Big Bear Airport Add-on Coming To Flight Sim World

[MikeT707 1,181]

On 10/3/2017 at 11:48 AM, DTG_Cryss said:

I believe improvements to autogen scenery are on the cards for the future, though always appreciate the feedback. 

Hi Cryss,

New user of FSW here. Is there a way that your team can have nice reflective and textured runway textures as a default feature. The way runways are rendered currently in FSW (and P3D for that matter) seems to have not caught up to modern graphic standards. Default runway textures look like a horrible, perfectly rectangular, single-pixel deep strip of grey with the same old tire markings that we have been staring at since FS2000. This would be a great differentiation and a welcome feature for ALL simmers. 

If anyone agrees, please let Cryss know that you would like the same. Good customer feedback in action. :)

[Chock 17,769]

Looks great. Although with regard to it being a default texture on runways and taxiways using PBR, that is possible technically, but I suspect it'd be a frame rate killer for sure to be rendering a 150 foot wide by 2 mile long runway and acres of taxiways. A bit easier to pull off at a smaller airport

A nice potential solution would be to PBR the texture at the start and end of runways and the parking stands, so when your aeroplane is stationary, it'd look great, but when you're moving down a taxiway or rolling along the middle of a runway it won't matter so much since it'd be blurred anyway from your motion.

[ca_metal 2,021]

38 minutes ago, Chock said:

Looks great. Although with regard to it being a default texture on runways and taxiways using PBR, that is possible technically, but I suspect it'd be a frame rate killer for sure to be rendering a 150 foot wide by 2 mile long runway and acres of taxiways. A bit easier to pull off at a smaller airport

A nice potential solution would be to PBR the texture at the start and end of runways and the parking stands, so when your aeroplane is stationary, it'd look great, but when you're moving down a taxiway or rolling along the middle of a runway it won't matter so much since it'd be blurred anyway from your motion.

I think would be easier to create LODs. When the airplane is far > no PBR, when it gets X miles away > PBR activates. Don´t think one airport with some reflections would made that performance hit. 

Actually I know at least one of the airports has some kind of PBR already activated (not on the level of this picture, it´s Koblenz  and it was made by Turbulent Designs if I remember right. 

[theohall65 64]

The airport for the PPL lessons at Prescott has some kind of PBR also.

[ca_metal 2,021]

Yes.

Koblenz:

Prescott:

And I always tought it was a test to implement it in all other airport textures.

 

 

[steve310002 1,198]

14 hours ago, MikeT707 said:

Hi Cryss,

New user of FSW here. Is there a way that your team can have nice reflective and textured runway textures as a default feature. The way runways are rendered currently in FSW (and P3D for that matter) seems to have not caught up to modern graphic standards. Default runway textures look like a horrible, perfectly rectangular, single-pixel deep strip of grey with the same old tire markings that we have been staring at since FS2000. This would be a great differentiation and a welcome feature for ALL simmers. 

If anyone agrees, please let Cryss know that you would like the same. Good customer feedback in action. :)

Fully agree with this. It would be a quick win and would add a lot of immersion (in the sense of flight sim quick wins). In X-Plane 11, there are freeware HD runway textures available (not PBR'd) and the sense of immersion they add when you are taxiing and lining up on the runway is truly awesome. This would be a fantastic addition to FSW. And let's face it, people like shiny new things.

Would be a great way as well to really start to differentiate the sim from FSX/Prepar3d. We spend most of our time either on the tarmac or in the air. For the air we now have the beginnings of TrueSky. For the ground we could have better tarmac. Without wanting to change the subject, it would be great in general also to eventually have better ground/autogen textures especially for VFR flying.

Keep up the good work.

[Cyrex1984 176]

For me the sound have alot to do with the imersion. And i think honestly the sound department in FSW is very poor.The aircraft sounds is not realistic, Same old FS sound engine with wav files in a folder, No Ambient airport,nature,sea sounds, bad engine and flaps sounds. Need to bring FMOD sound or something else more new tech to this Sim.

[A32xx 129]

I've mentioned the sounds myself in an earlier thread. The cockpit sounds may be covered by the Accu-Sim effects, but the ambient (exterior) sounds have been very limited in all previous flight sims.

I doubt that the PBR effects impact FPS significantly, because PBR doesn't require additional textures like Fresnel ramps and Bump maps etc. to overburden your GPU. I've even tried reducing texture sizes here and there in FSW and it's made no difference to FPS, whereas there's a significant increase in FSX:SE and FS2004.

[Chock 17,769]

16 hours ago, A32xx said:

I've mentioned the sounds myself in an earlier thread. The cockpit sounds may be covered by the Accu-Sim effects, but the ambient (exterior) sounds have been very limited in all previous flight sims.

