1 hour ago, suncoastflyer said:

If you look at it objectively, even if Flight Simulator launches without seasons it's still a monumental advancement over landclass scenery. I understand the opinion that seasons are really important, and I agree.

But the point I'm trying to make is that if seasons are not there at launch (seems likely), then we are still not going backwards.

Yes unfortunately we won’t be flying in the “Real-World” on initial release despite the super accurate Bing terrain maps...

 

Instead, we have to imagine we are flying in an alternate universe parallel earth were it’s always summer in the Northern hemisphere and despite the visible falling snow there is a winter season in summer were the ground terrain and foliage never changes and the water never freezes!

On 10/28/2019 at 9:07 PM, carbonbasedlifeform said:

Impressive. How developed is this plugin? I may have to try it although I still really don't like X-Plane. I find it so sterile. Seasons really add immersion to sims.

You're right, but out of curiosity I'd like to know. I guess part of it comes down to how serious Asobo is about doing it right vs implementing something like they've talked about it. I personally don't care about VR, but it seems like some form of VR could be supported on release. If people Laminar and Aerosoft do VR, why can't MS/Asobo? 

 

It's in a constant state of development- aka, only half-works, like many addons out there.  It's okay, but far from perfect, and I doubt that it ever will be before fs2020 comes out.  Keep in mind this has been in development since not long after the release of XP11...

6 hours ago, dal330200 said:

It's in a constant state of development- aka, only half-works, like many addons out there.  It's okay, but far from perfect, and I doubt that it ever will be before fs2020 comes out.  Keep in mind this has been in development since not long after the release of XP11...

Yes that's true. But it's also developed by pretty much one person. And it's the only addon out there for majoy simulators (until MSFS is released) which actually gives volumetric clouds. Unlike say, HiFi for FSX/P3D which had years and years to try implementing such a thing.

It's also the only addon out there implementing this shader based technique for seasons.

On 10/29/2019 at 3:21 PM, Kilo60 said:

Well apparently the Must Have VR crowd screamed louder and VR is now their top of the list initial release priority...

Sorry but where did this info come from? Did I miss an update?

Good move, I don`t have a VR device but I think VR is very important these days as I hear many users who tried it, can`t revert back to a screen mode... And most importantly, the competition has it now.

However an immersive top notch engine like the Asobo one, will certainly need sooner or later a dynamic seasonal feature precisely snow... Otherwise with all this realism, it will look odd in some places on this planet at specific time of the year...

Unlike the new MSFS engine, XPlane 11 engine (despite being more advances than ESP), was never brought forward as a realistic world engine with real world details depiction (earth or sky) thus they never felt the lack of seasons/snow in the out of the box version is a must...

 

Edited October 31, 20196 yr by Claviateur

1 hour ago, Claviateur said:

Sorry but where did this info come from? Did I miss an update?

There was a poll on AVSIM and, with a small sample size, VR beat seasons by a small margin as something the community wanted to prioritize. Asobo/MS have said they have heard the community and can re-adjust their priorities.  I don't remember them giving seasons much lip service but I'm sure they're aware. I don't read too much into this stuff.

Does the X-Plane addon work on top of Ortho4XP? I think that's the issue here. I'm not an expert, but shaders on top of imagery seems tougher than shaders on top of textures.

Either way I really hope it gets implemented, especially snow.

23 minutes ago, carbonbasedlifeform said:

There was a poll on AVSIM and, with a small sample size, VR beat seasons by a small margin as something the community wanted to prioritize.

783 members voted in that poll before it was (prematurely) shut down.  I don't consider that a "small sample size".

346 votes for "VR" and 195 votes for "seasons" at the time of shutdown.  I don't consider that a "small margin".

Well, political surveys (which have quite a error margin) are usually based on 1500-2000 interviewed people.

In light of what MSFS can achieve regarding sold copies yeah, even more of a small sample size 🙂

Edited October 31, 20196 yr by france89

I see a lot of similitude with xp11 , ortho scenery , and  MS 2020 ,  adding  winter  , fall , etc  to xp11  is  very messy , 

hope they are working on  getting a rabbit out of a hat ... not going to happen  with ortho  from Bing ... 

Have they said or shown something about wet looking runways yet?

Edited November 1, 20196 yr by siggy

2 hours ago, siggy said:

Have they said or shown something about wet looking runways yet?

In the video during the stormy landing, the runway can be seen. 

On 10/28/2019 at 3:31 PM, carbonbasedlifeform said:

Implementing FSX-style seasons might not be as easy as some of you are thinking it is. FS2020 relies on Bing imagery, not textures like FSX. I'm hoping it comes as soon as possible but there's nothing to suggest it's close to being a feature.

The only reason I'm not outraged is because the Bing imagery makes the rest of the world looks worth it. I hope scenery-makers can make some winter regions early on, somehow.

 

Here...

 

https://www.flightsim.com/images/features/msfdev/FlightSim.com-Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_Interview_AUDIO.m4a?fbclid=IwAR0uX67nKaUdX2dqlAy1shcD9ciPVDfr0-1SG-dhryutuquFP7wyy15WP-s

 

They confirm its technically feasible, and that its the second most requested feature. It will come, at launch or after, but it will come.

48 minutes ago, Pitbull2504 said:

In the video during the stormy landing, the runway can be seen. 

Thank you, I guess you mean the landing at Toronto Island Airport? The runway looks dark but it is dark anyway, so I am not sure whether it looks any different than a dry runway.

3 hours ago, siggy said:

Have they said or shown something about wet looking runways yet?

We've actually seen very little regarding airports. I wish, as I said in another thread, that an ep#5 would be dedicated to them.

Folks, its quite obvious that seasons will have to depend upon whether Bing satellites have taken seasonal photos.

 

If you browse google earth as an example, most of the satellite imagery is of summer textures, with many exceptions however.  Sometimes you come across an older texture that shows trees without leaves (obviously these satellite images were taken during autumn or winter).  But rarely if ever do you see imagery of snow on the ground unless its an area where there is... always snow on the ground...

 

 

So, its very safe to say that Bing has textures of say, New York state, with snow on the ground, roads, trees.  The difficulty will be in transforming the imagery from say brown leafless tree imagery, to snow cover, utilizing the atmospheric engine, (simulating gradual snow cover accumulation).

 

I think if you just want winter snow covered imagery, yup its easy peasy because Bing has those images.

1 hour ago, fscottee said:

Folks, its quite obvious that seasons will have to depend upon whether Bing satellites have taken seasonal photos.

 

If you browse google earth as an example, most of the satellite imagery is of summer textures, with many exceptions however.  Sometimes you come across an older texture that shows trees without leaves (obviously these satellite images were taken during autumn or winter).  But rarely if ever do you see imagery of snow on the ground unless its an area where there is... always snow on the ground...

 

 

So, its very safe to say that Bing has textures of say, New York state, with snow on the ground, roads, trees.  The difficulty will be in transforming the imagery from say brown leafless tree imagery, to snow cover, utilizing the atmospheric engine, (simulating gradual snow cover accumulation).

 

I think if you just want winter snow covered imagery, yup its easy peasy because Bing has those images.

I mean, they don't need to use actual seasonal imagery, they could probably manipulate the images to appear to be snowy, or fall.