If someone had shown me a screenshot of Queensland without saying it was MSFS, I'd have sworn it was X-Plane and xVision as the colours etc looks very very similar. It's only until you notice the non-billboard, non-glowing and non-self-shadowing vegetation that you work out it's not 🤣

It's hard to tell from the elevation, but does the Grand Canyon shot of the airport include any autogen, or is it flat buildings? 

 

53 minutes ago, jcomm said:

Not yet a word about the Moon with precise depiction ? I'm getting worried....

LOL Jose I was waiting for this 😉

6 hours ago, notmaxwell said:

They just need to chill a little bit regarding their 'updates' 

And/ or we do too. To be fair they haven’t promised bombastic updates every week, it’s us that want that because we’re excited. 

10 minutes ago, rjfry said:

No word on the date of the next update that`s OK by me early sept will do. stop another thread starting a day before.

No they said there’s a big one coming next week (that’s what she said). 

6 hours 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?

Can we? Which of the screenshots shared so far look like they aren’t using photogrammetry (genuine question, I don’t fully understand what it is yet)?

A short but pleasant one!

I also love the way Microsoft answers our concerns, one by one and with humor.

Look at the water flow on the first screenshot, it is actually following the direction of the river! That's a nice touch

Multiple tree species in the Australian one

Showing screenshots of remote areas is a good idea, some of us are worried about how Papua or Somalia will look.

I think I will for now on terminate my posts with "Microsoft thank you!" 🙂

 

 

Edited August 23, 20196 yr by Noooch

7 hours ago, ual763 said:

The Australia screenshot is the lush green one, which is in Queensland

Do you know where?

Apart form the jaw dropping new screen shots (from much earlier previous builds!) and the confirmed sloped runways, the most exciting part of this update is:

• 3^rd Party Progress Update
  • Phase 1 – Outreach and Engagement (in-progress)
  • Phase 2 – Code and Content Integration (in-progress)
  • Phase 3 – Content Release Timeline (kick-off)

I wonder who they are talking to?

Quote

3^rd Party Progress Update

• Phase 1 – Outreach and Engagement (in-progress)
• Phase 2 – Code and Content Integration (in-progress)
• Phase 3 – Content Release Timeline (kick-off)

As this is going on now, it must mean that they already have the SDK ready. Which again means that the SDK must be an updated FSX SDK as there is no chance that a complete new SDK has been developed yet. This means also that most addons for FSW and P3D should be running fine on this new MSFS2020, with some minor modifications.

54 minutes ago, Noooch said:

Do you know where?

Mundaring Weir in Perth?

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mundaring+Weir,+Sawyers+Valley+WA+6074,+Australia/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x2a32c2be3cf4e2bf:0x159c8abdbdae3d22!7e2!8m2!3d-31.978796!4d116.20314359999999?utm_source=mstt_1

1 hour ago, tonywob said:

It's hard to tell from the elevation, but does the Grand Canyon shot of the airport include any autogen, or is it flat buildings?

My first impression was that the Page, AZ shot doesn’t have any kind of photogrammetry or autogen, just flat buildings. But in other hand, the word not allowed is a little modeled. So I’m Some kind of lost here. 

Here is the Australian image taken from Bing Map

 

 

And here from Google Maps

https://www.google.se/maps/@-31.9765964,116.2018939,574a,35y,133.06h,78.65t/data=!3m1!1e3

 

Edited August 23, 20196 yr by nas123

They've done an amazing job adjusting the colors from the satellite source.

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be hard for them to implement seasons by tweaking colors like this

Edited August 23, 20196 yr by cepact

5 minutes ago, cepact said:

They've done an amazing job adjusting the colors from the satellite source.

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be hard for them to implement seasons by tweaking colors like this

Indeed they can, using shaders they can change everything in the scenery (even the orthophotos) without having to store the textures for each season. Just let the shaders change things according to the season (like building the snow on the ground or accumulating red/brown leafs on the fall).

9 hours ago, hypercide said:

What strikes me about this update is the fact they are in the process of reaching out to developers in order to effect "code and content" integration. This is exactly how DTG went about putting together FSW, with both Orbx and A2A embedded in that sim. The way this relaunch of MSFS is proceeding, sometimes it seems like MS were using DTG for no-cost, arms-length R&D.

I agree, and probably explains why FSW was suddenly shut down.

When the first screenshots were published I though how very FSW they looked.

I just hope the sim runs on less than bleeding edge hardware

4 hours ago, dtrjones said:

Cool sloped AND curved runways, that means that mods can develop those circular runways of the future LOL!

@188AHC Rick are we still adding this stuff to what we know, thanks! 😁

Cheers,
Dave.

 

Sure, Dave. Add it if you wish. It helps us keep track of what is fact.

Thanks for asking.