I doubt that the PBR effects impact FPS significantly, because PBR doesn't require additional textures like Fresnel ramps and Bump maps etc. to overburden your GPU. I've even tried reducing texture sizes here and there in FSW and it's made no difference to FPS, whereas there's a significant increase in FSX:SE and FS2004.

Actually there is no real 'standard' for PBR, it is a technique which can be achieved in a number of ways. One of those ways is by adding additional polygons to create the variances in a surface to allow it to vary which parts reflect light at different angles, and that absolutely can impact performance. You rarely get something for nothing with rendering.

[Rimshot 1,141]

4 hours ago, Chock said:

Actually there is no real 'standard' for PBR, it is a technique which can be achieved in a number of ways. One of those ways is by adding additional polygons to create the variances in a surface to allow it to vary which parts reflect light at different angles, and that absolutely can impact performance. You rarely get something for nothing with rendering.

Although I admit it looks appealing I can't seem to remember having ever seen asphalt reflecting light like in these screenshots, unless it is wet. To be honest the runway surface looks more like leather to me...

[ralinn 55]

5 hours ago, Chock said:

Actually there is no real 'standard' for PBR, it is a technique which can be achieved in a number of ways. One of those ways is by adding additional polygons to create the variances in a surface to allow it to vary which parts reflect light at different angles, and that absolutely can impact performance. You rarely get something for nothing with rendering.

I'm not quite sure I followed that... have you looked in to what Physically-Based rendering actually is? I can assure you there's a lot more behind it than you're trying to make out. I've been using a PBR work flow for a few years now.

PBR uses realistic shading and lighting models along with measured surface values to represent real world materials accurately.

[ralinn 55]

1 hour ago, Rimshot said:

Although I admit it looks appealing I can't seem to remember having ever seen asphalt reflecting light like in these screenshots, unless it is wet. To be honest the runway surface looks more like leather to me...

Funnily enough, it can reflect light like that. Admittedly, the screenshot at Prescott isn't perfect, but asphalt reflects a lot of light when the sun is incredibly low. We've all experienced this annoyance when driving a car at an awkward time of evening :)

[Murmur 3,941]

11 minutes ago, ralinn said:

Funnily enough, it can reflect light like that. Admittedly, the screenshot at Prescott isn't perfect, but asphalt reflects a lot of light when the sun is incredibly low. We've all experienced this annoyance when driving a car at an awkward time of evening :)

Agree, the screenshots look remarkably similar to the asphalt reflections I often experience in the late summer afternoons.

[ca_metal 2,021]

4 hours ago, Rimshot said:

Although I admit it looks appealing I can't seem to remember having ever seen asphalt reflecting light like in these screenshots, unless it is wet. To be honest the runway surface looks more like leather to me...

 

It does reflect and just remember not all runways are made by asphalt, some are made by concrete, and it does reflect even more in my experience.

[Chock 17,769]

4 hours ago, ralinn said:

I'm not quite sure I followed that... have you looked in to what Physically-Based rendering actually is? 

Yup, I know exactly what it is (I work for Adobe and Apple training people in the film and TV industry on how to create CGI for movies and stuff like that, so I'd be in trouble if I didn't know about all that rendering malarkey lol). But...

I wasn't attempting to write a precise treatise on what exactly is involved in PBR and its use in this thread, I was merely pointing out that it can impact on frame rates, depending on how one goes about it.

This is because physically based rendering can use all kinds of different techniques, it isn't like, for example, the PSD or the WMA file format, in that those are proprietary formats with a strictly-controlled structure, nor is it akin to open formats such as PDF, PNG or HTML, since these too are to a specific standard even though they are not proprietary, and that is true for all formats, i.e. you can't make up your own JPEG encoding or create your own MP3 format or some such, those things are hard and fast formats to specific standards, PBR is not like that at all, it is a technique.

In other words, PBR is the catch all name for a series of methodologies one can cherry pick from, i.e. it is a 'concept' not a specific procedure to a strict set of rules. It can utilise all kinds of different methods to achieve the result one is after. Producing PBR can use only textures, and often does so in combination with additional sub textures, so it is at least in some respects not a million miles away from using things such as bump maps, alphas and other purely texture/channel-based techniques, but as a concept and indeed as a working methodology PBR could use any method you like to get the results you are after, because PBR has no absolute hard and fast rules on how one achieves the end result.

Now having said that, its more widespread use is distilling it down into some generally accepted methods, but it is still nevertheless in flux as a technique. Some artists may regularly use a specific procedure to create their PBR effects, but this in no way means they are utilising a universally accepted method for PBR, because there isn't such a thing. Well, not yet anyway.