Disturbing article

[Skywatcher 133]

15 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

No, that doesn't work as an explanation because the elephants are sharp. You can even see the tusks. If it was speed from the aircraft viewpoint blurring the ground, the elephant would be blurred too. 

The trees around that watering hole, or whatever it's supposed to be, are fairly sharp too. It's the ground around the elephants that's a blurry mess.

Correct. I'm not an expert to tell how modern graphics work and what is possible and what is not. However, the tress and elephants are likely different graphical elements. Let's say they are autogen for example. The grass is part of a modern day landclass. It's a representation of how ground elements may look and render. I am guessing here but I really don't believe the elephants, trees and grass are all the same graphical type of element. The grass would be representative of much of the MSFS world on the ground. This is why some elements are sharp and others fall apart.

Edited July 7, 2019 by Skywatcher

[LHookins 3,102]

I'm not going to worry about it until I see it on my screen.  What you saw is the current state of the sim, and they have another year or more to polish it.  Most people will be looking at the elephants and trees in that scene anyway so it's good enough for an announcement trailer.

We don't know at this point whether they'll fix "the blurries" we see, or how.  It may be as simple as writing an Azure algorithm to overlay what would normally be blurry textures with something higher resolution.  Not photo realistic from the actual ground depicted, but a high resolution representation of what we would expect to see there.  Perfectly acceptable unless it's your front yard.

If you took one look at the video and all you saw was some superficial eye candy, I can understand why you weren't all that impressed.  But there's a lot more going on.  I flew over Flight's Hawaii several hundred hours so I know what was possible.  What I saw was an improvement over other areas of the sim.

If you're running on a 10 year old laptop that wasn't that good when it was new, what do you expect to see?  It'll still be better than what you see in FSX on the same computer.  P3Dv4 certainly is.

Hook

Edited July 7, 2019 by LHookins

[Skywatcher 133]

2 minutes ago, LHookins said:

I'm not going to worry about it until I see it on my screen.  What you saw is the current state of the sim, and they have another year or more to polish it.  Most people will be looking at the elephants and trees in that scene anyway so it's good enough for an announcement trailer.

We don't know at this point whether they'll fix "the blurries" we see, or how.  It may be as simple as writing an Azure algorithm to overlay what would normally be blurry textures with something higher resolution.  Not photo realistic from the actual ground depicted, but a high resolution representation of what we would expect to see there.  Perfectly acceptable unless it's your front yard.

If you took one look at the video and all you saw was some superficial eye candy, I can understand why you weren't all that impressed.  But there's a lot more going on.  I flew over Flight's Hawaii several hundred hours so I know what was possible.  What I saw was an improvement over other areas of the sim.

If you're running on a 10 year old laptop that wasn't that good when it was new, what do you expect to see?  It'll still be better than what you see in FSX on the same computer.  P3Dv4 certainly is.

Hook

Yes, agree, we need more information and from a graphics standpoint, to see it on our machines.

I've looked at it closely now, appears to me the grass is some kind of overlay and different to all the other elements within the scene including the ground. You can also see this in the giraffe scene by looking at the grass in the distance. Appears it may have gone from overlay to plain texture/photo when you look at the grass in the distance.

[Paraffin 2,197]

OK, personally I'm signing off all this deep analysis of a short promotional  trailer until we see the next one. Or we get a flyable demo as part of that "Insider" signup later this year.

It's going to be a loooong Summer, folks. 

[LHookins 3,102]

As far as I'm concerned, the trees, grass and even wildlife are different forums of autogen, probably all handled the same way.  You need to see trees at a distance but only need to see grass up close.  At least the grass is fading in and not popping in. 🙂

It should be obvious that we're not looking a the trailer the same way.  You're noticing stuff I didn't, I'm noticing stuff you didn't.  Your observations are as valuable as anyone's. 

When they throw this open to wide beta, a lot of your concerns will be addressed by the beta testers.  Most will be fixed.  This is why I think it's too early to get concerned about too many details.  Blurries?  Grass not blending in as well as it should?  Someone's gonna notice and report it.  The grass can be fixed probably by changing a single number somewhere.  Or letting their complex-and-wonderful AI vary it as necessary.

And y'know... I still don't know if I'll be able to run the new sim.  I'm planning as if I can, but keeping a fallback position if I can't.  The fallback position ain't all that bad.

