So... if the new MSFS offline version is actually more like P3D v6 and the online version contains streaming extremely accurate scenery with "real world weather" ... would this be a bad thing?

Im thinking that todays combustion engine is miles ahead of what we had 40 years ago but yet they are both combustion engines and so what exactly would be wrong by MS taking FSX and rewriting as much of it as needed to fix all the problems that all the people and all the developers (within reason) have talked/complained about and in addition it would add lots of thing that those same people/deveolpers have wished for.  and also it would add things none appearently thought was possible like streaming Orbx quality scenery for large portions of the Earth?  but neverfear for the offline version will still be Orbx compatible and both versions will be PMDG or iFly or RealAir or IRIS or Ants Airplanes compatible.

wouldnt that be a good thing?  it might also explain why the FSX logo is at the bottom of the update.

P.S:  I think some people confuse 'old tech' with 'old block diagram'.  Its completely new and modern code but like the combustion engine, its a similar approach. (and Im not a programmer so I dont really know what Im talking about here)

Edited July 27, 20196 yr by sightseer

On 7/25/2019 at 3:18 PM, Mengy said:

The FSX bit at the end might hint at a conversion tool for FSX addons to import into FS2020.  I doubt old addons will be directly compatible as they'd want to start from scratch with the new sim, but developing a tool to convert old addons to the new format is certainly a possibility.

I don’t know how they could use 32 bit code models in a 64 bit sim. Converting a P3D v4 model, that could be intriguing. But I think it’ll be like someone mentioned above - limited backward compatibility, want full - code to the new SDK. 

MS:  Please be careful about listening to too much of what add-on developers "want".

Many of them we begrudgingly "deal with" because the core of FSX got so dated and bloated and eventually feature lacking.

It was a relationship of necessity, not desire, for many of us.

The more things you can include out of the box that remove the necessity for external add-ons, the better -please!

Edited July 27, 20196 yr by irrics

Serious request.

Could the people who have absolutely nothing positive to say just go back to the P3D or XP11 forums? I.E. what was happening on pages 6-8 of this thread.

I don't say that because your negativity bothers me (I can just ignore it), but I'd really not like a repeat of what happened with FSX, where ridiculously pedantic posters ran off the ACES developers and they stopped checking the forums.

If you think it's "smoke and mirrors" or want to talk about how great P3D is with all its addons, this probably isn't the forum for you right now. You can only say the same thing so many times.

Edited July 27, 20196 yr by bonchie

@bonchie

Great point and it’s one of the key reasons it’s important for the rest of us to be so vocal continually over time here.

I don’t want the new development team getting the impression that we “have to have backwards compatibility” with old add-ons or bend over backwards to accommodate long time add-on developers that I would prefer we don’t even need anymore for the most part, for the non niche uses in particular. 

Edited July 27, 20196 yr by irrics

I flew MSFS in 1991 for the first time on my uncle's PC. It was FS2 I think. Every PC I got since the 90s was mainly for MSFS.

Then I became a scenery developer and I created my first scenery for FS98 and kept doing so until 3 years ago when I saw that XPlane 11 had new potentials with its new engine technology. Thus I left FSX and worked on scenery for XPlane 11... 

With all this exciting news about the upcoming MSFS, I can't wait to see, as a scenery developer, if these breathtaking videos and screenshots will be part of the next platform ala MSFS, not MS Flight. In fact, I was part of MS Flight beta testing program...

I told my friends who work with me on scenery development, that we could be forced to make tough choices if the next MSFS happened to be a revolutionary new version of MSFS. If it happens to be miles ahead of X-Plane 11 world engine in terms of immersion and, and if it features user-friendly and comprehensive ways of improving its landscape and scenery in general, we might simply migrate back to the platform we developed for since the 90s.

In terms of scenery creation, my main frustration with X-Plane 11 world engine, is that its terrain is almost locked for any possible improvement in terms of landclass, autogen, coastlines and even, elevations... We can't enhance the terrain components of XPlane as we used to do in MSFS. It requires some rocket science knowledge to compile a terrain package that requires scripting and many databases for its different components... In the ESP engine (MSFS) platform, we used to compile elevation, coastlines, landclasses etc... separately...  it was more practical. Laminar Research mentions that their locked architecture is performance-oriented...

