New video up. 

 

 

A very much like this feature, it's going to bring lots of life to the sim

On a different note, the new lighting is amazing, compared to how dull and drab X-Plane 10 looked out of the box. 

Will be very interesting to see the fps impact. As we all know AI is a killer in FSX/P3D

There are many freeware airports for XP10 which already have moving traffic (although they don't interact with the aircraft much), and those don't seem to drag performance down too much.

 

Also, the lighting is awesome, as has been mentioned above. But it appears that only the aircraft itself casts shadows, but not the trucks or the terminal buildings - I guess that means that having global shadows will still be quite heavy on performance (same as it is in XP10).

It's pretty neat.

 

It'll be interesting to see how it works in practice, and how much more complexity it adds for designers via WED. I've read that WED designers will need to add routes and such for the airport vehicles. Thank goodness I really only have a few airports that I'll need to figure out and update with this stuff; most of my creations are all small rural strips.

 

This is actually an area where the crowd-sourced airports can be a blessing and a curse. In a purely static, non-developed sim, the crowd-sourced airports would simply add to the total number of airports where 3D scenery and an accurate (well, maybe) ground layout exists. But with constant development and new features, those crowd-sourced airports end up being out of date unless people are willing to go back and update them.

 

I have about 50 airports on the gateway, and I've found that:

 

- going back through and updating all your airports to account for new features is a bit annoying and very dull. It's also hard (and very time consuming) when you can't resist the urge to update your older airports to account for better techniques and possibly, higher standards...

 

- judging by the fact that simply updating 3/4 of my 50ish airports has caused me to now be one of the top dozen authors on the gateway, leads me to believe that not many people are going back and updating their old airports.  I can see why - it's really not much fun, as opposed to creating a new airport from scratch. Plus, people do move on from such activities, can't really blame them for shifting priorities or even new hobbies.

 

So... features like this might be great, and they might add nice touches to new airports (and provide a greater toolset to payware developers), but it might lead to a bit of disappointment when users go into XP11 expecting to find all of these features and discover that it's only present at a select few locations.

 

Edit: Rereading that, it sounds like I'm coming across negative. Not my intent at all. Just musing on some of the long terms effects or consequences of relying on crowd-sourced airports. More features the merrier! 

 

 

- going back through and updating all your airports to account for new features is a bit annoying and very dull. It's also hard (and very time consuming) when you can't resist the urge to update your older airports to account for better techniques and possibly, higher standards...


- judging by the fact that simply updating 3/4 of my 50ish airports has caused me to now be one of the top dozen authors on the gateway, leads me to believe that not many people are going back and updating their old airports. I can see why - it's really not much fun, as opposed to creating a new airport from scratch. Plus, people do move on from such activities, can't really blame them for shifting priorities or even new hobbies.

 

I think it's one of those features that, as often seems to be the case with Laminar, is designed and implemented in a way that the benefits are more long-term than short-term. The individual author may not go in and implement the new feature but the beauty of the gateway is that someone else may just do it for that airport. It'll be most apparent with larger airports, and those are more likely to get updated IMHO.

 

 

I think it's one of those features that, as often seems to be the case with Laminar, is designed and implemented in a way that the benefits are more long-term than short-term.

 

Very true.

 

 

 

The individual author may not go in and implement the new feature but the beauty of the gateway is that someone else may just do it for that airport.

 

They may, if you look really long term. However, there are just so many empty airports, that at the moment it becomes a question of "Do I spend time going in and working on this airport that already has 3D scenery and a layout, or do I work on a previously blank, new airport".

 

 

 

It'll be most apparent with larger airports, and those are more likely to get updated IMHO.

 

I think they're most likely to get updated by their authors. I think they're the least likely to get updated by other random authors, since I don't think many people are willing (or have the skillset needed) to take on some of the really big international airports. At this point, I consider myself to be competent with WED, but I'd absolutely shudder at the thought of doing anything with an airport larger than a two-runway regional.

 

I still think there's massive benefits to be had with the system. If they ever get around to adding some more assets that are geared towards regional and smaller airports (more small and medium hangers, 1 story terminals, etc), I think it would be fantastic.

 

 

It'll be interesting to see how it works in practice, and how much more complexity it adds for designers via WED. I've read that WED designers will need to add routes and such for the airport vehicles. Thank goodness I really only have a few airports that I'll need to figure out and update with this stuff; most of my creations are all small rural strips.

 

Apparently it will work without them, but to prevent vehicles just driving through grass and buildings, authors should add routes.

 

 

Apparently it will work without them, but to prevent vehicles just driving through grass and buildings, authors should add routes.

 

I'm thinking the availability and/or presence of the airport vehicles are going to be somehow tied to the size of the parking spot. It'd be kind of humorous to see all those vehicles trundling through the grass and trees at small airports!

I really hope this feature can be tide to parking spot and not to the single AI plane. I doubt this because there's no way to tell the engine when a parking spot is used. I don't think there are many using AI aircrafts for the heavy FPS impact, but if service vehicles can be activated for third part developers like World Traffic and X-Life it would be great. Maybe the SDK will teach how to activate vehicles independently from the AI plane.

 

 

I really hope this feature can be tide to parking spot

 

We will have to wait and see, but in the 737-800 section of the video it looks like might be tied to the ramp start since some service vehicles were also servicing one of the static aircraft in the background. 

Does anyone know if service vehicles will be available for user's aircraft as well? I don't remember it mentioned on the Q&A time at Xp11 presentation, but I might have missed it.

Does anyone know if service vehicles will be available for user's aircraft as well? I don't remember it mentioned on the Q&A time at Xp11 presentation, but I might have missed it.

Yes, I do believe Austin stated on the site that the ground services will work for AI as well as the user's aircraft.  This to me would be a huge plus, since you wouldn't have a need to buy, install and use a third party utility.

Yes, I do believe Austin stated on the site that the ground services will work for AI as well as the user's aircraft.  This to me would be a huge plus, since you wouldn't have a need to buy, install and use a third party utility.

Ah great, now if they could add support for external AI traffic generators like WT and X-Life would be a blast.

Ah great, now if they could add support for external AI traffic generators like WT and X-Life would be a blast.

Well I have to wonder if XP will include more AI traffic and they just haven't revealed that yet, right along with the extra aircraft that will be included (the ones with ? over the icons on their site).