September 26th Update - Feature Discovery Series Preview: World

[dilore 126]

10 hours ago, tonywob said:

Testing is for wimps, real men test in production

Then let's hope MSFS is developed by women 🙂

[Pastaiolo 1,688]

4 hours ago, suncoastflyer said:

I'd say there's a decent chance of a steam release. A few XGS games are releasing on steam, Gears 5 for example is available and that's a pretty recent title. I think next year's Halo will release there too so having flight sim release wouldn't be too far fetched.

But you're correct in that it will certainly be on microsoft store.

Hope so too, because Steam is on another planet compared to the Microsoft Store.

Then again, we also know that it will also be included in a Game pass, and for that there is a Xbox app you can already install (for example if you open Dirt Rally 2.0 you'll see they are also selling DLCs on the same page) but still it doesn't match all the things you can do with Steam, and the fact most of my library of games nowadays is on it.

In a previous interview they said they were open to other distribution platforms, but it would be a decision taken by the game developers themselves.

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

If it's not going to be sold as a standalone application (I can dream about a good-looking boxed copy), I sincerely hope it will be available on Steam as well. Gears 5 is in there which was released just a few weeks ago, and Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, coming on 14 November, is available for pre-order too, so there is a good chance.

Regarding seasons, I doubt they will processing all the satellite data several times for the other seasons (it would increase the 2PB pool of data to 10PB as well), so it's almost certain they will be doing them with shaders. Pre-alpha means that the simulator is not feature-complete, so it's very much possible seasons will be introduced down the line.

[dilore 126]

Can you land with skis on a lake if winter is done with shaders?

[Superdelphinus 718]

@Claviateur I get that it’s possible, or even probable, but my suspicion it won’t be there at launch is because there is no evidence so far that seasons are, or were in recent builds. I also think that if we bang on about it enough they must just throw us a carrot 🙂

[vortex681 806]

14 hours ago, FlyerNYC said:

I expect satellite data to be updated with the seasons

That won't happen. The work involved in re-photographing the entire world for each season is just not economically viable. The current interval between updates of satellite images is usually years, not months. Most other users of the data don't want to see snow, or the colours of autumn, they just want a clear image of the ground (which tends to show detail in the summer). I think seasons are more likely to be done with shaders.

Edited September 28, 2019 by vortex681

[chass32 138]

14 hours ago, Noooch said:

"The information you seek, is much closer than you think"

 

My bet is Tech-Alfa is getting closer (at the end of october).

Must be a lot of new info there.

Cheers

Carlos

 

[Dominique_K 10,150]

15 hours ago, FlyerNYC said:

I expect satellite data to be updated with the seasons

Clouds don't allow it in the visible spectrum. 

[Casualcas 830]

11 hours ago, MatthewS said:

Oh, the scale of "autogen"... we going to open that can of worms again?

Matthew, can you say that a bit nicer, since we all don't read all comments in all forums, and we may have missed this? My god man. 

 

At least be useful and add a link to the past conversation .

Edited September 28, 2019 by Casualcas
Wording

[MatthewS 761]

55 minutes ago, Casualcas said:

Matthew, can you say that a bit nicer, since we all don't read all comments in all forums, and we may have missed this? My god man. 

At least be useful and add a link to the past conversation .

Oh, the scale of "autogen"... we going to open that can of worms again?

Not sure how I can say that any nicer. 

Be useful? Ok, here's some links, however since those posts subsequent videos seem to demonstrate more realistic scaling of "autogen" in FS2020 than with FSX/P3D.

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/558795-29th-update/?do=findComment&comment=4050192

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/558004-oversized-autogen-houses-and-trees-again/

Edited September 28, 2019 by MatthewS

[dilore 126]

On 9/27/2019 at 8:39 AM, HughesMDflyer4 said:

The whole point of the media we're getting right now isn't for the community to critique and offer feedback, it's to get us excited and give us an idea of the level of visual fidelity the engine is capable of. Beating issues to death here isn't going to help anyone. Once we have the game on our PCs, it's an entirely different story.

