Flight Sim World - First Impressions

[Paraffin 2,197]

13 minutes ago, Chock said:

Although it does indeed appear that P3D and FSW add-ons will indeed be different in terms of the product one downloads and the product one uploads (as a developer), I don't think they'll be so different as to make it a really major issue for any developer who wants to sell in both markets. After all, at present one can add many FSX aeroplanes to FSW simply by copying and pasting the folder from FS and editing the Aircraft config file a bit with some additional information and that makes them flyable and also adds them as AI aircraft too.

The key question in that regard, is whether DTG actually wants developers to be selling essentially the same products in both markets.

Is that good business for them? Why would someone buy a new airplane model that hits the market in the DTG version, if the same thing is offered for FSX or P3D with a more built-out environment of addons? What's the attraction?

From a business angle, wouldn't it make more sense for DTG to have a fleet of DLC aircraft that only exists for FSW, and can't be found elsewhere? I don't mean unique plane models because there are only so many popular and classic ones out there, but unique-enough versions to want to fly them in FSW instead of another platform. Maybe better rain-on-windshield effects, better sounds, reflections, whatever. 

Of course that depends on actually getting enough developers on board, but if there is something cool that only existed in FSW, even I might be tempted to pick up the base level sim, just to fly that one plane.

What started me thinking along those lines was hearing about a line in the EULA, about user-generated content (referred to as UGC here):

(e) the UGC must not be used in, or made available to, any other simulator software which is similar to or competes with the Software

So if you upload a plane model or scenery to the Steam Workshop for FSW, then it has to be unique to FSW. Not distributed elsewhere for another flight sim, or "borrowed" from another flight sim as source material. Seems pretty Draconian, unless you think about it from the angle of wanting to be different enough from other flight sims, with little to no overlap of addons.
 

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let's not forget AeroFly FS2 also coming up on the rails too, with its extremely attractive frame rates and default terrain which micturates over the default terrain in all other sims from a very great height).

Yeah, looks good up there, but like all terrain systems based only on orthos, it looks terrible closer to the ground.   But that's another discussion...

[Elvensmith 165]

21 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

e) the UGC must not be used in, or made available to, any other simulator software which is similar to or competes with the Software

Their train sim product has a similar caveat and it is, to say the least, rather confusing.

Implies if I build a route for Railworks, I cannot then also build and offer that route in Trainz or the ancient MS Train Sim, even though the procedures and editing tools are unique to each sim. I'm not sure whether anyone ever called DTG out on that one, or it got filed under the "I'd rather not lose my house/pension getting sued over a piece of freeware", heading. Perhaps one of the DTG reps can clarify exactly what it does mean and also whether it applies retroactively - a developer already has an aircraft in FS9, FSX or X-Plane and manages to adapt the source files to fit FSW. Does that mean they must then withdraw the other sim versions from distribution?

[HiFlyer 9,360]

1 hour ago, Paraffin said:

Yeah, looks good up there, but like all terrain systems based only on orthos, it looks terrible closer to the ground.

Yet there seems to be an ongoing explosion of ortho scenery happening in all sims right now..... partially in reaction to Aerofly?

And strangely, a lot of picture posts of ortho-scenery. Very often in areas just coincidently covered by Aerofly........ 

And posts about shoehorning orthos into FSW....

And more and more scenery designers folding in ortho, not to mention X-plane ortho posts everywhere...

Oh, and Megascenery announcing its version3 super-duper high resolution ortho-scenery... at 100Gb's per state and more, no less. (spent quality time last night pricing 6TB hd's)

And... and..... 

Didn't somebody just suggest an ortho forum on Avsim today? 

Wave of the future?

[Chock 17,769]

I guess the key phrase here is: 'similar to or competes with the Software'. That could potentially get very litigious, I mean one could say that a Messerschmitt bf109 is similar to a Supermarine Spitfire Mk1 depending on what criteria one chooses; after all, they are both stressed-skin monoplane fighter aeroplanes of around 1,000hp, both designed during the 1930s in Europe, both having fought in the Battle of Britain. Sounds pretty similar to me if one uses that description.

