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

[HiFlyer 9,363]

Wow. we are gonna micro-examine that poor sky right to death! Just Imagine when there is finally a plane to fly and comment on! (Shudder) 

 

Poor DTG!! 

[Paraffin 2,197]

Wow. we are gonna micro-examine that poor sky right to death! Just Imagine when there is finally a plane to fly and comment on! (Shudder) 

 

Poor DTG!! 

 

 

Well, the sky is what we'll spend a lot of time looking at, in this sim and the one that follows. Seems kind of important to me. People who play boating and sailing sims probably obsess over the color of the water.

:smile:

[HiFlyer 9,363]

Well, the sky is what we'll spend a lot of time looking at, in this sim and the one that follows. Seems kind of important to me. People who play boating and sailing sims probably obsess over the color of the water.

:smile:

 

Pfffttt! I'm saving myself for the really important stuff. I'm going to make sure the imaginary planes have the correct amount of rivets in the selected verisimilitude test areas. (penalty's for Incorrect rivet-counts will be severe, up to and including loud wet raspberry's!)  :Shame On You:   

[mibmab 6]

Well, the sky is what we'll spend a lot of time looking at, in this sim and the one that follows. Seems kind of important to me. People who play boating and sailing sims probably obsess over the color of the water.

:smile:

In MS Flight the sky and some of the the clouds occasionally looked a bit purple-ish as well, depending on time of the day and weather. Here is an example:

https://flic.kr/p/FAgnuh

And to be honest it did not bother me, as long as it does not turn into a surreal painting :smile: .

[TLight 20]

mibmab -

In MS Flight the sky and some of the the clouds occasionally looked a bit purple-ish as well

 

In the example shot you gave, those are cloud colours rather than sky colours, clouds certainly can turn pink, it's not too unrealistic.

 

I suspect what we're seeing in the latest video and the sample pictures is the old colour engine at work. They're between a rock and a hard place, we all want to see screen shots and videos but the sims currently being given a makeover and they don't have the new stuff ready to show.

 

I'm betting in the next two weeks or so we'll see the new colours and shadows.

[SamYeager 244]

Under promise and over deliver is what I'm hoping will happen. Over promise and under deliver is what I fear. Time will tell what actually happens.

[Wobbie 938]

It's great to know that our sim guru's here have come to the conclusion that sky colors are a major component in getting newbies to lean to fly correctly & is obviously a major drawcord for them to get Flight School. This conclusion, as seen in the many debates about shades of blue, or whatever, is obviously more important to them than flight models?

[TLight 20]

Wobbie :

This conclusion, as seen in the many debates about shades of blue, or whatever, is obviously more important to them than flight models?

 

We can see colours, we can't see flight models. :smile:

 

Edit : Aside from anything else, here's a quote from me, 24 hours ago, no-one replied...
 

Anyone have any thoughts on what Martin said the other day about changes in aircraft handling?

 

FSX aircraft settings could be tweaked by the Manufacturers to make something react more like a Cessna than a 737.

Do we think Dovetail will just tweak the settings or could we see some internal changes to the flight dynamics engine?

We know flight dynamics and realistc aircraft handling are due a major overhaul in the main sim, just wondering if we'll see bits of it in Flight School.

 

[HiFlyer 9,363]

Wobbie :

We can see colours, we can't see flight models. :smile:

 

Edit : Aside from anything else, here's a quote from me, 24 hours ago, no-one replied...

 

 

Well, it was reported back in the day that MS Flight had added (apparently) significant improvements to flight modeling. If DTG has access to that, and they really are starting over, maybe they have brought at least some of those improvements forward. (or made some of their own)

 

On the other hand, twin engine, rotorwing and jet engines were apparently not completed at the time, and DTG has shown themselves to be playing a pretty conservative game so far. In which case FDM's might be little changed, or completely unchanged.

 

Dealers call.

[TLight 20]

I heard NASA had given away some realistic flight modeling code or data, I think it was used in the X-Plane plugin 'World Traffic'.

Fast code rather than deep and slow. eg World Traffic can handle hundreds of aircraft at once where as X-Plane's internal engine can handle about four without bringing the sim to it's knees.

[Paraffin 2,197]

I heard NASA had given away some realistic flight modeling code or data, I think it was used in the X-Plane plugin 'World Traffic'.

Fast code rather than deep and slow. eg World Traffic can handle hundreds of aircraft at once where as X-Plane's internal engine can handle about four without bringing the sim to it's knees.

 

More than four, depending on the number of cores you have, but yeah... it's CPU intensive. As I understand it, the design philosophy in X-Plane is that each AI plane gets a full flight model and full interaction with local weather. The idea is that if you're in a pattern with other planes, running real weather injection with crosswinds etc. on the runway, then all the planes are being affected equally by wind and aerodynamics just like the user's plane. No "fake" flight models just for eye candy to fill the sky with toy planes.

 

Multi-threading means zero frame rate hit for running AI planes, *if* you have enough cores and you're not running too many AI planes. So yeah, there is a limit. IIRC, you can run something like 20 AI planes with eight cores. I doubt this will change... Austin & Co. have their own ideas about realism vs. purely visual effects, and they want all AI behaving this way. 

[tf51d 284]

 

 

I heard NASA had given away some realistic flight modeling code or data, I think it was used in the X-Plane plugin 'World Traffic'.

 

I don't know about XP but Majestic used NASA/JPL flight modeling code for their Q400 for FSX/P3D

[TheFlightSimGuy 514]

More than four, depending on the number of cores you have, but yeah... it's CPU intensive. As I understand it, the design philosophy in X-Plane is that each AI plane gets a full flight model and full interaction with local weather. The idea is that if you're in a pattern with other planes, running real weather injection with crosswinds etc. on the runway, then all the planes are being affected equally by wind and aerodynamics just like the user's plane. No "fake" flight models just for eye candy to fill the sky with toy planes.

 

Multi-threading means zero frame rate hit for running AI planes, *if* you have enough cores and you're not running too many AI planes. So yeah, there is a limit. IIRC, you can run something like 20 AI planes with eight cores. I doubt this will change... Austin & Co. have their own ideas about realism vs. purely visual effects, and they want all AI behaving this way. 

 

While that sounds like an awesome feature, especially for virtual plane spotting, I can do without AI traffic having such a complex physics algorithm. I would much rather have a populated AI environment than 20 accurate physics AI models. But thats just me. 

[Paraffin 2,197]

Sure, I can understand wanting more traffic. I do mostly bush plane and helicopter flying into smaller airstrips, so it's not a big deal for me, but someone simulating major airline ops at big airports would likely want more.

 

It will be interesting to see how DTG handles this in their upcoming FS, although I imagine it won't be too different from FSX. 

[JSilva 42]

Night Shots are posted.

https://www.facebook.com/dtgflightschool/posts/624688884374628