2014/10/26 - Project announcement - 777 Immersion

[Keven Menard 658]

Hi folks,

 

Time to reveal our next project!

 

Since we are actively working on the project, the following medias are labeled "work in progress" and some effects may change until the product is release.

 

Over the past years, we saw lots of great things happen in the Flight Simulator community. Some amazing add-ons of various complexity only a few clicks away from your simulator. Currently, products on the market are focused on four very specific areas: sceneries, weather, aircrafts and texture packs. Because of technology advancements and new computer hardwares available, we feel visual effects is an emerging category of products no one has successfully touched yet. A neglected aspect of Flight Simulator has always been visual effects around the aircraft and around sceneries. They are so important, yet no one successfully got them right on at a significant scale. Aircraft developers are focusing on systems and visual models, but not on visual effects, so we asked ourselves how we could enhance this. 

 

We began listing effects that would be great on the Flight Simulator X and Prepar3D platforms. We ended up with an astonishing list of them. We did some research and rapidly, we found that every aircrafts has its own details and effects. We went as far as comparing things like wingtip vortices sizes and contrail shapes. We decided those effects packages had to be aircraft-specific.

 

 

Our decision to start with PMDG's 777 is quite obvious. We wanted powerful engines capable of producing the kind of effects we all dreamed about. We also wanted wings with enough lift to produce intense condensation clouds and big enough to create vortices upon rotation. Every effect in the 777 Immersion Package is precisely calibrated to work in harmony with PMDG's Boeing 777-200LR and 300ER under custom sets of weather conditions, making it as real as it gets. We have been posting pictures and videos on our Facebook page for a few weeks now and the reaction is incredible.

 

Here’s a summarized list of the effects included in the package:

 

1. Rain dropping from the wings
2. Engine blast on wet or snowy pavements (with reversers also)
3. Custom contrails (also at ground level when it’s freaking cold and air saturated)
4. Engine startup smoke when it’s freaking cold
5. Wingtips, flaps and engine winglets vortices when the air is saturated
6. Volumetric lighting for landing lights, strobes, runway turnoffs, taxi lights and logo lights (some of which fade-in and fade-out like the real thing)
7. Brake dust when retracting the gear
8. Wing condensation when the air is saturated
9. Engine condensation when the air is saturated
10. Engines are sucking water and snow from the ground
11. Custom touchdown effect
12. Custom wheels spray on wet and snow pavement.

 

You can see a preview of most of them on Facebook or on the website.

Let us know if you have any questions on any of them.

Windshield rain effects? Read below.

 

 

Now, there are 3 questions we get asked all the time:

 

Will you do windshield rain effects?

Because of the INSANE amount of times I get asked this, it gets answered once and for all… Windshield rain effects can be made possible by the aircraft developer and nobody else. While it is possible for us to get “something that looks like” windshield rain effects on an aircraft-specific level, it is really glitchy, doesn't take wipers into account and really isn't up to our quality standards at FSFX Packages. The reasons why developers are not applying this effect to their aircrafts may vary. The "it lowers performance, that's why developers don't do it" argument we often hear about is not really true anymore when we look at today's hardware and considering the platform is more than 8 years old. Instead, we have to look at FSX and P3D limitations here. There is a limit to how many polygons and animations you can use to create an aircraft's cockpit on the platform, so a bit of visuals and/or functionalities would have to be left aside to make the effect work. Windshield rain effects in FSX are backward compatible from FS2004, but a feature used to make VC rain effects work has been removed from the FSX Software Development Kit. We assume Microsoft did this because of performance issues back in the days. So to have VC Rain effects, the developer would have to compile the aircraft for FS2004 instead of FSX, and that creates a ton of other problems. Creating the effect from scratch by the developer is another option. It is possible if they have enough polygons and animations available in their 3D model which isn't the case on most airliners we fly these days. It's a hard decision for developers to do, the platform isn't helping much right now. Lockheed, we have an eye on you for this!

 

What is the release date?

Expect 777 Immersion to release before the end of 2014 for the FSX version.

Prepar3D support will come in the future. We can’t tell you any timeframes for now since it depends on external forces (like waiting for the actual aircraft to release). We will enhance every effects to use DirectX11 at it’s full potential. Contrails will be longer and everything will look more real and defined.

