2 hours ago, irrics said:

This is truly exciting.

Other than Google and maybe Apple only Microsoft Could really do a scenery project like this simply due to the data collection, costs and technology requirements.

I think all of us in the FS space have been hoping for this type of scenery approach since the very first time we saw Google earth with 3D buildings. 

If done correctly this should render the OrbX region type of stuff obsolete but hopefully will leave a niche for them for the actual airport and other smaller level details. 

While I'm excited for this new entry to flight sims (mainly as a competitive push for other platforms), I feel compelled to offer a contrasting viewpoint on the scenery approach. 🙂

I know orthoscenery is probably the most popular type here at Avsim, but not everyone prefers it over landclass + data-driven autogen. My personal beefs with orthoscenery are these below, and it's because I do a lot of my flying at lower altitudes in bush planes and helicopters:

• Immersion-breaking artifacts like "squashed" cars and buildings, and shadows that don't track the current sun angle.
• Clashes with autogen roads and moving cars that don't match the underlying photo.
• Poor to nonexistent night lighting.
• Difficulty in landing helicopters away from airports, when the ground turns into a pixellated blur and I can't see texture to judge my height.
• Unrealistic response to sunlight at low angles and changing color of sunlight at dawn or dusk.
• Poor to nonexistent coverage at decent resolutions for large parts of the world, many of which are incredibly interesting for "bush" flying. 
• "Stretched" bitmaps on near-vertical surfaces when 2D orthos are layered onto 3D terrain mesh. You can see this even on a high quality orthoscenery product like Orbx GB South on the southern chalk cliffs.
• No seasonal changes without complete texture replacement.

That last one is huge, although it doesn't seem to have hurt the Orbx business model too much. Does everyone really enjoy always flying at noon on a Summer day?

There have been hints from Laminar about procedural seasonal changes, things like trees dropping leaves dynamically in Autumn, particle-based snow on autogen building rooftops, which could (in theory) come and go based on injected real weather data. Of course that's all talk and no action so far, but potential for procedural generation using a mix of landclass and data instead of satellite orthophotos is huge. We're just not there yet.

Now, orthoscenery does look great at higher altitudes, no contest (if you ignore night flying). Much of what I'm griping about disappears if you're the kind of sim pilot who zooms in a tubeliner from a 3D airport up to the flight levels, and then lands at a 3D airport without seeing much of the ground in between, except at high altitude.

I do hope this new project is successful, if only to spur progress in the other sim platforms. And who knows, maybe it will even convert skeptical 'ol me to the streamed orthophoto approach. 
 

No the site is slow AF...so double post galore.

Just now, Paraffin said:

That last one is huge, although it doesn't seem to have hurt the Orbx business model too much. Does everyone really enjoy always flying at noon on a Summer day?

 

Us XP users have been stuck in that world forever basically anyhow..

i'm a huge x-plane fan.. but some things really bug me about their slow dev cycle..

1. x-plane mobile - unnecessary distraction if you'd ask me.. dont know who's really flying on a smart phone?

2. support for mac/linux (again dilutes their concentration)

3. Austin doing some weird side projects like better PT6 modeling etc.. just leave it to 3rd party devs and focus on the one main thing..

and the one main thing for all sims right now is.. drum roll.. not visuals.. not systems depth.. it is performance.. that's the biggest problem that needs to be solved.. we need these sims to be ultra fluid to get that sense of flying.. 

both P3D and XP11 have proved their worth in eye candy and systems depth.. the one who solves the performance side of the equation will ultimately triumph.. of course AFS2 got the performance right, but everything else is a vacuum.. 

1 minute ago, Paraffin said:

No seasonal changes without complete texture replacement

The beauty of a shader based approach, which is what we want going forward.

3 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

• Clashes with autogen roads and moving cars that don't match the underlying photo.
• Poor to nonexistent night lighting.

 

That's the beauty of having a company involved that has a Maps product under constant use and development.

 

I expect the first point to be addressed and the 2nd point already looks like it was based upon the video.  Great night lighting shots from what I saw.

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by irrics

One HUGE benefit of MS approaching things with real map data and orthos?

 

100% accurate entire world, and critically, re-use of 3D Building data & assets they already have and continue to roll out all over the world.

The latter point is massive.

 

Truly accurate 3D buildings all over?  

Sign.  Me.  Up.

 

Also - by streaming and re-using real mapping data, it can very easily be kept up to date over time.

This is totally totally awesome!

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by irrics

Back when MS halted FSX development, all was not well with the company.  There were many layoffs and instability all around.  It was no surprise they "quit" flight sim development since it wasn't likely a major player on any of their balance sheets.  No doubt a difficult decision because of the title's legacy, but a business decision in any event.

Then along comes MS Flight.  Clearly targeted at reaping millions from the young, casual gaming community, it was an immediate turnoff to most staunch flight sim enthusiasts, and their vocal dissent, and poor sales sealed it's fate.  FSW had a chance, but if IIRC, third party monetizing policies were a big turnoff to some significant developers, and it too went the way of the dodo.

