bonchie -

Do we know that? 

I asked about shadows and got a non-committed answer.

 

 

My question to Martin (edited) - Main thread, week before last -

Will Flight School have cockpit shadows?

 

 

Martins response (5th April)

There are indeed shadows in the cockpit.

 

 

So there we are, the official statement.

 

I'd like to know if the version they're running at the London show is updated with them or it's the same demo from the previous week.

Would be nice to know if they're sharp edged or soft.

 

[edit] - Saying that, and I'm really floating arguments in fairy city here, maybe the demo's showing cloudy weather and the rendering engine softens/ cuts out shadows under cloud. Wouldn't that be great at this early stage of development?

Or...

They haven't added the shadows yet.

Whilst I am aware that DTG Flight School is being sold at a bargain price, and is aimed at teaching interested newcomers the basics of flight and navigation with interactive tutorials, I have to say that the main DTG Flight Simulator needs to have considerably better graphics than that. What I can see in the video looks like default FSX or P3D. To be honest, I am not even seeing this "new water" that some of you have mentioned. It looks just like the old water to me. Yes, we can all talk about accuracy of the flight models and fancy light scattering, but graphics like that are not going to convince a large percentage of current FSX or P3D owners to "upgrade".

 

Sorry to be blunt, but that's how I feel.

Not sure if you are referencing a full world simulation when you say "earth" , but even the basic DTG flight school does deliver this. The only thing limited in it will the the sdk and 3rd party addons

 

Oops sorry, bad choice of words 

When I said "expecting the earth" I meant "expecting everything that people don't like about FSX to be fixed in the first release" rather than expecting to have the whole world modelled.

 

Also OrbX apparently hope to sell add-on scenery for the full simulator.

So if the base scenery in the scenery looked better than people have now then there would perhaps be no point in buying add-on scenery.

Yesterday, I tried out Flight School on EGX. I actually enjoyed it.

When I tried it out, it took me two attempts for the mission (I as flying too slow on the first attempt because I had a hard time using the Xbox One controller to fly the plane). The second time, I managed to land successfully at EGLM.

Yesterday, I tried out Flight School on EGX. I actually enjoyed it.

When I tried it out, it took me two attempts for the mission (I as flying too slow on the first attempt because I had a hard time using the Xbox One controller to fly the plane). The second time, I managed to land successfully at EGLM.

 

Thank you for your report.

Can you tell us more about smoothness and stability? Did you notice any stuttering, popping, slow mesh loading and similar? Honestly, I am not so much interested in graphics at this stage, I would really like to know, however, whether you had the impression to be on FSX or anything familiar or not.

Thank you for your report.

Can you tell us more about smoothness and stability? Did you notice any stuttering, popping, slow mesh loading and similar? Honestly, I am not so much interested in graphics at this stage, I would really like to know, however, whether you had the impression to be on FSX or anything familiar or not.

It did look smooth and stable to me. I haven't noticed any stuttering. I didn't pay attention to poping and mesh loading so I couldn't tell you anything about it. I did ask about the settings since they looked a bit high (there's lots of autogen and there's road traffic). I was told it's not on max since it's still on beta. I also asked about the PC specs. The computer uses an i7 at 3.6GHz and either a GTX 960 or a 970 (more likely the 960 as far as I'm told). My impressions is that it does feel a bit like FSX since the engine is FSX based.

Yesterday, I tried out Flight School on EGX. I actually enjoyed it.

When I tried it out, it took me two attempts for the mission (I as flying too slow on the first attempt because I had a hard time using the Xbox One controller to fly the plane). The second time, I managed to land successfully at EGLM.

 

How could you enjoy it without cloud shadows?!?!? 

 

This is a good first report!

How could you enjoy it without cloud shadows?!?!? 

 

This is a good first report!

Maybe its because the mission is 11:40AM in clear weather that I enjoyed it without cloud shadows.

Some fresh shots of the Cherokee. I have to say that, given this is just a $15 sim, it looks good so far `out of the box`.

 

https://www.facebook.com/dtgflightschool/posts/614829575360559

Maybe its because the mission is 11:40AM in clear weather that I enjoyed it without cloud shadows.

 

I was just being playful. I personally dont think the target audience of Flight School would even notice the cloud shadows. What matters it the experience and introduction to Flight Simulation. 

 

Some fresh shots of the Cherokee. I have to say that, given this is just a $15 sim, it looks good so far `out of the box`.

 

https://www.facebook.com/dtgflightschool/posts/614829575360559

 

I dont care what anyone says, that Physical Based Rendering on that plane is incredible. If any of our current sims looked like that out of the box and had 64bit to boot, it would be hailed as the greatest thing since sliced bread. 

problem with dtg is that they love to lockup their products; flight school is not exception.

 

i would pay100 rather than 15  to have the possibility to build and add to it.

i will not buy any locked up or dlc dependant game

problem with dtg is that they love to lockup their products; flight school is not exception.

 

i would pay100 rather than 15  to have the possibility to build and add to it.

i will not buy any locked up or dlc dependant game

 

It has been repeated ad nauseam in several threads: DTG Flight Simulator will be open to third party addons. Not Flight School, though.

Train Simulator (Dovetail's other major product other than FSX) isn't locked down, its easy to add 3rd party add-ons either bought outside of Steam or downloaded as freeware.

You don't get the whole world with Train Simulator out of the box but train simulators are different to flight simulators.

My point is just that if we were looking for a precedent in Dovetail's existing products then it isn't for locking the product down.

 

Martin, Stephen and others at DTG have also hopefully read enough forums to know that 3rd party add-ons are a major reason why FSX is still going, why people still like it.

(this reason also applies to Train Simulator)

 

nb: The comment above applies to the full flight simulator; I understand that Flight School will be a standalone product with no other DLC available to buy or install from DTG or anyone else.  I quite like that actually in this case.

 

--

Thanks for the screen prints of the Cherokee, looking pretty good.

Glad to see it in a "G-" livery as well, was a little worried we'd only get the Super Cub over here.

 

--

 

Regarding cloud shadows:  I'm not the primary audience for Flight School but whether or not I use it for more than 10 hours in total won't depend on whether or not there are cloud shadows or wibbly water on the runways.

It will depend on whether the planes are flyable and feel realistic, on the scenery seeming both realistic and useful for navigation and on the experience as a whole being something that I enjoy.

 

Cloud shadows and standing water might add to that but not nearly as much as the plane models and scenery need to.

 

Some fresh shots of the Cherokee. I have to say that, given this is just a $15 sim, it looks good so far `out of the box`.

 

https://www.facebook.com/dtgflightschool/posts/614829575360559

 

 

Those pics really look good! I notice repeating high clouds in one of the shots. Never liked that in FSX, seeing repeating of the same clouds at the higher altitudes.

Those Cherokee screenshots still show weird purple clouds and cyan sky, as in the recent video. Ground looks pretty dark too.

 

Maybe it's still a beta version, but I'm starting to wonder if they aren't intentionally color-grading for "colorful" skies, like the way space games like to throw in bright colored nebulae as a background? It's weird because DTG Train Simulator screenshots all have nice blue skies and white clouds.