Good news, it looks like Weather, Clouds and lighting is up next!!! 

https://fselite.net/news/fselite-exclusive-a-future-x-plane-update-will-focus-on-weather-clouds-and-lighting/

Edited January 14, 20206 yr by strider1

Good to learn they're thinking about it - This is yet another good reason to believe in the Future of X-Plane not as the dead sim, but rather as yet another alternative sim to the mainstream.

And let's not forget that XP has been doing finite element FDM long before ASOBO even dreamed about it...

Also tends to be a cheaper platform for those who do not want / can spend fortunes in scenery and aircraft add-ons, and unless MFS comes with something like Plane-Maker, it is still usable as a didactic platform too.

Good News !!!

2 hours ago, jcomm said:

.....And let's not forget that XP has been doing finite element FDM long before ASOBO even dreamed about it...

Sorry, but I absolutely have no clue what you mean by this "FDM" ?

Thank you in advance,

Cheers.

9 minutes ago, KBUR said:

Sorry, but I absolutely have no clue what you mean by this "FDM" ?

Thank you in advance,

Cheers.

Flight Dyanmics

What Jozeh is saying that XP uses a technique called as BET which as far i understand calculates the characteristics of the aircraft in real time.  Which is probably the same method MS / ASOBO is using

Edited January 14, 20206 yr by HumptyDumpty

1 hour ago, HumptyDumpty said:

Flight Dyanmics

What Jozeh is saying that XP uses a technique called as BET which as far i understand calculates the characteristics of the aircraft in real time.  Which is probably the same method MS / ASOBO is using

Ah, now I understand, thank you .  BET means: Blade Element Theory - which simulates the actual air flow of a wing.

Edited January 14, 20206 yr by KBUR

It is a pity that nothing about ATC ...

8 hours ago, strider1 said:

Good news, it looks like Weather, Clouds and lighting is up next!!! 

https://fselite.net/news/fselite-exclusive-a-future-x-plane-update-will-focus-on-weather-clouds-and-lighting/

The bare minimum for them to keep competing in the flight sim market. Very good news of course!

Remember that preview video of 3d water? I do 😛

I agree however that lighting and clouds are the two features which really need to move on, clouds especially. but yeah, hopefully they won't forget about water too. FS9 has better reflections..

 

https://developer.x-plane.com/2016/10/developer-blooper-reel-water-world/

 

2016.

Edited January 14, 20206 yr by Pastaiolo

4 hours ago, HumptyDumpty said:

Flight Dyanmics

What Jozeh is saying that XP uses a technique called as BET which as far i understand calculates the characteristics of the aircraft in real time.  Which is probably the same method MS / ASOBO is using

Blade element theory does not calculate the flight behavior in real time. It reads the geometry of a structure, splits it up in several elements (I think it is 10 per wing) and calculates how it behaves under several circumstances in a seperate process. This data is then applied in the actual sim. However, this only is the case for lifting surfaces. For everything else (like the fuselage) parameters are used for simulation.

MSFS will fundamentally be the same, regarding that it relies on the interaction of several surfaces with their environment. But the data is probably entirely gathered by the aircraft developer themselves (not by a built-in software). The result could be anything from a flying pig to a really accurate representation, according to how precise the set of data is.

Edited January 14, 20206 yr by tweekz

Although I think this will probably be an XP12 feature, it was never officially stated that it will be in XP12 or if that's even something yet, so the title of this thread might be misleading. 

I wouldn't underestimate just how much lighting and decent atmospherics will improve the sim. Even at present using something like xVision drastically improves the sim visually for me. I'm hoping they also consider looking at the water, trees and 3rd party mesh editing. I think it's time LR put some visual love and attention to the sim instead of flight dynamic changes, as this is something that will be noticed by most immediately. I hear of many users who, after trying XP for first time, mention how dull and foggy it is and return to P3D, so it's certainly worth the effort. 

5 hours ago, HumptyDumpty said:

Which is probably the same method MS / ASOBO is using

No, they've hinted that the new sim is not using blade-element theory a few times, but it's worth watching their flight dynamics video to see how they're doing it. 

Edited January 14, 20206 yr by tonywob

Tony, has that video been released yet ?

All I got from previous posts looked a lot like finite-element ako BeT ?

Edited January 14, 20206 yr by jcomm

Hmm, will need to hunt it down. During an interview, the developers mentioned it wasn't BeT, but actually something a bit more advanced.

 

 

Edited January 14, 20206 yr by tonywob

2 hours ago, tonywob said:

Although I think this will probably be an XP12 feature, it was never officially stated that it will be in XP12 or if that's even something yet, so the title of this thread might be misleading.  

Maybe, but I think it's reasonable to expect this won't happen until XP12 because it would undercut every weather add-on developer, and they do need something new in XP12 to get people to upgrade. 

I'm just hoping Ben and Austin realize that weather shouldn't be separate from seasons, and that should be tied together in one coherent system. Especially now that MSFS looks like it will have at least procedural snow effects.

Any talk of better lighting should also be tied to seasons because that changes the angle of sunlight, especially in higher and lower latitudes. A big part of why the lighting in the new MSFS promotional images looks so impressive, is that they can select a time of year for low-angle sunlight, instead of XP's fixed overhead sky track for the sun.

Yeah water and seasons should definitely go along with the revised weather and lighting. But we've already been talking about this for years.

3 hours ago, Paraffin said:

instead of XP's fixed overhead sky track for the sun.

Although XP ephemeris are not the most accurate, I'm pretty sure that max sun elevation depends on the day of the year, so lower in winter, higher in summer.

6 hours ago, tonywob said:

Although I think this will probably be an XP12 feature, it was never officially stated that it will be in XP12 or if that's even something yet, so the title of this thread might be misleading. 

I wouldn't underestimate just how much lighting and decent atmospherics will improve the sim. Even at present using something like xVision drastically improves the sim visually for me. I'm hoping they also consider looking at the water, trees and 3rd party mesh editing. I think it's time LR put some visual love and attention to the sim instead of flight dynamic changes, as this is something that will be noticed by most immediately. I hear of many users who, after trying XP for first time, mention how dull and foggy it is and return to P3D, so it's certainly worth the effort. 

No, they've hinted that the new sim is not using blade-element theory a few times, but it's worth watching their flight dynamics video to see how they're doing it. 

Laminar is going to need something new and shinny to sell their next version of the sim, so It's pretty reasonable to assume it's going to be an XP12 feature. + you are probably looking at a 1-2 years of development time.

Yes we need that 3D water Ben showed us a few years ago! My physic abilities tells me they are saving that 3D water for a future weather related version(XP12).

The autogen trees in FS2020 look amazing! If FS2020 can do it so can Laminar!

Maybe by the end of year they will have previews of whats cooking.