Personally I think vector data is the past and photoscenery as it becomes more comprehensive is the future.

 

Reminds me of the late 1990's when I was a beta tester for a rw moving map company. At the time their display was vector graphics and their improvements was more and more vector data which of course always bogged the machine down more and more. A program called ozieexplorer came out which allowed you to scan rw aviation charts, "calibrate" them, and then use them to aviate with. I was even able to do approach charts. At the time the comments from users, and even the company were that vector charts were superior-clearer to read, much more flexible etc. -that is till the competition started taking the other approach. 12years later now just about every pilot has an iPad with a choice of about 12 different programs that display vfr, ifr,WAC, high altitude, and approach plates- all georeferenced. Displays of weather, terrain can be displayed on the live charts-the latest version of wingx x even highlights nearby runways on approach charts with warning colors.The vector chart while still largely used in cockpit displays has largely gone the way of the dinosaur.

 

I have always preferred a real world vs. a computer generated fake one. Aerofly used this approach with photorealistic Switzerland with the addition of some nice looking autogen buildings near the airports and trees thru out the scenery when below the tree line. Could there be more autogen-sure! My fantasy is that soon there will be a way to auto generate buildings, trees on photoscenery where they actually should be. Google cities already populates most of the worlds major cities with accurate buildings in their correct places.

 

In the area of the world I live now (the mountain west of the US) there simply is no way vector scenery could ever come close to the subtle colors and terrain.

 

Just as the the real charts replaces the vector in the 1990's lots will be reluctant to switch to a newer technology until its merits become overwhelming, but I believe it will happen and that if this is Aerofly's approach it is the future.

 

What I see in this software is a brilliant programmer who has looked at all flight sims, taken the ideas that work, and improve them. From the easy logical menus, to the automatic joystick setup, to the amazing graphics in both the scenery and cockpits, to the blowing flags etc.-I feel confident that this will be the future sim to watch.

 

The biggest one IMHO is opening it up to third party developers. Then the sim should be able to be custiomized by third party to be exactly the sim the end user wants-the main reason IMHO FS has been king for so mant years. There might even be a vector scenery add on. :lol

Hi geof, like you i'm a photoscenery fan, i fly it in other sims 98% of the time. Reality is hard to beat - once you get over the superficial very-low level prettiness of landclass, it starts to look very fake, particularly at real flying altitudes.

 

A lot of the negatives for photoscenery - too much hdd for large areas, too blurry with jets - are now concepts of the past.

 

I want aerofly to keep the photoscenery, but add more hand or auto-placed objects at the airports and on the approaches. I can live without it in the cities for now - you normally fly over these nice and high anyway.

 

A decent tool to crowdsource object placement would be the best way of a future sim achieving adequate coverage - short of an automated method. FS treescapes managed automation for UK trees, so a similar process should be possible for aerofly.

 

you normally fly over these nice and high anyway.

I much prefer the low and slow route. I want to look out the window and actually hand fly the aircraft. That is why I like MS Flight so much and still go there every day. But I do hold out high hopes for future development in aeroflyFS and fly it also.

The problem with the aeroflyFS scenery is the fixed day of time; if you try to change it, the shadows will remain in there. I feel that Switzerland is enough until they manage to do this. After that shall they start creating more scenery. Also, they should add seasons if possible.

Needs a lot of work from what i can see (a lot more 3d objects etc) and then the scenery looks very sound indeed.

Bought the AeroflyFS iPad app for £4.99 yesterday (£5 for some software, incredible price, how on earth do devs make money)

 

Wow thanks for the heads up on this, didn't realise they had an iPad app out. Downloading now.

 

I had this for Mac from the Apple Store, but I couldn't get my joystick to work, so hard to resort to the keyboard which put me off. The graphics though I thought were really nice, and it felt more real than FSX. i.e. It gave more of a sensation of flying that did FSX or X-Plane.

 

I think that vector data, when used correctly can look quite good, but it doesn't beat photoscenery with autogen. The default x-plane 10 scenery, although it's improved a lot in the latest beta, still looks a bit false and repeating, and doesn't work too well outside of the US. I found the scenery in Aerofly FS really well done, and it was nice doing a VFR flight by just looking out the window and using a map rather than telling the FMC to do it :-)

I much prefer the low and slow route. I want to look out the window and actually hand fly the aircraft. That is why I like MS Flight so much and still go there every day. But I do hold out high hopes for future development in aeroflyFS and fly it also.

