Discussion Thread for the "Ask Dovetail Games..." Thread!

[n4gix 4,947]

Yet you would be content to force everyone to appreciate your "idea of reality?" :wink:

[SamYeager 244]

Personally I'm just wishing for clouds that don't look as though the bottoms have been chopped off. That really does look unrealistic.

[tf51d 284]

Not going to do much about it with Flight School, it is what it is, some will like it, some will not. When DFS comes along though I'm sure our friends at REX and Hi-Fi will be there to give us more choices.

[sightseer 895]

The clouds in a few of the preview shots look much like REX clouds to me. No one at DTG or REX seems to be saying so though so who knows. The only thing for certain is that there are more than one set of clouds being used in the preview shots.

 

 

and Mr. Bill - No. Im not writing the sims. I am simply trying to create skies and clouds that look good. I don't force anything upon anyone.

[AAN1718A 20]

We'll have to wait until May to find out

[Heimi 91]

Thank you Martin for these open words: http://www.avsim.com/topic/483642-ask-dovetail-games-about-dtg-flight-school-flight-simulator/page-24#entry3410690

 

I`m really glad that you hear the voices of the players.

Developers that do this mostly delivery a very good piece of software.

Last time i participated in the DiRT Rally Early Acces from your colleagues at Codemasters. They did the same and now delivered the best (Rally-) Racing Simulator up to date.

I`m looking forward to experience the same with you and DTGFS.

[dtrjones 356]

Are we seeing the same image? It looks to be the Fair weather theme. visibility is good. you can see what i believe to be high cirrus and there are fair weather cumulus that arent very tall and coverage is probably 3/8ths.

 

pressure is probably high and since the air is clear there should be strong orange-red sunlight on the plane and clouds. The cloud shadows (the shadowed parts of the clouds) should be blue/blue-purple and the sky should be some form of blue. Things shouldnt go greyscale until after all light is leaving the sky well after the sun goes down...especially in those condtions.

 

During thunderstorms at sunset it is true that the low foglike clouds that appear yellowish brown during the day will appear blackish as the light is blocked from them but the towering cumulus will still have color and sometimes dramatic color. and the sky is still usually a blue or blue green (from what Ive seen).

 

The sky just doesnt lose color until the light goes away. even washed out as it gets, its still usually a blue.

 

ya know - I can handle 'artistry' - thats fine but one persons idea of reality shouldnt preclude anothers and I hope it will be possible to have colorful sunsets with the new DTG flightsim (and FlightSchool).

 

I appreciate your insight Dave. You know more about this stuff than I do! Colours are important to me, however I'm also looking at the capabilities of the engine and the overall feel of the simulator these screenshots plus the one at altitude which is on the dovetail flight school page show an incredible improvement over stock FSX, which proves to me that Dovetail are definately on track and the full simulator judging by what we're seeing here will be something to behold.

 

Incidentally my first impression of the second screenshot was well it looked like an atmospheric shot from Microsoft Flight, which is no bad achievement and secondly I did think it was overcast, sort of like before a thunderstorm, but I guess DTG are still working on the effects so we'll see what happens.

 

Cheers,

Dave.

[TLight 20]

sightseer -

ya know - I can handle 'artistry' - thats fine but one persons idea of reality shouldnt preclude anothers and I hope it will be possible to have colorful sunsets with the new DTG flightsim (and FlightSchool).

 

I didn't explain myself well enough.

My comments relate to the problems with the original images posted by DTG relating to Purple and neon blue skies. What I liked about the second image was the lack of those colours.

 

I'm not allergic to realistic saturated hues, I like blue skies and tobacco sunsets as much as the next man, they just need to reflect the natural sky palette.

 

All this is mute now though, As Martin stated they're spending the next few weeks reworking them. :smile:

 

Edit - just found this on YouTube. Athough there's post work on this and much of it is oversaturated, the natural colour palette shines through. If DTG could get anything like this (I'm thinking colour gradients rather than a reworking of the weather engine here) it would be fantastic.The natural gradients between azimuth and horizon are really imprtant for conveying realism, as are the differences in cloud colour to sky/atmospheric colour.

 

[tf51d 284]

I'm waiting for a fiery red sunrise/sunset , something that I have yet to see done in any sim!!

