Update 13 (1.3.21135.0) Now Live

[bcuomo 143]

2 hours ago, simaddict said:

Yes! Like going to the Warren County airport and taking my PA32 Saratoga for a flight over Lake George because I am a pilot!!

So, are we supposed to bow to you and marvel in your vast knowledge of aviation?  There are plenty of people on this forum with piloting experience, including myself, so forgive me for not being impressed.  That does not make your opinion any more valid than someone else's.  I, for one, like, what I see so far.  No, FSW is not ready for prime time yet.  But everybody knows that.  Yet, some seem to expect instant perfection or it must be trash.  How many other sims were perfect on initial release?  I can't think of any, and I've had many, including P3D, every version of MSFS and every version of X-Plane since version 3.  FSW isn't even in initial release, so have some patience.

 

[carbonbasedlifeform 179]

What does PBR stand for?

[simaddict 46]

No, bcuomo, I want to believe and support DTG, I guess I am disappointed that it just doesn't look good. we'll see, in due time I guess.

Mike 

[Chock 17,769]

45 minutes ago, carbonbasedlifeform said:

What does PBR stand for?

Physically Based Rendering.

It's a more sophisticated way of creating and mapping textures so they appear more like the real things they are trying to replicate. It involves several techniques which attempt to make the surfaces throw off light based on characteristics similar to those of the real surfaces, including occasionally using additional polygons to replicate the undulations of a surface (hence the 'physical' bit of the name), but it can also use more visually based techniques too. However, because there is generally more stuff involved in achieving that, PBR does typically require more computing power to display such texturing than traditional methods we are used to, i.e.  of having a few additional texture files supporting the visual texture file, which control reflectivity, transparency, surface bumps etc, by the use of alpha channels etc. If you think of PBR as 'super bump mapping', you get the general idea.

The upshot of PBR is that metals should end up looking like metal and shining like metal, wood should look like wood and reflect less light but also bounce the light it reflects around a bit more because of more surface undulations etc. Coupled with the use of HDR (high dynamic range) which is more akin to how the human eye actually processes what you look at, it all means that things should look vastly more realistic.

It's not new to computer gaming, nor even to simulations, but it is fairly new to flight sims. Theoretically it could be used to make your aeroplane actually look wet in rain, or make the wings look like they were icing up etc, or a runway actually look like wet concrete or dry concrete based on loading in different textures, and you can expect to see that kind of thing being tried by developers.

[scotchegg 4,170]

10 hours ago, SmokeDiddy said:

Did you turn on the Stable Could Motions in your display settings?  It is off by default.  I didn't notice any cloud motions that grabbed my attention.

Yes, you’re absolutely right, hadn’t rtfm.

Much better now.

[jcomm 5,890]

Looking great, I must admit!

[flyforever 267]

17 hours ago, simaddict said:

Great, caring people, I'm sure. But we are not fishing.

I made reference to "fishing" trying to point out the fact that it's possible for DTG to provide a FSW specific programmer for interaction with its users. I respect xplane's developers blog, in which we get to see and learn about what the programmers are actually thinking, working, and solving in xplane. This creates a great deal of confidence as well as a sense that we're all in this to see the best in flight simming.

From time to time, DTG may forget that flight simming is more of a religion than a hobby or a game, a for this they need to be more(technically) engaging with its users.