 

Well, with good photoscenery out the window looks fine above 1000 feet - ga cruise levels for low and slow are great. You just notice it is too flat on takeoff,lamdimg and at the airport. The orbx stuff, for example, puts details in the towns that you'll never see unless you're walking or maybe flying a rotary wing. I'd prefer them to comcentrate on the airside of the airports and then give me some realistic trees and buildings for 5-10 miles on the runwayn approaches.

 

I never loved looking out the window of ms flight - with lamdclass the textures never match the contours properly, so it just doesn't look like the real world does.

I was really glad to see this!

This is excellent news!

Prepar3D will fail also because it`s the same engine

 

And how is it failing? They've done nothing but fix bugs with the internal workings and performance so far, allowing for the V2 update to bring a major overhaul of the graphics engine. The sim is getting full support and consistently timed updates. I'd say its anything but failing. The FSX engine is one of the most capable world simulators ever made. 20 years of development back it. All it needs is some time and it will really shine under the Prepar3D name with V2.

And how is it failing? They've done nothing but fix bugs with the internal workings and performance so far, allowing for the V2 update to bring a major overhaul of the graphics engine. The sim is getting full support and consistently timed updates. I'd say its anything but failing. The FSX engine is one of the most capable world simulators ever made. 20 years of development back it. All it needs is some time and it will really shine under the Prepar3D name with V2.

 

Prepar3D will fail because they keep saying "not for entertainment, training only". aeroflyFS will succeed because it's targeting the simmers.

And how is it failing? They've done nothing but fix bugs with the internal workings and performance so far, allowing for the V2 update to bring a major overhaul of the graphics engine. The sim is getting full support and consistently timed updates. I'd say its anything but failing. The FSX engine is one of the most capable world simulators ever made. 20 years of development back it. All it needs is some time and it will really shine under the Prepar3D name with V2.

 

Years ago,i think it was when FSX was stopped and most of the team (ACES) was fired, a member of the team explained the difficulties:

During development of FSX they felt the limits of this old engine. What you see now in FSX with all Add-On`s is rather the maximum it can do.

They proposed to develop a new engine from scratch to conquer this limits but the bosses at MS refused because building a new engine was too expensive.

 

So they were told to recode the old engine and the result was ESP 2 respectively sold as Prepar3d and MS Flight.

Hence the recoding it may last a bit longer, but what we all really need is that what FSX can or could do with an up-to-date engine that allows even more.

 

Edit: Personal comment-

Yes it is developed since 20 years, and the engine is nearly the same age. That`s why i think it will fail.

MS does the same with Windows. Since 95 it`s just an update of an update. Since XP they`re telling they will build a brand new OS, but they just do Updated again. Just read news about Win9 being and update from Win8. Same procedure.

The engine in Microsoft Flight is a reworked FSX engine, and you can see how much better it is; great performance and graphics, and an old developer from the Flight team said that Flight's engine could have made FSX look like a toy.

 

I believe that Lockheed Martin can truly improve the ESP, but they've got to support entertainment to succeed.

Great performance and graphics... and why? Because you don`t have AI, predefined weather themes,no cokpit, less functioniality limited areas...

It was cutted to minimums to perform well.

Great performance and graphics... and why? Because you don`t have AI, predefined weather themes, limited areas...

It was cutted to minimums to perform well.

 

The same weather settings, location, and AI turned off will still not get you better performance than Flight. The engine itself is optimized very well. Being limited to a location does not affect performance. FSX only loads details of an area that you are near...same with Flight. Flight has denser autogen, higher resolution textures, and higher poly scenery objects.

Great performance and graphics... and why? Because you don`t have AI, predefined weather themes,no cokpit, less functioniality limited areas...

It was cutted to minimums to perform well.

 

Turn off all AI and weather in FSX. You're not going to get as good performance, even though FSX lacks all those scenery/aircraft shadows (and the scenery in FSX is not as good as Flight).