9 hours ago, sightseer said:

What exactly is the right color of dirt?  and how to you tell from a satellite photo? is it dirt or is it brown grass?

Color:  Whatever turns up in a plowed field.  Or is turned up. 🙂  I think that's what I was seeing in the video.  I was more interested in the airplane.

Not a lot of black grass around.  Lots of black plowed fields here.  Just hope the AI doesn't pave 'em over with asphalt, not that you could tell much difference. 😄

Hook

OH YES PLEASE its already FAA APPROVED 😂 here in california . 

but yes grass and dirt would nice for bush pilots .

8 hours ago, Greazer said:

This thread is not a joke. More broadly this FS2020 should be designed from the ground up (literally) to render in detail at ground level i.e. grass, weeds, dirt mounds, swaying trees etc and as you gain altitude the graphics engine renders less and less ground detail. Level of detail LOD rendered by height above ground.

Only a joke if you call Microsoft's new forthcoming sim FS2020, when the official name is Microsoft Flight Simulator.

To be taken seriously, call the sim by it's official name please, or shorten it to MFS, instead of using a self made up fake title!

(from what I gather, it's a flight simulation game, not a gardening sim)

Well, try saying "MSFS" three time quickly, a bit of a tongue twister.  Didn't Pickard become suspicious after noticing weeds, or something, missing in the current holodeck scenario loaded?

In any case any increase in detail is welcome. I think Greazer has it right the engine need only emerge detail through LOD techniques when you're close enough to see it. Basically you can see an aircraft engine detail as a texture rendered onto a polygon from distance, then up close the cylinders and other engine parts are modelled. It's all doable recent D3D versions to varying extents. FLIGHT was using an enhanced system to FSX, or was going to.

Edited July 8, 20196 yr by SteveW

I think they also need to include algae and pond scum. 

Let's start with weather, good environment and realistic night lighting first-- perhaps better AI traffic.  If MSFS does what LM and LR have ignored for years, they'll have my business in a heartbeat.  Weeds?  How bout thunderstorms.

2 hours ago, rocketlaunch said:

I think they also need to include algae and pond scum. 

They should have no trouble finding plenty of that on the internet

19 hours ago, Paraffin said:

Well, you have to see the weeds to land a helicopter smoothly, judging the height by eye in the last 20 feet.

How'd you cope landing on hard surfaces like runways, car parks and aprons? (American: parking lot and ramp)

The scene in the preview with the giraffes shows lots of green grass but the scene with elephants shows only a brownish blurry patch of what may or may not be dirt.  If there can be grass then there can be brownish weeds to cover the brown blurry 'ground' near the elephants.  

toprob -  thanks for that video.  Is that Russ White (Orbx)?  That vegetation looks fantastic and all of us with Orbx experience know it looks good and it runs very well with no noticeable impact on frames (for me).

Hook and Dave -  I think Azure can tell whats dirt and whats grass simply by comparing multiple data sets.  grass changes color. dirt does not.  whether MS would expend the resources is another question.

Greazer -  I'm thinking you're right.  why cant we have grasses and weeds and little plants like are shown in the video toprob posted?  it wouldnt look that good unless MS hires Russ White I guess but maybe something more than the current high res decal system they appear to want to use. (which doesnt really do all that much imo)

54 minutes ago, dal330200 said:

Let's start with weather, good environment and realistic night lighting first-- perhaps better AI traffic.  If MSFS does what LM and LR have ignored for years, they'll have my business in a heartbeat.  Weeds?  How bout thunderstorms.

I agree completely.  weather and whats up off the ground are my highest priority but since MS already show grass (and sims already have grass and weeds and such), it cant be too much to expect weeds and not just large bare patches of brown blurry texture (which is why I started this thread)

Stuff floating on water could be a great help when estimating distance landing a floatplane: Plastic bottles, cans, tree branches, aerosols, lilos and untethered bouncy castles. 

15 minutes ago, SteveW said:

.....untethered bouncy castles....

The holy grail of flight simulation. Even Froogle would be converted if MFS included these.

Edited July 8, 20196 yr by Christopher Low

2 hours ago, dal330200 said:

Let's start with weather, good environment and realistic night lighting first-- perhaps better AI traffic.  If MSFS does what LM and LR have ignored for years, they'll have my business in a heartbeat.  Weeds?  How bout thunderstorms.

I've ranted for years about wanting more realistic thunderstorms, so I'm on board with that one.

No reason we can't have both that, and good ground detail for helicopters and bush planes. If you're landing a Super Cub on a gravel bar next to a river, or a sand beach next to the ocean, you need texture to judge the height for flare and touch down, similar to the visual cues for landing a helicopter.

Modeling a thunderstorm is the more difficult project, which is why we haven't seen it done yet. And it remains to be seen what that "thunderstorm" in the MFS trailer is all about.
 

1 hour ago, ckyliu said:

How'd you cope landing on hard surfaces like runways, car parks and aprons? (American: parking lot and ramp)

Airport runways and aprons are textured surfaces in most sims (at least they are in XP11). So landing a helicopter on airport hard surface has plenty of height cues. Car parks/Parking lots included in airport scenery are usually textured polygons.

The problem starts with parking lots in other areas like factories, shopping malls, and sports arenas. When the scenery is only an orthophoto, you'll see only blurry "squashed" cars on the ground. No detail at all when you get close. There are some places like that in the Orbx TE Great Britain and TE Washington scenery, because they can't replace every parking lot with a polygon and 3D cars. 

1 hour ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Going back to P3D V4.2 ... these thunderstorms seem pretty good to me (skip to 6:49) ... 

Certainly agree.  Was Active Sky being used?

Al

I demand a rigid, flat grid of black squares with white outlines..

What's that?? Oh, that is the simulated ground in my flight sim..

Ahem some kind of procedural texture/object generator based on vertical LOD would be quite welcome, but I'd prefer proper weather (visual and physical i.e pushing the plane around) to be included before the developers add ground objects. IMHO.