@Flamingpie  Two of your pics look like the Mississippi.  the one shows obvious flooding which is something I've always wanted to see in a sim and it makes me wonder if shaders couldnt be used to create water?  Would ray tracing work with it?

If shaders can create snow then they should also be able to create water.

I was on a flight once into New Orleans and it seemed as though the entire state of Louisiana were one giant flooded patch.  on approach it was just grey and rainy and water and trees and the interstate.  I hope the new sim will do that complete grey and rainy look. (and local flooding would be cool )

Edited August 23, 20196 yr by sightseer

56 minutes ago, bonchie said:

The question is how they are populating autogen on top of the orthos, including the grass we've seen? That can make or break the appearance (as I've learned in XP11). 

There's either a lot of smoke and mirrors going on or they've got some really, really exciting tech coming that could change everything. 

I think the only smoke and mirrors at this point, is that they're only showing us areas where the sim looks best, and not where it may be rough around the edges. Or very rough. Which is normal marketing. Every AAA game developer will only show you the very best shots before release.

We won't know how well the tech works worldwide until we get our hands on the stick and fly there. I know that's obvious, but I think it bears repeating when everyone gets so excited over these previews.

 

32 minutes ago, sightseer said:

MS Azure can identify things in photos.  See the aidemos link and then the TED talk that I thought was pretty cool.  It shows real time identification.  theres even an app for blind people where the software uses a camera to describe all objects in the camera view.  Apparently it will even attempt to describe emotional states of the people in the image (or maybe it could - dont know)

The idea that Azure AI could magically build out the world in 3D from limited 2D satellite data is certainly intriguing, but it assumes the AI will always make the correct guess about the underlying data.

The visual glitches when it "guesses wrong" could look far worse, and more immersion-breaking than conventional flight sim scenery techniques.

I'm reminded of the first version of XP that began using OSM data for auto-generated streets. Once in a while, I'd see a road making a big vertical loop off the ground, like a carnival ride with cars and trucks following the loop. It was hilarious. That sort of thing was eventually fixed, but it took a while, and there are still occasional lapses. 

So I'm in "I'll believe it when I see it" mode on this particular Azure idea. It may be involved in other aspects of scenery generation that aren't as risky, like shader changes for seasons.

 

I am very impressed so far.

I still need a great ATC and a lot of life in the world (cars, a lot of aircrafts, many lights, ....), then i am very happy.

Agree… very impressed indeed! It’s a great feeling knowing all this is forthcoming!

The 2md shot is Page, AZ. We have already seen it in the trailer. The first shot looks like somewhere near Moab, UT? to the north.

Edited August 23, 20196 yr by reignman40

I echo what was said before:

• 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 think this is falling a bit short of mention so far. I was initially anticipating a larger update about 3rd party support and thought this was very brief. But, when you think about it, this is huge. Developers are being contacted as we post and addons integrated into the sim (this is what I make of phase 2 anyway). This gets even more intriguing bearing in mind the sim still has quite a development road ahead of it and might even only be released at the end of 2020. To see they are working on it this "early" hints at addons being available at launch and it may not take long for further addons to follow after launch. Perhaps they are even giving developers a head start at producing other addons like aircraft or airports.

It is sad to say but I am sure that some people would feel better if 3rd party aircraft were available as a separate purchase at the time of launch then if those same exact aircraft done by those same 3rd party developers were integrated into the sim.

9 hours ago, nas123 said:

 

 

I just noticed something interesting, the cloud shadows on bing map and MSFS seems to be located at exact same locations, or am I wrong ? It seems like in these earlier builds they haven't yet cleaned the shadows and clouds artefacts from the satellite data (there are also cloud artefacts on the canyon screen if you look closely), and they have tried to make look the clouds shadows legitimate by placing clouds at the sky.

Edited August 23, 20196 yr by cepact

2 minutes ago, sightseer said:

It is sad to say but I am sure that some people would feel better if 3rd party aircraft were available as a separate purchase at the time of launch then if those same exact aircraft done by those same 3rd party developers were integrated into the sim.

Let's dream 😊 ! If the basic sim offers an A2A, a PMDG, an Ifly, the higher end of Milviz etc. I would welcome that very much  ! But I wish that the sim also allows the integration of high end aircraft outside the MS sale channel. 

10 minutes ago, cepact said:

I just noticed something interesting, the cloud shadows on bing map and MSFS seems to be located at exact same locations, or am I wrong ? It seems like in these earlier builds they haven't yet cleaned the shadows and clouds artefacts from the satellite data (there are also cloud artefacts on the canyon screen if you look closely), and they have tried to make look the clouds shadows legitimate by placing clouds at the sky.

The bing imagery was made using satellites, if there were clouds you would be seeing the clouds, not their shadows, like you can see on the Grand Canyon shot.

Yeah I completely misunderstood what these dark areas were, actually it's just spots with darker green trees and more density...  I thought there were clouds shadows.

Edited August 23, 20196 yr by cepact

17 hours ago, cmpbellsjc said:

Funny thing about the FS community. When a developer announces a new item a lot of people beg for updates, sometimes almost daily, like on the PMDG forums.

Now we have MS coming with a new sim and even giving us a layout of when updates will post along with a roadmap of what’s happening and when, and guess what? Some people still complain because the updates aren’t enough. I’m not singling you out btw, just saying as from what I’ve observed on here so far.

Personally I think we should be grateful that MS even decided to make the announcement and provide a road map this far out and not come across as a disgruntled community because each update didn’t say enough or release enough screen shots in it.

You can’t blame some devs for not even making an announcement prior to release for fear of having to go though the same thing.

You're absolutely right, again! After all, Microsoft started this whole Flight Sim. going back to 1995(as I can remember using). Even P3D, FSW used the base. It's awesome to think they are taking it to the next generation! It's going to be the best yet, I think! Can't wait!!

Mike 

Two massive pluses for me from this update. Firstly the confirmation of slopeed runways and secondly in the screenshot at altitude the sense of height above the clouds and atmospherics looks spot on. Finally no more endless cloud top "skimming" at 30 odd thousand feet!!

1 hour ago, simaddict said:

You're absolutely right, again! After all, Microsoft started this whole Flight Sim. going back to 1995(as I can remember using). Even P3D, FSW used the base. It's awesome to think they are taking it to the next generation! It's going to be the best yet, I think! Can't wait!!

Mike 

Going back to 1995? That's funny, they already had 5 versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator out by then! TBH my time with MSFS probably doesn't go back that much further - the first version I used was MSFS 4.0 in 1989. The first flight simulator though was Micropose F19 Stealth Fighter in 1988 which I can still play today using DOSBox.

Your are right though Mike, it's a wonderful thing Microsoft reinvigorating the flight simulation community once again, I had hoped somebody else would take up the mantle but fitting really that Microsoft should be back at the helm of the longest running PC 'game' franchise in history.

As I mentioned before, I started with the original Bruce Artwick version and have owned and flown all Versions of Microsoft since the very beginning. 

Flight simulator was also a valuable computer testing tool in the early 80's. We used it to determine if new PC's would run complex software well.