Hook

[rocketlaunch 614]

I am just pleased they have elephants, that was something that was really missing from FSX and all current sims!

[Skywatcher 133]

50 minutes ago, rocketlaunch said:

I am just pleased they have elephants, that was something that was really missing from FSX and all current sims!

As long as we don't end up with elephants and giraffes in every capital city on the planet. lol

[Chock 17,769]

1 hour ago, rocketlaunch said:

I am just pleased they have elephants, that was something that was really missing from FSX and all current sims!

Over the years, whenever I bought successive new versions of MS flight sims, I can't tell you what a huge disappoint it was that MS had completely failed to include pachyderms, it was I'm sure for many, the elephant in the room as far as sim realism was concerned!

Doubtless it was also the chief reason why Flight Sim World failed. When I bought FSW's beta version, I was so concerned about the total lack of pachyderms - but of course chiefly those with long trunks and big or slightly smaller ears - that I was prompted to pick up my telephone and make a trunk call to Dovetail's headquarters: 'tusk, tusk, tusk' I opened, 'you haven't included elephants!'. I continued, 'Neither African nor Asian, nor for that matter the Martinsyde G.100 Elephant WW1 fighter-bomber!'. I remonstrated further: 'What kind of a dumbo is going to buy a flight sim which doesn't include elephants?' I cried. 'You're making a mistake of Mammoth proportions!'.

Edited July 7, 2019 by Chock

[FS++ 707]

Elephants, Giraffes, Zebra, Humbacks and OrcaWhales have been right there since FSX. Look at your FSX installation \SimObjects\Animals\... folder

No doubt they would have been re-touched to give them better textures and maybe slightly better animations. I doubt these would be streamed.

Obviously, have to fly in specific areas and at very low altitude and speed in order to notice them.

Something tells me, it has the "Flight" graphics engine, plus the streaming bit, without the misguided idea they had to lock the sim to specific areas.

Definitely looking forward to the new sim, even if it only has incremental rather than groundbreaking sort of changes.

[vortex681 806]

On 7/6/2019 at 12:29 AM, Skywatcher said:

As for Flight and FSW, hands up for all those who dumped their FSX's, P3D's and X-Plane's to use it?

That's because they were both cancelled too early in their development. I didn't say they were replacements for those sims, just that they had the potential to be.

On 7/6/2019 at 12:29 AM, Skywatcher said:

MSFS is going to be a game.

Here's the problem with your posts (and which you're accusing others of). You're stating, definitively that it's going to be a game - not that it might be a game, or could possibly just be a game. If you also consider FSX, P3D and X-Plane to be games (in the more general use of the term because, technically, they all are), then I would agree with you. However, if you consider those others to be simulators (as distinct from just games), then you have no more evidence that MSFS is going to be a game than all of those who assume it will be a fully-fledged flight simulator. You've interpreted what you see in the trailer in one way whilst others have interpreted it in another. Stating it over and over again doesn't make you any more correct than anyone else here who's given their opinion. Until someone actually gets their hands on it and tries it, we have absolutely no idea how it will turn out. It's just not possible at this time to say the "it's going to be a game" with any certainty at all. You're just speculating like the rest of us.

Edited July 7, 2019 by vortex681

[Skywatcher 133]

4 hours ago, vortex681 said:

That's because they were both cancelled too early in their development. I didn't say they were replacements for those sims, just that they had the potential to be.

Here's the problem with your posts (and which you're accusing others of). You're stating, definitively that it's going to be a game - not that it might be a game, or could possibly just be a game. If you also consider FSX, P3D and X-Plane to be games (in the more general use of the term because, technically, they all are), then I would agree with you. However, if you consider those others to be simulators (as distinct from just games), then you have no more evidence that MSFS is going to be a game than all of those who assume it will be a fully-fledged flight simulator. You've interpreted what you see in the trailer in one way whilst others have interpreted it in another. Stating it over and over again doesn't make you any more correct than anyone else here who's given their opinion. Until someone actually gets their hands on it and tries it, we have absolutely no idea how it will turn out. It's just not possible at this time to say the "it's going to be a game" with any certainty at all. You're just speculating like the rest of us.

I've been through all this. Tried to use a rational approach, tried to explain you must use a rational approach to take anything away from the little that has been released so far. Tried to explain you can't make assumptions as are being made on this forum. Tried to explain you can't assume a FSX replacement from the word simulator. Tried to explain you can't assume SDK from the word content. Tried to make a statement and leave it there but continue to get met with confrontational and challenging posts because my view does not coincide with the masses.

