September 19th, 2019 [Update]

[sightseer 895]

and the water beside the grass looks great too.

and that other pic of multilevel clouds...Whew doggies!

[Paraffin 2,197]

11 hours ago, Superdelphinus said:

In xp10, didn’t it used to say in the graphics settings, or in the guide that Phillipe (I think) did that you had to make sure you set stuff so that it didn’t dip below 20fps specifically because it would affect the flight model?

There is a threshold at, I think, 19 fps where the sim automatically kicks into slow gear, basically slowing down real time in an attempt to keep the aircraft flyable. Realism in terms of aircraft speed over the ground goes out the window, but it provides a soft cushion for people who insist on manually setting the eye candy too high for their PC. 

It will be interesting to see how MSFS handles this, for users with lower-end hardware. Maybe a soft cushion like that, or an auto-detail setting that you can't mess with too much. I know the community here is somewhat split on that, with some folks wanting the sim to adjust everything automatically for best balance of frame rate and eye candy, and others wanting full access to every detail.

I'm hoping for an approach like XP where you have just a few basic settings, interlinked in a way to keep the user out of trouble with conflicting settings, and then the ability to dive deeper into config files if you want more hands-on tweaking. And the risk of getting into trouble with slow frame rates. 

[G-RFRY 1,735]

6 hours ago, ca_metal said:

Project XCloud is the streaming platform. Azure is how they call their cloud based platform of services.

From the horse's mouth:

What is Azure?
Microsoft Azure is an ever-expanding set of cloud services to help your organization meet your business challenges. It’s the freedom to build, manage, and deploy applications on a massive, global network using your favorite tools and frameworks.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/what-is-azure/

I know that reference the MSFS powered by AZURE streaming in the first trailer.

[dtrjones 356]

7 hours ago, ca_metal said:

You could be right, but if you look the screenshots so far, it seems something is populating the orthos with accurate autogen (shapes and types of buildings, type and color of vegetation etc).

Look those shots, something is picking the color of the grass based on the color of the orthos:

Also something is placing desert shrubs on the deserts:



The A.I. would perfectly do that kind of task, they just need to train it.

I'm not 100% convinced this would be orthos with procedural grass on top. Isn't this more likely to be landclass painted by an aritist which has procedureal grass marked out where the renderer will draw the grass. If this is actually procedual grass on top of an ortho tile that would look rubbish as the resolution would be way too low.

I might be wrong, happy if I am but I think people should be aware that there may be limitations to the procedural vegetation with where it can be rendered.

Edited September 20, 2019 by dtrjones

[dtrjones 356]

20 hours ago, adino said:

Really?? just because there is some type of flaw in an alpha build?

Who cares anyway we are after a flight sim not a CAD-sim...

Wow you have absolutely no sense of humour. Ok try this

"As a kid I was made to walk the plank. We couldn’t afford a dog."

Nop nothing absolutely expressionless. Bloody hell somebody buy this guy the BBC series of Blackadder or Monty Python... 😛

Edited September 20, 2019 by dtrjones

[HughesMDflyer4 470]

5 minutes ago, dtrjones said:

I'm not 100% convinced this would be orthos with procedural grass on top. Isn't this more likely to be landclass painted by an aritist which has procedureal grass marked out where the renderer will draw the grass. If this is actually procedual grass on top of an ortho tile that would look rubbish as the resolution would be way too low.

I might be wrong, happy if I am but I think people should be aware that there may be limitations to the procedural vegetation with where it can be rendered.

Very likely it's ortho below the grass IMO. I suspect they're using the Azure AI to "guess" where grass is based on the appearance of parts of the imagery. It definitely won't be perfect, but it could be a good approximation if done right. It looks like the grass also samples the color of the imagery below it, which helps it look more natural. They're likely also using an additional detail texture on top of the ortho to make it look sharper before the grass comes into view. You can see this used in the shot from the trailer with the XCub flying low next to a hill.

[adino 263]

20 minutes ago, dtrjones said:

Wow you have absolutely no sense of humour. Ok try this

"As a kid I was made to walk the plank. We couldn’t afford a dog."

Nop nothing absolutely expressionless. Bloody hell somebody buy this guy the BBC series of Blackadder or Monty Python... 😛

LOL😅...at least it happens that you have sense of humor man..there are a few here devoted to the "nitpicking" religion... 