Seems quite unlikely MS would make this mistake again.  It is 10+ years since that time and much had changed.   Microsoft (under Satya Nadella) are doing very well financially and making huge strides in the cloud.  All of this lends itself very nicely to creating a much more modern flight simulation environment.  The one model they have that was enormously successful in the flight simulator space seems like the sure place to plunge in again.  Adding "Simulator" back to the tile is a very good sign.

I, for one, am pumped!

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by dmiannay

2 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Since LM are using MS ESP (now highly modified) from MS FSX SP2 one would think MS would provide LM with an ESP option.  But, it certainly raises some questions about why Microsoft sold the entertainment rights to Dovetail while they were working on this product in secret ... I realize it's just business, but that seems harsh ... hopefully they picked up some of the Dovetail engineers to help work on this new MS project.

 

2 hours ago, tonywob said:

Depends how long they've been developing this sim. It certainly would seem harsh on Dovetail if they sold their old code to them knowing full-well they are working on a brand new engine. One of the concerns regarding LM is that perhaps Microsoft so far have been turning a blind-eye to P3D's popularity as a replacement for FSX (under a more restrictive license) and the worry is that since they'll essentially be competing, are they going to start throwing their weight over this.

Just want to clarify a point - Microsoft did not sell anything outright to Dovetail. Instead Microsoft franchised the entertainment rights for at least a cool £1.3 million royalty payment.
While DTG / Railsimulator.com made a huge loss, Microsoft got a nice six-figure sum and never parted with the entertainment licence.


With regards to working with community developers; I think Microsoft is going to be very selective with partnerships, limiting them to only those who bring the 'missing elements' to their sim.




 

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by F737NG
For people who think it's console only, look at the bottom right of the pic

14 minutes ago, Montie said:

The official Twitter announcement was for PC. It's Windows 10 and XBOX, so XBOX is not the target group.

The website only lists XBOX one place on the page alongside Windows 10. 

And so it's confirmed....it is for X-box only?

1 minute ago, shivers9 said:

And so it's confirmed....it is for X-box only?

OMG NO.

Man - just rewatching the video a few times.

The lighting - the weather - just drool-worthy.

This is so exciting - just a shame we have to wait so long.

 

This is completely putting on hold my hardware upgrade decisions I'd been contemplating later this year.

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by irrics

My God...can we get over this Xbox-only discussion?? Yes, Microsoft has a console name Xbox, but it also has a service called Xbox Game Pass which is available for Windows. All recent games developed by Microsoft Studios have been available for the PC as well!

14 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

While I'm excited for this new entry to flight sims (mainly as a competitive push for other platforms), I feel compelled to offer a contrasting viewpoint on the scenery approach. 🙂

I know orthoscenery is probably the most popular type here at Avsim, but not everyone prefers it over landclass + data-driven autogen. My personal beefs with orthoscenery are these below, and it's because I do a lot of my flying at lower altitudes in bush planes and helicopters:

• Immersion-breaking artifacts like "squashed" cars and buildings, and shadows that don't track the current sun angle.
• Clashes with autogen roads and moving cars that don't match the underlying photo.
• Poor to nonexistent night lighting.
• Difficulty in landing helicopters away from airports, when the ground turns into a pixellated blur and I can't see texture to judge my height.
• Unrealistic response to sunlight at low angles and changing color of sunlight at dawn or dusk.
• Poor to nonexistent coverage at decent resolutions for large parts of the world, many of which are incredibly interesting for "bush" flying. 
• "Stretched" bitmaps on near-vertical surfaces when 2D orthos are layered onto 3D terrain mesh. You can see this even on a high quality orthoscenery product like Orbx GB South on the southern chalk cliffs.
• No seasonal changes without complete texture replacement.

That last one is huge, although it doesn't seem to have hurt the Orbx business model too much. Does everyone really enjoy always flying at noon on a Summer day?

There have been hints from Laminar about procedural seasonal changes, things like trees dropping leaves dynamically in Autumn, particle-based snow on autogen building rooftops, which could (in theory) come and go based on injected real weather data. Of course that's all talk and no action so far, but potential for procedural generation using a mix of landclass and data instead of satellite orthophotos is huge. We're just not there yet.

Now, orthoscenery does look great at higher altitudes, no contest (if you ignore night flying). Much of what I'm griping about disappears if you're the kind of sim pilot who zooms in a tubeliner from a 3D airport up to the flight levels, and then lands at a 3D airport without seeing much of the ground in between, except at high altitude.

I do hope this new project is successful, if only to spur progress in the other sim platforms. And who knows, maybe it will even convert skeptical 'ol me to the streamed orthophoto approach. 
 

You know what's "immersion-breaking"?

Having to wait multiple lifetimes and pay thousands of dollars to get high quality landclass scenery for the entire world.

I'll take what MS showed (and will no doubt be able to fix after user bug reports) over what you prefer, every time.

1 minute ago, GCBraun said:

My God...can we get over this Xbox-only discussion?? Yes, Microsoft has a console name Xbox, but it also has a service called Xbox Game Pass which is available for Windows. All recent games developed by Microsoft Studios have been available for the PC as well!

 

No joke - Also, how do we know the next gen Xbox won't be more full fledged right out of the box?

It might more seriously go after the PC gamer market and offer keyboard/mouse/other peripherals right out of the gate in an effort to be the one stop gaming solution for many users.