Lately, I saw some interesting technical analysis on youtube of the initial trailer video of the new MSFS. I think these analyses are right, the new engine will have a mix of photogrammetry technology (aka LIDAR ala Google Earth) for major cities, mixed with generic and/or procedural landscapes for the rest of the world. Probably the generic/procedural landscapes will have (corrected) aerial/satellite imagery (hopefully!).

I don't think we can edit or improve or enhance photogrammetry data but then who does want to do that. It should represent cities as they are. Probably we could flatten an area to add a new infrastructure that was not part of the initial scan...  But the rest of the world, if procedural, it could be enhanced as we did for previous MSFS.

My wishes as a scenery developer is to have flexibility in terms of terrain editing using some user-friendly terrain and scenery editing native tools like the ones for example in the world engine "Unigine".

All in all, I hope that the new MSFS will offer some impressive flexibility for us scenery developers and will open the door for some wonderful scenery work and improvements.

Cheers,

Good post Claviateur.

I too hope I can modify my local airfield - that I fly real world - to enhance the new sim.

4 minutes ago, ganter said:

I too hope I can modify my local airfield - that I fly real world - to enhance the new sim.

I'd like that too.

On the topic of people making their own scenery for FS2020, I really hope one of the ways MS improves handling addons is to implement an online mod interface similar to Steam Workshop, where people (and developers) can make addons for the game for people to download / buy / subscribe to.  This way if I spruced up some small grass airport I could easily share it with everyone who plays FS2020.

Yeah, that sounds good as well Mengy. If MS integrate it in to the API.

I find the "boffin" guys at www.fsdeveloper.com will quickly gather round with freely-given expertise and guidance. Wonderful place in fact.

On 7/25/2019 at 2:19 PM, chass32 said:

actually "La Sagrada Familia"  can´t be seen..meh

xD

It looks like at least some of that is landclass (?).  But you would know best as you live near Barcelona.

 

 

2 hours ago, Mace said:

It looks like at least some of that is landclass (?).  But you would know best as you live near Barcelona.

 

 

It´s photogrammetry. I was being sarcastic with the "you can´t see la sagrada familia" thing, because if you zoom enough it is there, as @Mace found out.

There are a few cities in spain like seville and Madrid that are in 3D in bing. You can check it if you want.

Every single building is there in real life, like the peculiar architecture of L´eixample:

On ‎7‎/‎26‎/‎2019 at 6:52 PM, pracines said:

True I do know the answer, some just need a reminder. Amazing how I get bashed for being correct back then; maybe some think I alone had power over whether FSW succeeded or not. If they would only think before they type.🤷‍♂️

 

Thanks Paul, some relevant ideas there. I don't think we should be holding Microsoft to this for the MSFS release though but Microsoft do probably need to be aware about what we would like which they have acknowledged looking at in there previous update and allowing 3PD the tools and capabilities to implement these features in there products.

Also they could leverage the community more. I mean ACES did a tremendous job producing Flight Simulator every two years or so but I feel a lot of there time was updating navigation data and airports. Look at what Laminar Research have done with the Airport Gateway, where communities can now use the World Editor to enhance any airport as a 3D location and if it gets approved - it gets delivered in the next patch, amazing. Suddenly that frees Laminar Research to concentrate on developing functionality and tools which enhance the experience instead of updating content for better coverage which many people wouldn't even notice.

So in a nut shell, Microsoft should be aware of what's being asked by the community and look at better ways the community can support creation of these features in the new sim.

Edited July 28, 20196 yr by n4gix
REMOVED EXCESSIVE QUOTE!!! Please stop quoting the entire post you are replying to!

16 hours ago, irrics said:

MS:  Please be careful about listening to too much of what add-on developers "want".

Many of them we begrudgingly "deal with" because the core of FSX got so dated and bloated and eventually feature lacking.

It was a relationship of necessity, not desire, for many of us.

The more things you can include out of the box that remove the necessity for external add-ons, the better -please!

I agree with this. At the risk of being screamed at, that what develops want thread worries me a bit. 

The bit in the most recent update on working out how the development team and the community bring the product to release together is quite intriguing... maybe there will be something a bit like the airport gateway?

1 hour ago, Superdelphinus said:

The bit in the most recent update on working out how the development team and the community bring the product to release together is quite intriguing... maybe there will be something a bit like the airport gateway?

While that gateway support custom buildings... no problem for me. 

I don't like the way XP handles it. A lot of airports have custom buildings in real life that doesn't match at all with the ones in the sim. 

Edited July 28, 20196 yr by aleex