Edited September 20, 2019 by adino

[Gulfstream 416]

57 minutes ago, dtrjones said:

I'm not 100% convinced this would be orthos with procedural grass on top. Isn't this more likely to be landclass painted by an aritist which has procedureal grass marked out where the renderer will draw the grass.

 

I can guarantee you this isn't anything done by human intervention ("painted by an artist").  You will have grass in the most remote corner of Africa, for example.

There are satellites that create global vegetation maps, satellites that pick up humidity, satellites that track urban development, etc.

Plenty of data out there.  It just depends on how it is all put to use.

[LHookins 3,113]

3 hours ago, Paraffin said:

There is a threshold at, I think, 19 fps where the sim automatically kicks into slow gear, basically slowing down real time in an attempt to keep the aircraft flyable. Realism in terms of aircraft speed over the ground goes out the window, but it provides a soft cushion for people who insist on manually setting the eye candy too high for their PC. 

Someone actually thought this was a good idea??  And people are using XPlane for real world training???

I learned very early in my flight simming days that I could land a fixed wing plane at 4 fps, but it took at least 8 fps to land a helicopter.  Also, I only got good at landing after I got TrackIR.  I suspect people using full VR find it even better.  Obviously this was with higher frame rates. 🙂 

Hook

[Paraffin 2,197]

21 minutes ago, LHookins said:

Someone actually thought this was a good idea??  And people are using XPlane for real world training???

Actually I may have misspoken about that, remembering information about how it was done before. The current XP11 manual says that below 20 fps the sim will start introducing fog to obscure more distant details outside the sim. If the sim also slows down the time rate it isn't mentioned. Of course at some point the whole thing breaks down, as with any sim when the frame rate just gets too low to be flyable. 

Anyway, the "real" training version is the pricier FAA-certified XP Pro version that has to be used with certified controls, and presumably a computer rig that would keep your frame rate over that threshold.
 

Quote

I learned very early in my flight simming days that I could land a fixed wing plane at 4 fps, but it took at least 8 fps to land a helicopter.  Also, I only got good at landing after I got TrackIR.  I suspect people using full VR find it even better.  Obviously this was with higher frame rates. 🙂 

I remember the bad old days of choppy frame rates. We're really spoiled now, with sims that can deliver 30+ frames for smooth flying. I'm not one of those who "needs" 60 fps minimum in flight sims, but I do make sure my option settings let me fly at no lower than 30-35 fps for smooth landings. Especially in helicopters, but it's nice to really grease a fixed wing landing once in a while too. 

[KERNEL32 510]

10 hours ago, Pitbull2504 said:

I think this straight line at the clouds is a bit weird  https://ibb.co/zsFYmNm

Living in Hurricane country, that almost looks like it could pass as the eye of one!? .. or at least a ragged one that is weakened...

Edited September 20, 2019 by KERNEL32

[LHookins 3,113]

2 hours ago, Paraffin said:

the sim will start introducing fog to obscure more distant details outside the sim.

I found out long ago when I was working on the New Horizons mod for Pirates of the Caribbean that fog was very useful for hiding graphics artifacts, and you could get things looking really good with the right balance.  I hadn't thought about frame rates, but if you have to reduce the draw distance for things far away fog will hide it nicely.

I set my frame rate to unlimited in P3Dv4 because a 30 fps limit introduced too much lag in head movement with TrackIR.  This is how I know the frame rate lowers with too may clouds, because TrackIR starts lagging.  Luckily it doesn't happen often.

I guess this is one of the tests I'll be doing when I get the new sim.

Hook

[FDEdev 955]

On 9/19/2019 at 8:17 PM, FAZZ3 said:

Not sure why but the elevators look a bit odd in that TBM picture. 

It's not only the elevators, the rudder looks odd too, but the left aileron and both flaps are really bad, which is strange because the fuselage seems to be very realistic. 

Comparing the TMB wing and tail trailing edges with their 208 trailing edges, I don't think the TBM model is finished.

[FlyerNYC 82]

3 hours ago, FDEdev said:

It's not only the elevators, the rudder looks odd too, but the left aileron and both flaps are really bad, which is strange because the fuselage seems to be very realistic. 

Comparing the TMB wing and tail trailing edges with their 208 trailing edges, I don't think the TBM model is finished.

I'm pretty sure it's work in progress.

Edited September 21, 2019 by FlyerNYC

[Noodle 626]

Other screenshots of the TBM show a complete, polished 3d model. These screenshots were probably taken in an early build. Some screenshots have been from as far back as February. They're not always showing the current state of things.