I have also tried to explain, my views are based on the material released so far, not total fantasy. 30 years I've been involved in and around marketing. I am looking at the marketing to base my decision on what this game will be. I am not blindly taking a wild guess or forming an opinion based on my own desires for what I wish MSFS to be. I am taking a logical approach. 

I have also explained my thought process regarding what can be taken from the marketing. I have not taken anything from the trailer, I have explained this as well, it tells you nothing.

I stated tongue in cheek it will be a game just as the members here have so clearly stated it will have every feature known to man.

I have also tried to get away from this subject but it clearly just cannot be done.

[vortex681 806]

41 minutes ago, Skywatcher said:

I have also explained my thought process regarding what can be taken from the marketing. I have not taken anything from the trailer, I have explained this as well, it tells you nothing.

I stated tongue in cheek it will be a game just as the members here have so clearly stated it will have every feature known to man.

I think that it's even more difficult to come to any conclusion by just reading the marketing! I would have thought that MS going out of their way to emphasise the word "simulator" is more likely to make people think that this is going to be a full simulator, not less. They could easily have just not mentioned it if that was the case.

Sorry if I've somehow misunderstood you, but how do you expect people to work out that it's a tongue-in-cheek comment when you've repeatedly said that MSFS is going to be a plane game? You seem to go out of your way to dismiss any notion that this may be a real simulation. Even after re-reading your posts I'm still struggling to see how you come to this conclusion. Personally, I'm not taking a side at the moment as currently I think that it's not possible to call it one way or the other - I'm just hoping for the best.

[Skywatcher 133]

45 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

ISorry if I've somehow misunderstood you, but how do you expect people to work out that it's a tongue-in-cheek comment when you've repeatedly said that MSFS is going to be a plane game? You seem to go out of your way to dismiss any notion that this may be a real simulation.

I honestly think it will be a cross between sim and plane game but what I really do not think it will be is a modern day FSX nor replacement for FSX.

How do I come to these conclusions? (In short, main points)

It will be on Xbox. To be a FSX replacement I think it will be the first of this type of in-depth game ever re-leased on any console. It will also be released in a time where these types of games are fading out not coming in.

The first feature they highlighted was a flight planner.

They used the word simulator rather than make any blatantly obvious statement that may indicate a continuation of the franchise.

The entire write-up could just as easily fit any modern plane game. There is nothing specifically written to indicate it will be more than this. No, I do not believe they just forgot to indicate this.

The content aspect is left wide open and very unclear. A major player like PMDG knows nothing. Where are these hardcore 3rd party aircraft going to come from? It's unrealistic to think they will release the game and then open things up to PMDG after release due to development times.

Everything written is worded to continue interest without any commitment being made. Clear marketing that sets off some major warning bells.

As I have said, we need one more public release. They will either confirm or sidestep again. Either way should then give us a real answer as to what MSFS will be. 

 

 

 

 

[Skywatcher 133]

Should also say, games like FS just don't exist any longer. Any genre, they are all stripped down versions of games from years past built to generate revenue from things like DLC's and close access to outside development. They are not left wide open for others to come in and take from those profits. To get a modern day FSX replacement from MSFS, nothing in the world would surprise me more.

[vortex681 806]

16 hours ago, Skywatcher said:

It will be on Xbox. To be a FSX replacement I think it will be the first of this type of in-depth game ever re-leased on any console.

Not so. You only need to look at modern racing sims to see that complex simulations have already successfully transitioned onto consoles. The best racing sims model aerodynamics accurately (including the effects of damage), all aspects of tyre dynamics (including pressure, grip, temp), changing car weight, changing track temp and surface conditions, weather, AI for single player racing plus many more features. You can adjust almost every conceivable aspect of the car setup which is then calculated in real-time during the race. They use the latest PC-compatible controller hardware (FFB wheels and load-cell pedals, for example) and offer sophisticated online competitions. Current console graphics are not quite up to those available on a PC but all other aspects of the games are the same. There's no reason to think that the next generation of consoles will not be at least as good as a current mid to high end PC so the fact that a game is available for a console will not automatically mean that it's somehow inferior to a PC version.

Edited July 8, 2019 by vortex681