 

Pricing?

We do not have a price to announce yet but a sure thing is that PrecipitFX owners will get a discount on 777 Immersion and vice-versa.

 

I hope this covers everything!

Stay tuned for more.

 

 

Keven

[SanderH 0]

Fantastic news guys! Looking forward to this, will be very good on my T7

[PCPilot85 0]

Gooood Job! What kind of preset you use for tje pics? Sweetfx? Enb?

[Yosm 19]

What is the FPS hit like? What are the average FPS at airports and in the air like?

[RudiJG1 172]

And are your lights and related effects DX10-compatible?

 

Looking forward to these, thanks!

[WotanUK 289]

Looks cool, but i would question the decision to start with the PMDG 777.  It's a magnificent aircraft no doubt, but it's balanced on a knife edge in terms of VAS use already. 

[Keven Menard 658]

Gooood Job! What kind of preset you use for tje pics? Sweetfx? Enb?

 

My sim is used without any SweetFX/ENB. I crop them, play with contrast a bit and add gradients in Lightroom to focus the eye on the effects and that's it!

 

 

What is the FPS hit like? What are the average FPS at airports and in the air like?

 

FPS varies a lot depending on the pilot's hardware. We developed every effect with performance in mind. Some will require more performance than other. Final tests will be conducted in a few days from now. Will will make another post about that including many answers to questions posted here.

 

 

And are your lights and related effects DX10-compatible?

 

Looking forward to these, thanks!

 

All effects are compatible, and even more beautiful, with DX10 when converted with SteveFX's Scenery Fixer. 

 

 

Looks cool, but i would question the decision to start with the PMDG 777.  It's a magnificent aircraft no doubt, but it's balanced on a knife edge in terms of VAS use already. 

 

VAS is indeed a big concern for many of us. We estimate a near-zero effect on VAS since most effects aren't displayed at the same time and that they use some of FSX's default textures. Test on VAS use will be conducted in the coming days and we will report back in a coming post.

[hp2456 0]

Question in regards to contrails. Will your program create LONG contrails? Seems like FSX limits how long the contrail is, where in real life, you see some contrails for a few short miles in length, then there are some that stretch the entire length of the sky!! Just curious if the 777 will create that effect depending on weather and temp.

Example, when I do a ground view (nearest airport) the contrail is short. It would be awesome to see a contrail from one horizon to the next (weather/temp pending).

Thanks guys! Regardless, what you've done so far is AMAZING! Can't wait till the release!

 

- Matt

[xafa7480 0]

thank you for the answers so the effects of rain in the cockpit can not be realized by the developers. Is there PMDG thought because as you say the pc today are powerful enough to suporter that.

 

Xavier

I think that there is a lot of money to gain by creating rain effects in the cockpit due to the amount of simmers who request it !! regards

[WotanUK 289]

thank you for the answers so the effects of rain in the cockpit can not be realized by the developers. Is there PMDG thought because as you say the pc today are powerful enough to suporter that.

 

Xavier

 

It's not about the PC power, it's the maximum number of animations the FSX engine can support for the aircraft.  Don't forget FSX is 8 years old

[iceidic 0]

From the first time I heard of you guys I was astonished, especially because of the things you do. Now this is some stuff that will definitely be bought by me. I can only imagine that this will enhance my sim a lot. The only thing depressing about this, is the fact that we are in the flight deck most of the time, and won't always be able to see the immersion etc. but I guess that makes for more outside views! 

 

Great work guys!

[JalioHC 3]

Will be a definite purchase!

[Keven Menard 658]

From the first time I heard of you guys I was astonished, especially because of the things you do. Now this is some stuff that will definitely be bought by me. I can only imagine that this will enhance my sim a lot. The only thing depressing about this, is the fact that we are in the flight deck most of the time, and won't always be able to see the immersion etc. but I guess that makes for more outside views! 

 

Great work guys!

 

Being a cockpit flyer myself, I can understand what you mean by that.

There are a many areas in Flight Sim that needs to be taken care of, so we have great plans for cockpit flyers.  

[KTFO 16]

Will landing lights illuminate clouds?

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

Looks AWESOME Keven - great work - cant wait to be using this in the future

 

Regards