So what defines similar? If I make an airport for FSW in 3DS Max or Cinema 4D or whatever, export it for FSW, then delete one of the lamp posts off my 3D model, then export it for XPlane, that is undeniably not identical to the one with the lamp post, but it is fairly similar, and if I made it freeware for both sims, then how would it be competing when it was free of charge? Does XPlane compete with FSW? Well not to me it doesn't because I've already bought both of them.

Avsim veterans will be well aware of what happened when a certain person with the initials P.T. ill-advisedly tried to flex some legal muscle on people creating free repaints for FS aeroplanes.

[Paraffin 2,197]

29 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

Didn't somebody just suggest an ortho forum on Avsim today? 

Wave of the future?

Bah, humbug! Not for those of us who fly low enough and hate seeing squashed cars and buildings, or terrain that doesn't react to changing sun angle and weather conditions. Or that looks bad at night. Notice how 95% of those gee-whiz ortho shots are posted in the middle of a sunny day? That's what they're optimized for, because that's when those photos are taken. And we don't all fly in those conditions.

There is also the ground texture thing for making smooth landings in a helicopter, but I know that's a specialized practice. FSW doesn't even have helicopters (yet).

Back to the main topic, I do hope FSW eventually has a plane I'd want to buy the sim for, because right now I'm not seeing anything attractive in the simulated flying world. Throw in a deeply modeled CH-47 Chinook -- because we don't have a good one in XP11 -- and I'd buy the sim right now.   Which goes to the point I was making above, about how FSW might succeed best without overlap in other sims.

[HiFlyer 9,360]

17 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

Which goes to the point I was making above, about how FSW might succeed best without overlap in other sims.

Hmmmmmm...... Aerofly dissed again with scant mention. *Shakes head*

 

[Chock 17,769]

15 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

FSW doesn't even have helicopters (yet).

lol, mine does

[barrel_owl 304]

44 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

Bah, humbug! Not for those of us who fly low enough and hate seeing squashed cars and buildings, or terrain that doesn't react to changing sun angle and weather conditions. Or that looks bad at night. Notice how 95% of those gee-whiz ortho shots are posted in the middle of a sunny day? That's what they're optimized for, because that's when those photos are taken. And we don't all fly in those conditions.

If you buy NYC as DLC, you can have an idea of what Aerofly FS2 may look in the future: a smart mixture of orthophotos and autogen resulting in stunning visuals coupled with highest performance. I can't even guess what could come out from there once their announced tool for generating orthophotos will be available and some artistic hands like Jarrad Marshall or Tony from the X-Plane section will put some manually placed autogen on it. I made another test minutes ago after months, with all resolution to Ultra, except Shadows two notches from max (I have noticed that Shadows were the biggest frame eater in my initial tests that I even showed to @HiFlyer , the reason being quite obvious over NYC, however people with Skylake and GTX 1080+ have better results than me) and believe me: this is the most immersive experience you can have if you like to fly GA aircraft low and slow.

I understand your point about orthophotos, but you should consider that having all autogen up in an area like New York (as you probably know, the scenery does not only cover Manhattan, but also large sections of New Jersey, Queens etc.) would have a devastating impact on the performance in any simulator, even if running on a $7000 rig. Would it make sense in first place? What I am asking for is a visually appealing scenery where I can fly my preferred aircraft, be it a small piston aircraft or a large airliner, in a stable and smooth environment. I am not asking a 100% reproduction of New York or Tokyo. That would be first completely impossible and second completely useless. A mixed landscape line in the NYC DLC is probably the optimum. And for those who like airliners, there is nothing better than orthophotos mixed with smartly placed autogen in airports and urban areas. ZL16 is probably more than enough for most simmers.

