This is what our flight sims could look like

[compilot16]

I do a bit of game programming in my spare time and I was thinking-

From my own experience, if you wanted the whole of the world realistic and in that detail, then it probably wouldn't be finished in any of your life times. And even if it was possible to create it within your lifetimes then it would take a massive workforce starting now and working 24/7. It's just not possible.

[mgh]

I'd like to see how it displays a real city and a real airport rather than open country and fantasy buildings.

[simmerhead]

I'd like to see how it displays a real city and a real airport rather than open country and fantasy buildings.

 

http://unigine.com/products/unigine/success/ai3d/

[HansRoaming]

My error - I should have written new flight simulator

 

Next version of AeroflyFS?

 

DCS World is pretty fresh although from a long line of sims, however not sure that one could say that there will be no more new entrants to the market ever. Also is lack of evidence of a startup developing a new sim relevant to a discussion that talks about what sims could look like or what people would want in them.

 

http://unigine.com/p...e/success/ai3d/

 

Wow, that is stunning. Imagine flying over that lot!

[mgh]

http://unigine.com/p...e/success/ai3d/

 

Very impressive screenshots but I'd still like to see real time movement.

[HansRoaming]

Very impressive screenshots but I'd still like to see real time movement.

 

One quick google later......

 

[mgh]

Even more impressive but the difference in quality between that and the benchmark is so noticable that one wonders if the street scenes were rendered in real time - detailed moving human figuers and all?

[HansRoaming]

Even more impressive but the difference in quality between that and the benchmark is so noticable that one wonders if the street scenes were rendered in real time - detailed moving human figuers and all?

 

From clicking the about tab on YouTube:

 

"Ai3D Realtime simulation tools are based on "game technology". The viewer can walk, drive or fly anywhere in the scene, and control the sun, weather, options and layers, interactively."

[Guest John_Cillis]

Even more impressive but the difference in quality between that and the benchmark is so noticable that one wonders if the street scenes were rendered in real time - detailed moving human figuers and all?

 

Quite possibly they are rendered in real time. The "Tropics" demo has animated crabs on the beach. The Heaven demo has buildings, somewhat medieval in appearance, but they are there. And the Valley demo proves that thousands of animated objects can be modeled and rendered in real time. I don't see this engine being the foundation of a flight sim however, unless the area modeled is very small (such as the size found in the Valley demo). I just can't think of any pilot wanting rendering down to the level of blades of grass--most of us are in the air, not taxiing around the scenery. The Valley scenery doesn't impress that much if one is a thousand or so feet above it. Of these demos and Outerra, I think Outerra is better suited to flight but it needs far more detail (like accurate landclass) before I'd ever pay to fly an aircraft in it.

 

John

[HansRoaming]

I don't see this engine being the foundation of a flight sim however, unless the area modeled is very small (such as the size found in the Valley demo)

 

With:

 

 

Go beyond limits! No more boundaries for your imagination and no more loading screens. UNIGINE Engine allows for creation of worlds as big as you want them to be:

• Dynamic data streaming in the background
  
• Seamless interconnection of indoor and outdoor scenes
  
• Advanced LOD (level of detail) system
  
• Vast terrains with geomorphing and support of hardware tessellation
  
• Built-in pathfinding module
  
• Full-scene serialization, another unique feature of UNIGINE Engine, allows for quick saving and restoration of the state of every single object in the virtual world.
  

 

I'm not sure why size would be a constraint.

[Guest John_Cillis]

With:

 

 

 

I'm not sure why size would be a constraint.

 

I can't see anyone modeling the world to that extent--even modeling the world to the level of FSX or X-Plane is a monumental task. The other thing about this engine, if you observe what happens in the Valley demo, is that objects "pop" into view at a very low distance--a few hundred yards at most. Not workable for a sim where pilots expect their airports to appear in detail from a distance of 5, 10 miles or more. Or for pilots who want to see a Manhattan skyline in the distance while on approach into JFK, which is seen in MSFS and probably X-Plane.

 

What the engine is more suited towards is something like a train simulator. It knocks the graphics of the current train sims flat. Or a road simulator. Or imagine a sailing sim where you could sail in and out of coves and inlets. Such up close, detailed graphics work in such sims.

