1 minute ago, Claviateur said:

I hope not. Asobo's videos did not show, as far as my eyes could see, any terrain LOD refreshing except for the Photogrammetry cities?

If I remember correctly I noticed it in some scenes of Seattle. So indeed it might have been the photogrammetry rather than the terrain mesh. But eventually photogrammetry is a kind of high resolution mesh if I understand correctly.

Let's hope for the best.

 

10 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

If I remember correctly I noticed it in some scenes of Seattle. So indeed it might have been the photogrammetry rather than the terrain mesh. But eventually photogrammetry is a kind of high resolution mesh if I understand correctly.

Let's hope for the best.

 

Yes Photogrammetry is a type of mesh and in Google Earth, photogrammetry refreshes as well. But let's hope it's a layer seperate from the terrain in MSFS 🙂 

1 hour ago, Claviateur said:

custom elevation data if they have high res DEM data

The problem I've found with the radar dem data (free) vs the lidar data you have to pay with body parts for, is radar anywhere near water is "multiple very rude words that are not allowed" awful and noisy, meaning its needs flattening, loosing all the detail nearby any rivers.

That river is "bathymetry" so one shot is the raw - flattened dem data, second shot after eroding into it with procedural water physics. not perfect but better than nothing.

UK Ordinance Survey has absolutely perfect elevation data for the entire UK (down to road embankments and gully's), but hardware is a long way off being able to render that in any meaningful way.

I'm also not convinced the google maps view of the same bit of river

https://pasteboard.co/IOKQ5XO.png

is actually "better". and good grief is that stuff hard on the bandwidth and storage.

Short and sweet version - this stuff is hard, and also, actually, not the most important, from 20,000 feet empty ortho is perfectly fine, especially on a 2D screen with no depth perception - its the aircraft systems that matter first and foremost.

 

Edited January 6, 20206 yr by mSparks

17 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

Yes and maybe high res 3rd party custom terrain will be local only.

That's one option. I can't recall the size of the full set of HD v4 mesh on "the other sim," but based on the limited number I have installed, it might be around 200 GB in size. That's not the whole world though -- most of Africa, and all of the Middle East, SE Asia, China, and Russia are not available as HD mesh. The higher UHD mesh areas are even more restricted, and larger in size.

Maybe people wouldn't mind having to acquire 200-300 GB of mesh for local storage, but I think we're all hoping it can be "served" as part of the default sim, downloading as you fly into it and then erasing the data after you leave the area, like the rest of the scenery details. It's the most efficient use of the user's computer resources, as long as the bandwidth can support it.

2 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

Maybe people wouldn't mind having to acquire 200-300 GB of mesh for local storage

It would be very surprising if an "offline install" required that much data, not only would hardly anyone have the required free space, but the bandwidth costs would be astronomical if every ms plane simulator customer needed to download that much data just to get started.

Doesnt a good chunk of the US have double digit gig bandwidth limits per month anyway?

16 minutes ago, mSparks said:

It would be very surprising if an "offline install" required that much data, not only would hardly anyone have the required free space, but the bandwidth costs would be astronomical if every ms plane simulator customer needed to download that much data just to get started.

It might require that much data to match the HD v4 mesh resolution, or even more if the areas not covered in that data set are available.

And as for "not everyone having that much free space," consider that just the state of Washington USA in Orbx TE scenery takes up 208 GB on my hard drive. And I haven't even bought the rest of the West Coast yet! There is enough of a market among the flight sim community to support that kind of product, or the free orthos available for "the other sim" that take up just as much room. 

And this could be an option for higher detailed mesh, not part of the default package for everyone to get started. Just like it is for that other sim. 
 

Quote

Doesnt a good chunk of the US have double digit gig bandwidth limits per month anyway?

Some areas do, and many areas like mine have tiered packages where you pay extra for unlimited data. Disk space and download speed doesn't mean that much if it's a product you want badly enough. Games are getting larger too. Red Dead Redemption 2 takes up 115 GB on my hard drive. 

49 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

And as for "not everyone having that much free space," consider that just the state of Washington USA in Orbx TE

I didnt mean to imply its not worth it.

I have a whole 2TB drive set aside for flight simming.

just that I would be surprised if owners of "devorce rigs" was the default.

I would expect no more than 2 blue ray disks for offline/default and everything else to be dlc of some description.

edit:googles it... ok blue rays now at 128gb per disk. so that is a fair bit more than i thought.

Edited January 6, 20206 yr by mSparks

2 hours ago, Claviateur said:

Yes, and I hope the new engine is not like ESP. In fact ESP terrain architecture is designed in a way that was flexible to manipulate and modify but not the best for performance and LOD behavior... Unlike the terrain of another simulator. Let's see how Asobo's engine handles this. I hope we will not see the terrain morph from low res drapery, to more defined one as we get closer 😕 

You are grossly misinformed regarding one point.  It is not "ESP terrain architecture".  It is older architecture than that.  ESP is not the base of the sim... it never was.  ESP was a product that was developed by MS from FSX.  FSX existed first and ESP was essentially FSX with all of the UI removed.  The terrain database the sim uses was around before FSX and ESP.

35 minutes ago, WarpD said:

ESP is not the base of the sim

during the initial dev interview the Asobo guy said they (paraphrased) "merged their cessna flight model with one provided by microsoft".

given they will not be using the ui, "esp base" for most things seems a fair expectation.

Terrain engine is almost certainly going to be based on:

(speculation, obviously, but its a near perfect match of in house IP for asobo for what they need for msfs2020)

Both are more than enough for every video they have created so far with only a couple of years extra work.

Edited January 6, 20206 yr by mSparks

I second the desire for _not_ having terrain and textures popup/morphing. Those two (together with stutters) were absolute immersion killers in FSX.

My hope is that alpha-testers will report them with high priority, if they're currently present in the alpha.

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

during the initial dev interview the Asobo guy said they (paraphrased) "merged their cessna flight model with one provided by microsoft".

given they will not be using the ui, "esp base" for most things seems a fair expectation.

 

And yet... you actually missed the point.  ESP has never been the base of FSX of which ASOBO obtained the cessna flight model from.

If you are going to post statements and claim authority and knowledge... make certain your information is factual.  ESP is a child of FSX... and ASOBO has used access to FSX:SE (the one Dovetail worked on), not ESP.  ESP is so far behind the FSX:SE version code-wise... there would be no valid reason to even consider looking at it.  To reiterate... ESP is based on FSX, not the other way around.  Since it is FSX based... claiming ESP based is neither accurate nor "a fair expectation".

19 minutes ago, WarpD said:

“...ESP has never been the base of FSX".

Slightly off topic but just quickly... did LM get the ESP code base, or the FSX Acceleration code with the ESP licence?

29 minutes ago, WarpD said:

And yet... you actually missed the point.  ESP has never been the base of FSX of which ASOBO obtained the cessna flight model from.

Nooooooo....this is exactly what he was looking for! Now you have fueled the troll this topic is doomed.. 😕

1 hour ago, WarpD said:

ESP has never been the base of FSX of which ASOBO obtained the cessna flight model from.

Cessna was Asobo, everything else was Microsoft, merged with Asobos terrain engine. If paraphrase is no good.

from the horses mouth at the correct timestamp: (3mins 20 secs)

 

Edited January 7, 20206 yr by mSparks

22 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Cessna was Asobo, everything else was Microsoft, merged with Asobos terrain engine. If paraphrase is no good.

from the horses mouth at the correct timestamp: (3mins 20 secs)

 

Now you're talking something different... and contradicting yourself to boot.  Do you do this intentionally?