[Paraffin 2,197]

I'm waiting for a fiery red sunrise/sunset , something that I have yet to see done in any sim!!

 

It's tough to do in a flight sim because we also want realistic cloud appearance and behavior close to the aircraft, where we're flying. That means we don't get clouds all the way out to the earth-curvature horizon that can be lit up like you see in reality (or that hyper-saturated video above). It would kill the frame rate.

 

Still, I think X-Plane does a decent job on the sky colors and gradients, if not the clouds. Compare the two shots below from X-Plane with the colors in that 3rd Planet video above, where most sunsets are actually more orange than red, and the fade to red/purple after sunset:

 

http://www.ptjams.com/mb/img/planes/Bell412-Seattle-Sunset-01.jpg

 

http://www.ptjams.com/mb/img/planes/Bell412-Seattle-Sunset-02.jpg

 

It's not completely realistic... a little too pink but not bad (IMO). And then look at the odd sunset color and lack of vertical hue gradient in one of DTG Flight School screen shots currently on the Steam page below: 

 

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/441920/ss_29961941237edd67265a5ecc209ea49674f8e2d8.1920x1080.jpg?t=1461258727

 

I hope this is one of the things they're working on with the delayed release (and later DTG Flight Sim):

[turner112 52]

Though I don't know if it's the case here (and I doubt it), the setting sun can reflect off a huge area of land and color the sky, e.g. the desert floor; if there's a huge amount of color (in this case, yellow-tan) reflecting up into the atmosphere, I suppose it could look that way, though considering the sun is line-of-sight to the aircraft, there's some explaining to do for those dark clouds...

[Murmur 3,941]

It's tough to do in a flight sim because we also want realistic cloud appearance and behavior close to the aircraft, where we're flying. That means we don't get clouds all the way out to the earth-curvature horizon that can be lit up like you see in reality (or that hyper-saturated video above). It would kill the frame rate.

 

Still, I think X-Plane does a decent job on the sky colors and gradients, if not the clouds. Compare the two shots below from X-Plane with the colors in that 3rd Planet video above, where most sunsets are actually more orange than red, and the fade to red/purple after sunset:

 

It's not completely realistic... a little too pink but not bad (IMO). And then look at the odd sunset color and lack of vertical hue gradient in one of DTG Flight School screen shots currently on the Steam page below:

 

Honestly, I've always found the X-Plane depiction of sunset/sunrises very poor. Cloud colors look totally off as well, both in default X-Plane or with SkyMaxxPro. However it's all a matter of art assets that need to be modified by some skilled artist.

 

The best sunrise/sunset atmosphere I've seen in a flight simulator, is in FSX using add-ons (REX, etc.). I think it's even better than P3D, that IMO has made a backward step in the depiction of sunrises/sunsets.

 

EDIT: Here's a couple of shots using modified skycolors and datarefs (default clouds):

 

 

[TLight 20]

New video up, landing the cub...

Apologies, it's unlisted. Sorry, saw that on second viewing.

I'm guessing it's because they're changing things and this would reflect their older tech.

 

I received the link via email so if you don't have it then you need to subscribe to their website. :smile:

[HiFlyer 9,360]

Honestly, I've always found the X-Plane depiction of sunset/sunrises very poor. Cloud colors look totally off as well, both in default X-Plane or with SkyMaxxPro. However it's all a matter of art assets that need to be modified by some skilled artist.

 

The best sunrise/sunset atmosphere I've seen in a flight simulator, is in FSX using add-ons (REX, etc.). I think it's even better than P3D, that IMO has made a backward step in the depiction of sunrises/sunsets.

 

EDIT: Here's a couple of shots using modified skycolors and datarefs (default clouds):

 

 

Throws in some random Outerra's (no modifications)

 

 

New video up, landing the cub...

Apologies, it's unlisted. Sorry, saw that on second viewing.

 

I received the link via email so if you don't have it then subscribe to their website. :smile:

 

I'll be interested to see what others think.

[Wobbie 938]

Is this really revelant to any Dovetail discussion? Seeing that Rex, Outerra & X-Plane pics are quite irrelevant to what Dovetail will give us? Great to compare random sunsets, but ????