Emperors new cloths :-P

 

But he AeroflyFS 2 video looks very promising indeed! LOL!

Wow, that reminds me so much of Flight Unlimited 2 and 3. I really must keep an eye on this one. I did notice that the water close to San Francisco International airport appears to be part of the photographic scenery texture sheet, so I wonder if this will be updated for the final release?

 

Unfortunately, wonderful and next gen as this looks, expect it to be largely ignored here. (doesn't have the whole world, dont'cha know) Plus Fsx has (place list of payware addons here)

 

And speaking of shadows........ As usual, Aeroflys shadows (cockpit and otherwise) are gorgeous.

It doesn't have the whole world, however IPACS promised to make tools available soon for users (not only priviledged ones but normal ones like you and me) to create sceneries and planes (the latter is said to be more difficult, though).

 

However, I feel this discussion a bit misplaced here, as there is a separate AVSIM aeroflyFS 2 forum.

 

Kind regards, Michael

AeroflyFS2 will have the whole world, but not high detailed. Just assorted regions are high detail.

 

Anyway this what DTGFS should look like at least!

Anyway this what DTGFS should look like at least!

 

I think many were hoping, but reality is reality. I suspect the work required would have been very nearly equivalent to just going ahead and starting from scratch, which kind of kills the whole point of purchasing the rights to the Ms-tech.

The new atmospherics still are taking away from it IMO. Go to 13:23. The horizon colors are so overblown that you can't see more then 5 miles. The ground colors just look really odd as well (again, because of the lighting).

AeroflyFS2 will have the whole world, but not high detailed. Just assorted regions are high detail.

 

Anyway this what DTGFS should look like at least!

 

 

It looks very pretty in carefully selected scenes but I've never been a fan of photo scenery. You're still going to have the problems of no seasons and everything looking a bit / very wrong if you fly at any time of day or weather conditions other than the original satellite pass that took the photo.

It looks very pretty in carefully selected scenes but I've never been a fan of photo scenery. You're still going to have the problems of no seasons and everything looking a bit / very wrong if you fly at any time of day or weather conditions other than the original satellite pass that took the photo.

 

Agreed. An orthophoto is a historical snapshot that doesn't update to include changes in roads or anything else on the ground. The "plausible" approach with landclass tiles and OSM-derived data for streets and buildings that X-Plane uses might not always be as densely detailed as orthophotos, but at least it is constantly updated to reflect the real world.

 

Aside from seasons, there is the day/night cycle. The reason X-Plane looks so great at night, is that all those streets, cars, and buildings are able to light up. 

 

I was a big fan of orthophoto scenery several years ago, back when that's the only way our computers could show that kind of detail on the ground. But not any more. Landclass tiles from GIS data and streets/railroads/buildings from OSM data is the way forward, in my opinion. And maybe one day, hydrographic data to get shallow water colors from the real world, so we don't have to hand-paint tropical waters. The data is out there, constantly growing in detail and world coverage. Some of it like Open Street Map data is even free and doesn't have to be licensed. Why not use it? 

Heads up Jordan King is streaming Flight School Beta Now!!

 

https://www.twitch.tv/jordankinggaming

I was just watching. I like what I see. Fully recommend the live.

Some of us don't actually care about seasonal variations or totally up to date road layouts. We just want something that looks impressive, and also realistic. Most landclass scenery that I have seen (and yes, this includes the FTX UK regions) may look pretty in rural areas, but (IMO) densely populated urban areas are a disappointment, and those "identikit" golf courses and linear "urban cut off" lines start to look silly. Then we get to the coastlines, and the less said about them the better.

I was just watching. I like what I see. Fully recommend the live.

 

I was watching too... it was pretty nice! Night lighting was spectacular!

 

Some of us don't actually care about seasonal variations or totally up to date road layouts. We just want something that looks impressive, and also realistic. Most landclass scenery that I have seen (and yes, this includes the FTX UK regions) may look pretty in rural areas, but (IMO) densely populated urban areas are a disappointment, and those "identikit" golf courses and linear "urban cut off" lines start to look silly. Then we get to the coastlines, and the less said about them the better.

