6 minutes ago, andyjohnston.net said:

Why would they not have seasons?  Previous releases have, even Flight did.  People keep saying this but Microsoft know better.

The previous releases had their terrain textures based on landclasses. Now they will be using satellite imagery as scenery and those are usually available on one season only.

To "fix" that, they will have some options, but some of them would be really costly to do (see what Orbx did with their True Earth series, they don't provide seasons, except for the netherlands). 

That said, I hope Microsoft will have that feature using modern and not so expensive tools, like using shaders.

Edited September 5, 20196 yr by ca_metal

I hope they figure it out, but it's not a deal breaker for me. 

After flying with orthos in XP11, I simply can't go back to the old land class way of doing things just so I can have bland, white textures painted on the ground in winter. 

Edited September 5, 20196 yr by bonchie

1 hour ago, ca_metal said:

The previous releases had their terrain textures based on landclasses. Now they will be using satellite imagery as scenery and those are usually available on one season only.

Absolutely untrue. Aerial imagery used by Microsoft in previous Flight sim iterations has had seasons. Look at FSX/scenery/Cities.

11 minutes ago, rhumbaflappy said:

Absolutely untrue. Aerial imagery used by Microsoft in previous Flight sim iterations has had seasons. Look at FSX/scenery/Cities.

Small areas are doable, not larger areas or the entire world. Again, just take a look at Orbx' decision to not support seasons on their True Earth series. 

When I say "not doable" I mean if you consider the old way they did until FSX, having a set of textures for each season. 

Well, there are more modern and dynamic ways to do seasons today, so we may have a good surprise on that regard.

I think it’s reasonable to assume that Microsoft will have better developers, more developers, and far more cash and tools to throw at the issue than orbx do so I do have hope. I would imagine that this is one of the trickier parts of the game though so am keeping my fingers crossed. 

3 hours ago, Superdelphinus said:

I think it’s reasonable to assume that Microsoft will have better developers, more developers, and far more cash and tools to throw at the issue than orbx do so I do have hope. I would imagine that this is one of the trickier parts of the game though so am keeping my fingers crossed. 

Yes they do. I was just pointing out that the argument that past versions had seasons and because of that we should expect seasons, might not be a valid argument, as the scenery base is supposed to be far different from past versions.

They sure do but it is also reasonable to assume that having seasons for the whole planet is  a much more heavy and complicated work that coloring a State.

 

 

Edited September 6, 20196 yr by domkle

45 minutes ago, ca_metal said:

Yes they do. I was just pointing out that the argument that past versions had seasons and because of that we should expect seasons, might not be a valid argument, as the scenery base is supposed to be far different from past versions.

Nay bother. I wasn’t specifically replying to you, it was just thinking ‘out loud’

1 hour ago, domkle said:

They sure do but it is also reasonable to assume that having seasons for the whole planet is be a much more heavy and complicated work that coloring a State.

 

 

As I said above, it will depend on the technique they want/can use. The old technique, using one set of textures for each season, isn't viable to do it worldwide.

But there are more modern techniques to have a better results than coloring textures. On that matter, I think X-plane's Xenviro is the best example on how shaders can work on photoreal sceneries (actually it will work on everything: default terrain textures, buildings, vehicles, objects etc.). Xenviro has its flaws, but Microsoft can implement it on the core sim engine, which would be better to avoid some issues.

If they don't intend to use shaders, I don't see how to implement seasons on the photoimagery/photogrammetry, in a viable way.

Here in NW Indiana and the Chicagoland area, seasons would be simple as we only have two:

• Winter
• Road Construction