Nobody is beating issues to death. Most of the screen shots and clips can only be seen if you are a registered insider. And the Insider FAQ states:

"The Insider program is the way Microsoft Flight Simulator fans and community members can collaborate with our development teams to improve the simulation, experience, and services. As an Insider, you will have the opportunity to provide feedback and insights that help shape and inform current franchise initiatives and the future of Microsoft Flight Simulator."

 

[188AHC 2,138]

1 hour ago, dilore said:

Nobody is beating issues to death. Most of the screen shots and clips can only be seen if you are a registered insider. And the Insider FAQ states:

"The Insider program is the way Microsoft Flight Simulator fans and community members can collaborate with our development teams to improve the simulation, experience, and services. As an Insider, you will have the opportunity to provide feedback and insights that help shape and inform current franchise initiatives and the future of Microsoft Flight Simulator."

 

Insiders will be able to critique the sim in the Insider forums when they are opened, I'm sure. 

As for beating things to death, we haven't necessarily killed any at this point but there are a bunch that are on life support.  It is ok to make observations as MSFS team members do read our forums. However, they probably won't read 25 pages of opinions both positive and negative about clouds, grass, etc....

[RustyFlyer 182]

18 hours ago, tonywob said:

Testing is for wimps, real men test in production

Hopefully you were joking. I would not want that approach utilized by the design engineers on the development team for my wife's or my daughter's automobiles.

[Paraffin 2,197]

6 hours ago, dilore said:

Can you land with skis on a lake if winter is done with shaders?

Hah! Good point, although that's an edge case, so I wouldn't expect it. If we get seasons at all with this approach they're using via shaders or something else, I think that will be enough.
 

4 hours ago, vortex681 said:

That won't happen. The work involved in re-photographing the entire world for each season is just not economically viable. The current interval between updates of satellite images is usually years, not months. Most other users of the data don't want to see snow, or the colours of autumn, they just want a clear image of the ground (which tends to show detail in the summer). I think seasons are more likely to be done with shaders.

I hope it extends to color changes in vegetation and not just snow. I've been griping about how the Orbx TE Washington scenery, while impressive in many respects, doesn't look right for 10 months of the year when the dominant ground color should be green, and not mid-Summer brown.

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Time to throw some fuel on the fire.

First off. The vast majority of complaints/wishes for a flight sim have been "more eye candy". We already have this in aircraft, and can get it in objects, but the terrain is the major focus. Yes, some sim-pilots want greater accuracy of aircraft functions, ATC, and flight modeling, but they are simply in the minority of sim-users... sorry. I'm sure Microsoft will supply those aspects at least as good as in the past, and hopefully will allow tweaking of these elements via an SDK. I think the aerodynamics will be table-based, rather than a shape/physics based runtime calculation similar to X-Plane. I believe most professional simulators are table-based, and it's worked for Microsoft in the past.

MS is providing some stunning terrain visuals. But they are not satellite imagery. These images are very 'photoshopped' aerial images. There are no stretched building or tree footprints visible under the buildings or vegetation. We normally see this under the autogen or models around their base. Aerial imagery is a blend of images taken at different angles, resulting in a picture with multiple perspective viewpoints and oddly diverse shadows and colors that don't quite blend to each other. None here that I've seen. Also, we're going to have procedural details in-close.

Microsoft has been investigating image analogies for decades. There is a technique known as 'texture by numbers'. https://mrl.nyu.edu/projects/image-analogies/flightsim.html . This could well be a basis for computer generated procedural imagery based on terrain analysis and real world footprints of objects. This would make much more sense to me than trying to store and stream aerial imagery of the entire planet. I might be entirely wrong here, but the production of the terrain imagery would be easier than trying to 'scrub' the actual aerial imagery. Looking back at instances of the older flight sims and their small amount of 'photoreal' images, you can see attempts at scrubbing out defects and using color matching to blend the imagery to the surrounding landclass and creating matching seasons. So they have a history of altering the images to achieve a better immersion factor. There might not even be image tiles as we've had in the past.

So yes, this iteration of Flight Simulator is quite focused on the eye candy of the terrain, giving the vast majority of customers what they have been asking for: greater visual immersion. 

Still waiting for seasons and helicopters. 😉

Edited September 28, 2019 by rhumbaflappy