I am sure these guys feel the same way.

 

I'll say it again, no one is telling PMDG how to do their job. But glad to know how you feel.

Nail on the head - well said!

 

 

 

& again for good measure!

 

Thanks.

 

I am not trying to beat up on people in here.. I am sure they are really excited for the plane, but I think they have to sit back and think that Jason and the rest of the crew worked really hard on this and put countless hours to create a wonderful exterior model on a game from 2006. I am sure it gets a little annoying when people nit pick it and compare it to pics taken from different angles.

 

I do not know the first thing about 3d modeling or making add-ons but I bet it's not easy to get this level of quality out of a old game platform.

 

A few times since the release of the NGX I went back and flew some other high end add-on's from the past ( Level-D 767, Maddog) and I could not believe how far modeling has come in the last few years. The difference is stunning and ruined those old favorites for me.

 

 

I'll say it again, no one is telling PMDG how to do their job. But glad to know how you feel.

 

 

Ok... I guess it's not telling them how to model planes, it's just telling them they picked the wrong colors. After looking at thousands of photos and the actual plane.

 

I don't think you or anybody else is bashing them, all I am saying is most of us in here don't model or paint planes for FSX and I bet none of us sent employees out to take thousands of photos of a 777 and I bet none of us had access to a 777. All I am saying is we need to realize what they are working with for a game platform and we all need to realize that pictures can be deceiving.