August 22, 2019 Update

[Mengy 814]

Anyone know what airport this is?

 

Dang, I thought this was Australia, guess you can tell I'm not from down under, lol!

Edited August 23, 2019 by Mengy

[ual763 361]

3 minutes ago, Mengy said:

Anyone know what airport this is in Australia?

This is not the Australia screenshot. This is the other “canyon” shot.  The Australia screenshot is the lush green one, which is in Queensland

[sightseer 895]

are you sure thats not Page Arizona?  or nearby? (yes. its Page)

 

and the shot with the riverbanks -- theres even gentle waves at various points where the land juts out.  nice varied color sand/dirt.  fantastic clouds... some have no darkness, some have more...the ones toward the sun have more contrast than those away from the sun.  nice haze.  the trees look great.

i cant wait to go flying there.  only the water color in the foreground troubles me but if thats how it looks in real life then so be it.  rivers are usually greenish and their appearance will change with rain/runoff.

Edited August 23, 2019 by sightseer

[Mengy 814]

12 minutes ago, sightseer said:

are you sure thats not Page Arizona?  or nearby? (yes. its Page)

Sure is, good call!

Here it is both in the MFS shot and in Google Maps:

 

 

 

They compare really well, but it's interesting to note the runway is textured differently in MFS than it is in the sat images and real life.  

Edited August 23, 2019 by Mengy

[sightseer 895]

check out how they've even got the tarmac correct...with buildings it looks like.

I guess its not perfect buildings but if each airport is already pretty good then...wow!

Edited August 23, 2019 by sightseer

[Paraffin 2,197]

3 minutes ago, sightseer said:

i cant wait to go flying there.  only the water color in the foreground troubles me but if thats how it looks in real life then so be it.  rivers are usually greenish.

Rivers can be many different colors. Rivers with mountain runoff in Spring where I live up here in the PNW can be bright turquoise due to mineral content. Rivers with a silt load like the Mississippi Delta or much of the Amazon are brown. If your'e seeing green rivers, it might be due to algae or some other factor.

One of the more immersion-breaking things in X-Plane is that rivers everywhere are the same slate blue color. Oceans too, shallow or deep. I would spend more time flying in the Caribbean or South Pacific Islands in XP if the default shallow water colors looked more realistic. 

Satellite orthophoto scenery can fix that, but at the cost of artifacts if you look too close when you're flying low enough. It will be fascinating to see how the new MSFS balances that.

[adino 263]

2 minutes ago, sightseer said:

check out how they've even got the tarmac correct...with buildings it looks like.

In same breath can we conclude finally that not everywhere will have photogrammetry coverage, right? or I'm I too early for that?

[adino 263]

3 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

Satellite orthophoto scenery can fix that, but at the cost of artifacts if you look too close when you're flying low enough. It will be fascinating to see how the new MSFS balances that.

uhmmm..Ok, I thought they already proofed that in the previous update..

[sightseer 895]

1 minute ago, adino said:

In same breath can we conclude finally that not everywhere will have photogrammetry coverage, right? or I'm I too early for that?

well I think we already knew that but Im very impressed with how much seems to be good quality satellite or aerial photography covered realistically with a type of autogen.

[notmaxwell 7]

On one hand I really appreciate them trying to keep us updated on the sim each weak, on the other hand I think they need to work on expectation management and only release information that is truly relevant to the community.

If I announce an update about... let's say the current status of my vacation plans and the actual "update" I release is: "1. Look for a destination, 2. Compare flights, 3. Plan activities", nobody really cares for that information. People already know the process of planning a vacation, they'd rather want to know what kind of vacation I'm looking for or if I've already decided on a destination.

You don't have an actual update to the current status of 3rd Party Development? Cool, no problem. But then do not pretend like you do and instead provide a realistic time frame when we can expect such information.

Yes it's nitpicky and i'm still very excited about this sim. They just need to chill a little bit regarding their 'updates' 😉

Edited August 23, 2019 by notmaxwell

[Paraffin 2,197]

1 minute ago, adino said:

In same breath can we conclude finally that not everywhere will have photogrammetry coverage, right? or I'm I too early for that?

I think that's a safe assumption until proven otherwise. I have some favorite flying areas in the world where I would be astounded if there was photogrammetry-based 3D buildings.

As I've said before here -- not even my home town in WA state 50 miles from Seattle shows any 3D buildings in Google Earth. Tilt the Google Earth view and we're flat as a pancake. We're too insignificant for whoever is collecting that data, apparently.

If a town that close to Seattle doesn't have it, then good luck for the rest of the world. 😄

[Paraffin 2,197]

4 minutes ago, adino said:

uhmmm..Ok, I thought they already proofed that in the previous update..

They haven't proved anything until we get our hands on the sim, and start flying it in our favorite parts of the world. But I'm still being cautiously optimistic that the world is "plausible" enough for a good flight sim, even away from areas like big cities where more data is available. 

[Murmur 3,941]

Can't wait until we will know how all of this runs at high details. FPS, blurries, stutters? (Hopefully not). But it will be many months before that.

Contrary to most other simmers, I'm not the least interested in MS plans about 3rd party development.

[Dirtysouth09 35]

Nah!!! I'm good with any update big or small.  Gives me something to read and look forward to.  Even if it is just a few screen shots.

[simaddict 46]

Yeah...but the screenshots say they are from Feb/March? That's an update?