[barrel_owl 304]

1 hour ago, Paraffin said:

Back to the main topic, I do hope FSW eventually has a plane I'd want to buy the sim for, because right now I'm not seeing anything attractive in the simulated flying world. Throw in a deeply modeled CH-47 Chinook -- because we don't have a good one in XP11 -- and I'd buy the sim right now.   Which goes to the point I was making above, about how FSW might succeed best without overlap in other sims.

If you have anything you like that works under FSX, you can probably use it in FSW too, provided that you can survive to some malfunctioning gauges for a while.

[scotchegg 4,186]

I just can't do Orthos; it brings out my visual OCD and I actively go looking for inconsistencies like shadows / cars etc. and can't build up any sense of immersion. 

Amazingly I'm finding FSW more immersive than XP in some places; it's reminded me of how good some of the Orbx textures and autogen are and how limited the XP ones are. I'm actually getting quite excited about digging out my old Orbx regional licenses and seeing them in FSW after early access. If they let us....

[HiFlyer 9,360]

36 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

I just can't do Orthos; it brings out my visual OCD and I actively go looking for inconsistencies like shadows / cars etc. and can't build up any sense of immersion. 

Interestingly enough, it's the often mismatched patchwork quilt of landclass that sets off my mental error warnings nowadays. Recently I've noticed something else that has set me off, especially in Orbx socal: Squares and rectangles. All around me, stretching away forever.... the buildings are squares and rectangles The same squares and rectangles.

There's none of the randomization of shapes that exists in reality, except in certain high quality scenery areas, and once you've noticed that, it's kind of hard to un-notice. I even see it in X-plane.

Aeroflys problem is that while its building shapes fit the underlying photoscenery almost perfectly, it uses a limited number of textures that can give a sort of monochrome city effect.

But.

When I look down at New York, my mind says "Oh. That's New York" and moves on, instead of pointing out to me that the real world doesn't look like that.......

Each option has its flaws, but are mismatched shadows more of a problem than every building being a square or rectangle?

Each of us has to decide, but whatever choice we make, it's probably never going to be perfect.

I suspect I would think of FSW as a lot more "nexgen" if it had gone for orthos, than I do for it using the same old landclass. Perhaps that could have been its missing "wow" factor.

 

[scotchegg 4,186]

Yeah, I totally get that and I think for me that's part of the problem; if everything else looks so realistic I naturally go looking for the things that don't fit the expectations. If my brain doesn't expect reality I don't notice the things that look out of place as much. While also being aware that the Orbx style textures are far from truly realistic...

To each their own triggers I guess.

[HiFlyer 9,360]

8 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

Yeah, I totally get that and I think for me that's part of the problem; if everything else looks so realistic I naturally go looking for the things that don't fit the expectations. If my brain doesn't expect reality I don't notice the things that look out of place as much. While also being aware that the Orbx style textures are far from truly realistic...

To each their own triggers I guess.

There is also something I would go and kiss the FSW developers for if they could manage it:

That microsoft hardwired north/south east/west orientation of the roads that's been part of MS flight sims forever is long past due to be removed from history.

It's so ubiquitous, nobody even seems to think about it anymore, but it drives me bonkers. 

Talk about triggers.........  

[Paraffin 2,197]

16 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

Aeroflys problem is that while its building shapes fit the underlying photoscenery almost perfectly, it uses a limited number of textures that can give a sort of monochrome city effect.

But.

When I look down at New York, my mind says "Oh. That's New York" and moves on, instead of pointing out to me that the real world doesn't look like that.......

We all have different priorities, and that's what makes the world go round (and sells different simulations). It's good that we have these choices.

This is what I want to see when flying low, with low-angle sunlight hitting 3D buildings everywhere in the world, not just in a few selected areas where folks have managed to stick autogen on top of orthos. With no orthophoto underneath, there are zero artifacts... no squashed buildings or cars to break immersion, just beautiful lighting:

And I don't care what New York City looks like, because this is what most of the areas I fly in look like, in the Pacific Northwest, New Zealand, and South America (this is Western Canada). Try getting good orthos in these areas. 

[HiFlyer 9,360]

Fair enough.