Um can we update the thread when we actually have more reactions to talk about? lol. As for the Orbx vs msfs autogen thing, I think Orb will have it beat on the airports for sure but I'm not so sure for the rest of the scenery. Their work looks great for sure but the limitations inherent to the sims they're currently working on keeps showing up.

9 hours ago, Scottoest said:

Based on what we've seen, I'll bet the areas with photogrammetry data stand up to OrbX quality just fine.  But yeah, the autogen?  Of course it won't stand up in comparison to manually authored payware in terms of detail and accuracy, lol.

Especially regarding landmarks. My small town of 9,500 population in NW Washington State doesn't show photogrammetry 3D buildings in either Bing or Google Earth. The Orbx TE Washington State scenery has my town populated with autogen. However, Orbx did include a few custom objects like a model of the historic courthouse building, which really helps with immersion when everything else you're seeing is autogen buildings. It's not a 3D object that kinda looks like the real thing; they took the trouble to model a unique building. That surprised me, but I guess we got a little extra love from Orbx because it's a tourist town. 

I'm guessing that we're not going to get that level of attention to local detail with custom landmarks from MS/ASOBO. Maybe that's a market for add-ons.

I think it's generally a bad idea to compare MSFS boxed with a payware addon. Especially as MSFS delivers somewhat appropriate scenery all over the world. You would get poor or old (probably both) when trying to upgrade another sim like that. Plus, in the end you would not even be able to manage it to that extent.

It's a next gen sim after all. If you are new, it's probably the sim to pick. If you have invested in another sim, it might serve well for some time still. But when addon devs start rolling out stuff for MSFS2020, a lot people will switch sooner or later.

Edited January 13, 20206 yr by tweekz

On 1/12/2020 at 6:14 PM, Paraffin said:

Especially regarding landmarks. My small town of 9,500 population in NW Washington State doesn't show photogrammetry 3D buildings in either Bing or Google Earth. The Orbx TE Washington State scenery has my town populated with autogen. However, Orbx did include a few custom objects like a model of the historic courthouse building, which really helps with immersion when everything else you're seeing is autogen buildings. It's not a 3D object that kinda looks like the real thing; they took the trouble to model a unique building. That surprised me, but I guess we got a little extra love from Orbx because it's a tourist town. 

I'm guessing that we're not going to get that level of attention to local detail with custom landmarks from MS/ASOBO. Maybe that's a market for add-ons.

This ^^^^. Orbx created 100's castles and churches for the UK. How many castles and churches have we seen so far... From what I've seen on the videos the streaming ability has afforded Microsoft to use higher quality textures which is great but the points of interest and general love and care for these places even with Bing behind them will be behind what Orbx can achieve because as Lionel Fuentes put it, "The world is BIG!".

On 1/15/2020 at 6:11 PM, dtrjones said:

This ^^^^. Orbx created 100's castles and churches for the UK. How many castles and churches have we seen so far... From what I've seen on the videos the streaming ability has afforded Microsoft to use higher quality textures which is great but the points of interest and general love and care for these places even with Bing behind them will be behind what Orbx can achieve because as Lionel Fuentes put it, "The world is BIG!".

Yes, and I'm thinking that Orbx (and other designers), for example, could use their 3D objects in the new sim as well -- to "improve" places here and there where the Azure AI falls short.   I have some old gmax objects that I may look into moving over to gITF at some point, because I'm sure they'll be needed in the new sim.

On 12/15/2019 at 5:32 PM, nikita said:

With how these things work, if it was terrible we would have already heard more by now. People tend to be more willing to respect NDAs if the product is good.

 

My bet is that the sim is great otherwise people would say so if it were and the heck with the NDA

 

None have dared to loose their new toy

 

Edited January 17, 20206 yr by peppy197

I’ve seen little bits and bobs on reddit but you can never tell whether it’s genuine or not. Main themes are that the real thing lives up to the hype videos and the performance is very good (considering its an alpha). 

8 minutes ago, Superdelphinus said:

I’ve seen little bits and bobs on reddit but you can never tell whether it’s genuine or not. Main themes are that the real thing lives up to the hype videos and the performance is very good (considering its an alpha). 

Yep. There was a thread asking about the flight model aimed at Alpha Testers. And the reaction was mostly that it is about on par with X-Plane. Some said it's even beyond, mostly due to the superior weather modelling.