Crash Modelling......

[WebMaximus 372]

Regarding the damage modelling I'll keep my fingers crossed you will at least consider making more of it compared to what we have today because I always felt it feels odd that regardless how you handle your aircraft nothing bad will happen unless you actually slam the aircraft into the ground when the sim will just pause and you get a crash message with the aircraft fully intact.

 

That to me always felt very unrealistic.

[jcomm 5,930]

The more I read about DTG upcoming Flight School and Flight Simulator, the more I get positive about it :-)

 

Maybe I will, again, be able to feel the joy it was when MS FLIGHT was still available and supported by MS ( notice the "and" )...

 

I'll be a first day buyer of Flight School for sure !

[sightseer 895]

Martin - Hi.  thanks for creating this thread.

 

It seems to me that a flight sim should present to a pilot three main settings:

first - on the ground outside the aircraft before a flight.

second - on the ground inside the cockpit

third - in the air inside the cockpit.

 

The second and third areas are both more important than the first (to me) but the third is the whole reason for flying in the first place and so its most important.  With that said, I am hoping that there is a dedicated art lead whose job it is to pay great attention to the sky and how things look from different altitudes under different weather conditions (not forgetting smog effects which appear to behave differently than water vapor -- water vapor is more cloudlike with self shadowing and reflection while smog just tends to dull things out and produce reddish tones).

 

I am worried that the great variety and appearance of all the varied weather conditions may get overlooked and it is really important to keep everything from inside the cockpit looking really good and enjoyable.  Whether it be a clear sunny day with distant towering cumulus or flying underneath some dark low stratus or flying near a thunderstorm with clear sky around but severely decreased localised visibility and rainshafts under the storm...it should all look good.  Im hoping you guys pull it off and I hope your art lead takes note of why it is that clouds look the way they do under the different circumstances.

 

This isnt really a question - I guess youve noticed.  Please keep in mind "dynamic, good looking and enjoyable"  The living world sounds great.  the sky is alive.  To me, 'how it looks (and feels) from the air' is the lions share of flightsim.

[hairyspin 4]

Thanks for this thread Martin, it's good to get something from the horse's mouth. :smile:

 

One of the big reasons FS has lasted so long is that it was made open to 3rd party developers. FSX started badly in this department by only supporting 3ds Max – really expensive – but saved themselves by adding Gmax support to the SDK. MS Flight then went a step worse by using Granny3D – hideously expensive!

 

I hope DTG will support a low-cost or freeware 3d modelling tool. Many of today's developers started that way and if you want DTG FS to be for the long term you'll need new developers learning the craft: they need an inexpensive way in, regardless of what DTG's preferred modelling tool might be. We know a Gmax gamepack is not going to happen – Autodesk nailed that door shut a long time ago, and with very big nails – but I hope you have good news for us there in time.

 

 

Regarding realistic crash damage, iirc that was removed from FSX due to sensitivities after 9/11.

[Christopher Low 5,353]

 

At present there are no plans to offer any backward compatibility for any type of add-ons Stuart.

 

Am I reading that correctly? :huh:

[Paraffin 2,197]

 

Regarding realistic crash damage, iirc that was removed from FSX due to sensitivities after 9/11.

 

I remember that, and the controversy around it. It took some of the fun out of zooming through urban canyons in a helicopter because there was no risk, but it made sense at the time.

 

DTG could still do what X-Plane does, which is have buildings with no crash detection (eliminating 9/11 "training" issues), but have at least a bit more feedback on hard contact with runways and terrain, instead of simply stopping the sim with a crash message.

 

If you intentionally fly hard into a runway or the ground in X-Plane, the plane will bounce, or skid, or possibly flip over and then come to rest. It won't show any structural damage, but the engines will be inoperative and smoking. The smoke is basically how you know you screwed up, although there should (ideally) be more intermediate damage conditions than blown engines.

[Guest]

Am I reading that correctly? :huh:

Yes. And why does that surprise you...? The sim will be 64 bit so this was to be expected...