 

John

[SolRayz]

Yes looks amazing...as for youtube buffering , well thats another story.

[HiFlyer]

And again - we're dancing in circles and at this stage it would be best to agree to disagree. When I read loaded phrases like "precious real world paramaters" I know we have no common ground for doing much more than continuing in these circles. I read your "simmers don't want graphics" comments and simply shake my head, as the forums are FULL of hard-core simmers complaining about graphics limitations, expensive graphics cards that are underutilized, and tired of being constantly told to "turn the sliders down" if they want reasonable performance. Despite loads of add-ons, it's INEFFICIENT GRAPHICS that eat my CPU cycles - and THAT to get graphics that I agree are simply outdated. These gripes are echoed again and again in the forums.

 

That's not exactly what I was getting that, since I rarely see the world as that black and white. What I am commenting is on attitudes and driving forces, and my take is that no, in the list of things most important, graphics generally takes a back seat. You yourself commented on feeling the need to speak up to people who use phrase "eye-candy" in certain ways, and that is by no means an isolated event. At no time did I say graphics were not appreciated or considered important, simply that they do not seem as important overall in this community as technical veracity, and the facts on the ground; the state of graphics after all these years as opposed to the state of ever more intricate and detailed flight models and etc stands testimony to that primary focus.

 

If you're seriously suggesting that forum attitudes on a sim-focused site are driving market forces in gaming, well... no, not buying it. Not even a little. Sorry, some people are jerks, and others are just tactless pretty much everywhere, but more than that most focused forums are by nature insular and, well, focused. That's nothing new and absolutely not a market driver in the wide world. C'mon, newbies with an alternative view on a game get sliced and diced on gaming forums all the time too. And the market still goes where it goes.

 

Again, not exactly what I had in mind, but there is a grain of truth. The problem is of degree. There are so many entertainment forums, that nothing occurring on anything but a huge number of them simultaneously is likely to affect anything as large as the gaming market as a whole. Plus, there are huge advertising budgets to steer perceptions as well. In this hobby, however, people looking for help have a much smaller variety of venues to choose from, and those few venues, like Avsim itself, can have a very disproportionate affect on the impression one receives of this hobby.

 

But my focus is earlier than that. When I came back to simming, It was a surprise to me that the hobby was even still around. My last taste of simming had been on the Microprose, Electronics Arts and other forums when the desire for greater and greater technical sophistication first began to really overwhelm the capability and desire of the rest of the community to move to that level of detail. The eventual diaspora of the casuals, the subsequent financial downturns and the shutdown of the old franchises (the vast majority of the old users had left!) left a lingering memory of sims among former hobbyists as having become dry, technical, and time consuming to the point of boredom. They took that with them, and that meme exists to this day. Perception-wise, flight simming has become the internet equivalent of broccoli, and I don't see how anyone can think that does not affect the market. (and it came into existence at least partially on the forums)

 

Hmmmmmm.....

 

I guess I missed the last line of your post. Agreeing to disagree is fine too! :lol:

 

I do a bit of game programming in my spare time and I was thinking-

From my own experience, if you wanted the whole of the world realistic and in that detail, then it probably wouldn't be finished in any of your life times. And even if it was possible to create it within your lifetimes then it would take a massive workforce starting now and working 24/7. It's just not possible.

 

XPX came up with a creative solution to the problem, at least as far as cities......

 

And something like Outerra may have a solution to another part of the problem......... at least as far as countryside........

 

Then there are things like Unigine, that show the potentials for both weather and countryside..........

 

Its just finding somebody to make all those technologys work together someday that's the problem!!! :lol:

[SolRayz]

This is making my poor fsx look so sad...I guess we can only dream.

 

[HiFlyer]

This is making my poor fsx look so sad...I guess we can only dream.

 

 

Outerra is the only "Sim" that ever gave me vertigo! I dived off the top of that airport in the Himalayas, and my plane dropped out over this incredibly deep valley that made my stomach lurch. A first for me in any game.

 

I have a question though. In this constant search for hypothetical new flight sim engines, where are the discussions of already state of the art or at least pretty good engines like the one in Battle of Britain, or Wings of Prey or War Thunder? Or even Flight?

 

No chance of licensing?