While aimlessly browsing the interwebs, I found what could have been the next great thing in flight simulation. Even in its earliest pre-alpha form, it was remarkably advanced in many of its features and capabilities. 

 

It is/was called "Project Rembrandt" and was made by some of the folks on the FlightGear team. It was a complete rebuild of their platform and featured most of the modern DX11 elements in their full form. Specular and fresnel lighting, depth of field, advanced shadowing, deferred rendering, etc. It even had advanced pilot hands that interacted with the instruments! All at amazing frame rates which could have been a true programming accomplishment. Sadly, it looks like late last year it was abandoned as the dev had to move on to other things. Still something nice to look at and hope that we will one day see. 

 

http://wiki.flightgear.org/Project_Rembrandt#Status_.2807.2F2014.29

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=620qpO6foe8

Looks interesting, but the problem with these projects as wonderful as they are, is that they are never comprehensive flightsim platforms. They are brilliant sandbox projects by talented individuals, but there is usually alot missing.  It is a pity indeed

 

 

It is/was called "Project Rembrandt

 

The video looked quite good..apart from the cartoon arms on the controls.

 

Actually FlightGear itself looks pretty good ...I never realised it can look this realistic (added explosion FX apart)......

 

 

The video looked quite good..apart from the cartoon arms on the controls.

 

Remember that it was in pre-alpha. So those animations would have surely been fine tuned. That animation was part of a very early build video. 

http://wiki.flightge....2807.2F2014.29 refers to OpenGL not DirectX (DX11) surely?

http://wiki.flightge....2807.2F2014.29 refers to OpenGL not DirectX (DX11) surely?

 

Correct, I never said that it was DX11. I said that it featured most of the modern DX11 elements, referring to the rendering capabilities.