[Christopher Low 5,353]

I was under the impression that some scenery packages would not need to be recompiled to 64bit, since they do not have executable files. Not that it matters to me. It was only an observation. As for crash damage, I am not aware that MSFS has ever included that. Flight Unlimited 2 and 3 did though. One more item to add to the "Looking Glass did it better than Microsoft" list.

[Flying Penguin 44]

I was under the impression that some scenery packages would not need to be recompiled to 64bit, since they do not have executable files. Not that it matters to me. It was only an observation.

 

I read that more as "we aren't testing for it or constraining the design by the need to maintain it" rather than "we know for a fact that it won't work".

[Paraffin 2,197]

I just don't see how anyone would want or need a plane crash simulator. Basic mishandling physics and maybe some visual at most should suffice, because anything past that and the only thing to see is heaven.

 

Right, I'm not looking for a full crash simulator. Just a little more feedback for help in training and self-improvement between the two states of "perfect landing" and "crash" which is all we get now. 

 

I do most of my flying in the FSEconomy game, and a lot of it is into small airstrips where I've never been before. I can grease it in most of the time, but occasionally I know I'm doing some kind of cowboy landing maneuver that's too sloppy, and that I wouldn't get away with in real life. The sim isn't helping me self-correct when it can't show me minor, light damage on hard landings.

[HiFlyer 9,359]

I've never understood this whole damage modeling thing. When people talk about "arcade" flying vs "simulation" especially in GA/Commercial flying, damage modeling leans more towards the "arcade" side of things. Sure, blown engines are helpful, but we don't need wings falling off or visible damage to control surfaces. In real life, people become pilots without having never seen these incidents, and if half of them were to happen, it would likely end in catastrophic loss of the aircraft. I just don't see how anyone would want or need a plane crash simulator. Basic mishandling physics and maybe some visual at most should suffice, because anything past that and the only thing to see is heaven.

 

Well that's easy to fix. Just have crash damage be selectable by the user. That way everyone has a choice.

[WebMaximus 372]

Hopefully none of us in here would enjoy crashing things be it aircraft or other kind of structures. I don't suggest in any way we would like some kind of crash simulator and I'm definitely not asking for crash modeling of buildings etc. Only that it would be a step in the direction of realism IMO to have at least some kind of visual cue/consequence when you screw up during a bad landing for example.

 

For those interested in destroying or blowing things up there are lots of other titles.

[HiFlyer 9,359]

Hopefully none of us in here would enjoy crashing things be it aircraft or other kind of structures. I don't suggest in any way we would like some kind of crash simulator and I'm definitely not asking for crash modeling of buildings etc. Only that it would be a step in the direction of realism IMO to have at least some kind of visual cue/consequence when you screw up during a bad landing for example.

 

For those interested in destroying or blowing things up there are lots of other titles.

 

That sounds very much like 'my way or the highway'. I much prefer 'to each his own'.

 

There is a subtle innuendo there that crash damage is somehow 'wrong'

 

I can see making that judgement for oneself (flick crash damage off)

 

Less so do I see a reason to curtail others choices.

 

I don't really like kung fu movies, for instance. Should they be banned?

 

Some scientists say its very likely our whole universe is a simulation. If so, the designers included crash damage! 

[TheDanger 182]

Can't see if this has been asked already -

 

FSUIPC by Pete D - Is this being implemented into the new sim or will there be a similar facility developed by DTG therefore making FSUIPC redundant?

[Flying Penguin 44]

That sounds very much like 'my way or the highway'. I much prefer 'to each his own'.

 

There is a subtle innuendo there that crash damage is somehow 'wrong'

 

I can see making that judgement for oneself (flick crash damage off)

 

Less so do I see a reason to curtail others choices.

 

I don't really like kung fu movies, for instance. Should they be banned?

 

Then why draw the line at aircraft damage?  See what the impact of the plane on the world would be.  Kind of BeamNG with wings.

 

It's as much a question of prioritisation of development budget and processing power.  If you spend either on detailed crash physics and graphics, what is less/not developed to allow for this?