 

Sounds like the full Flight Simulator may be more your taste than Flight School, because DTG has said that they wont be investing alot of time in Flight School to enhance much beyond ORBX Global in it. We will probably have to wait and see if those things are enhanced in the full sim or at least look at 3PD's to enhance them. 

I was a big fan of orthophoto scenery several years ago, back when that's the only way our computers could show that kind of detail on the ground. But not any more. Landclass tiles from GIS data and streets/railroads/buildings from OSM data is the way forward, in my opinion. And maybe one day, hydrographic data to get shallow water colors from the real world, so we don't have to hand-paint tropical waters. The data is out there, constantly growing in detail and world coverage. Some of it like Open Street Map data is even free and doesn't have to be licensed. Why not use it? 

 

Same here, in the 90's and first half of the 00's, photographic scenery was the best method, but with the technology and source material available today, artificially generated scenery has many advantages. X-Plane really nails this approach, especially for cities, since you don't get vector roads cutting across the 2D imprinted roads of the underlying textures like in FSX/P3D/DTFS.

My biggest problem with photographic scenery is that it's completely flat. Even if the resolution is 1cm/pixel, it will still look odd from <1500 ft. Even with Autogen on-top of photographic scenery, the perspective of the underlying source photo will be wrong. You might have a flat image of a tree that looks like it's growing sideways because of the distorted perspective. Covering it with an autogen tree won't hide it.

 

Been keeping an eye on Aerofly 2, but it seems they are prioritizing the mobile version where there's more money to be had. Wasn't it originally supposed to release for the PC in 2014 or early 2015?

Also, we can never expect the level of detailled simulation in Aerofly FS that we have in FSX / P3D, and I surely hope will find in DTG Flight SImulator, and we can have in X-Plane 10 as well, with some of the best add-ons showing even more detail, specially in the area of rotary wing, than similar offers for MSFS-based platforms...

 

Aerofly 2 will be eye candy for sure, and it's flight dynamics certainly tempting, but I was somehow dispointed with the gliders in v1, and for me, when a flight dynamics model can't even model a glider ( without the complex prop / thrust effects ), it is somehow still not my cup of tea.... 

Some of us don't actually care about seasonal variations or totally up to date road layouts. We just want something that looks impressive, and also realistic. Most landclass scenery that I have seen (and yes, this includes the FTX UK regions) may look pretty in rural areas, but (IMO) densely populated urban areas are a disappointment, and those "identikit" golf courses and linear "urban cut off" lines start to look silly. Then we get to the coastlines, and the less said about them the better.

I fully agree. I for one like to fly in summer in day-time in fine weather anyway (that's what I prefer in real life, too). I accept that others have different habits but that's me. In view of this, high-quality photoscenery (not all is high quality) would be much superior. Compare flying over Rome or Munich in the complete ORBX Global range (that's the best we have today for these areas) to AS Austria HD Vienna, and you know what I mean. European Capitals with their un-coordinated, wildly scattered Autogen and roads cutting through houses are an ugly mess for VFR flyers. This certainly can be improved by hand-crafting, see ORBX Seattle or LA, but it's still not the "real thing" like good photoscenery is. (Like JimmG said, I acknowledge X-Plane does a much better job on procedural scenery, notably using addons like W2XP, but we know XP never gained a noticeable market share for whatever reason.)

 

This said, I well know the downsides of photoscenery. It's unrealistic to expect the whole world in high-resolution photoscenery, or you have to provide a storage cabinet and pay a few millions. That's why EarthSimulations closed. If IPACS would find a silver bullet here (the 30 GB for the supposed region covered seem to be acceptable IMO) and succeed to excite 3rd parties about this, I would certainly applaud this. Anyway, I am sold for AeroflyFS2. 

 

Kind regards, Michael