February 20th, 2020 – Development/Insider Update

[Dominique_K 10,138]

17 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

I agree that the grass could receive some improvement.

It's true that grass in the tropics is larger, but still I think the grass is too thick in that shot. The overall appearance just seems wrong to me.

And I remember an earlier shot from Courchevel that showed a similar large and thick grass next to the runway which certainly is not appropriate for that region.

So indeed, more variety in size and shape would be nice.

 

It looks wrong because the blades are not close enough from each other to give the impression of continuity of a mowed lawn. It looks a little weird and not because the blades are 15 cm wide… 

So far what we have seen is indeed generally  impressive except, IMHO, the vegetation for which the jury is still out. Trees and grass. 

Edited February 22, 2020 by domkle

[RALF9636 1,955]

11 minutes ago, domkle said:

not because the blades are 15 cm wide… 

I don't think he meant that literally 😉

 

11 minutes ago, domkle said:

So far what we have seen is indeed generally  impressive except, IMHO, the vegetation for which the jury is still out. Trees and grass. 

Agreed.

[Casualcas 830]

54 minutes ago, Chock said:

Yup, I completely agree with you. It's certainly not the end of the world, not by a long shot, and it won't annoy me terribly if it remains that way. But I'll tell you what does annoy me - and please understand that this comment is not directed at you - it is when forum members start jumping all over anyone on a thread such as this one, simply because they don't praise everything to the skies and dare to point out when there is clearly something visually amiss. That was why I commented on it too, because it was a fair point, only to have someone start laying into to me as well, as though I've committed some cardinal sin in not simply saying everything looks brilliant and flawless.

It's called constructive criticism folks, and it is intended to help improve things. 

It's not you boss. It's you and the other 20 people. Lol. No, it's just the droning repetition and going on. It's like listening to my 96 year old mom telling me to pick up my underwear,  you go back to her house tomorrow,  and right where she left off. Lol 

And the rest of us just dont have the patience,  and lose it Mom. Sorry

[Dominique_K 10,138]

8 hours ago, Noooch said:

 

I know it will still be room for 3rd parties but the out-of-the-box version can keep me busy for several years. I will now start to look for the most interesting Bush flying airports (thank you @domkle for the Dirty Devil idea), anyone has suggestions?

 

 

 

 

You are welcome. 

Avsim had a dedicated forum to bush flying years back. I don't see it anymore, it seems it went the way of the dodo. Maybe the new sim will make it relevant again. 

In the sim as it is today (P3D), the main area to fly the bush are Alaska, Idaho, Montana, BC and Papua New Guinea because the Orbx "fat" sceneries include scores of nicely made strips.  

What I look forward to is to fly to other regions that were ignored until now in Central America, the Amazon basin, Borneo etc. I was delighted to see the Sirena Ranger Station in Costa Rica in the preview which looks like a b*tch to land into. Good omen ! 

 

 

 

 

[sightseer 895]

has anyone considered the GPU cycles per grass blade?  would you rather have great grass and a slide show or pretty good grass and good performance?  I don't really know how much of a performance hit each blade is but it can't be no hit at all.

[Dominique_K 10,138]

15 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

Agreed.

They should hire a Ph.D. in GIS/ option "vegetation". And I am not joking 😄 ! 

[FlyingInACessna 656]

Have we already discussed the fact that at 5:00 of the video it says that the 80 specially chosen popular airports will be given taxiway IDs that match real life, implying that the non-specialized airports will not have accurate taxiway markings? If that’s true (and I hope I’m simply misinterpreting what they said), that would be a huge issue.

Everything else they’ve shown and mentioned is incredible, but it would be incredibly difficult living with incorrect taxiway markings (or having to manually update them for any airport I want to fly to).

Edited February 22, 2020 by FlyingInACessna

[Anthracite 131]

The grass could still do with some work, variation in not only height and width but also density, direction and colour. Because of all these features being so similar if not the same it looks like a manufactured turf. I think it’s a lot, lot better than anything I’ve seen so far - in most of any game/simulation to be honest. 
 

the same can be said for all the bushes and trees. Similar shape size and colour detracts from what is otherwise awesome work.

I think these are reasonably easy things to change and I still think they’re much better than what we have at the mo. If they can change them? Awesome. If they can’t, it’s not even remotely a deal breaker.

I am certain they appreciate the feedback.

[Dominique_K 10,138]

9 minutes ago, sightseer said:

has anyone considered the GPU cycles per grass blade?  would you rather have great grass and a slide show or pretty good grass and good performance?  I don't really know how much of a performance hit each blade is but it can't be no hit at all.

My own experience of making 3D grass is that you need to be parsimonious in using it in P3D. Thats why you don't see much of it in today sceneries. A little bit  here and there along your taxiway/runway. 

But Asobo uses ( if I am not mistaken) a procedural method which should be easier on the framerate

 

 

Edited February 22, 2020 by domkle

[sightseer 895]

9 minutes ago, domkle said:

But Asobo uses ( if I am not mistaken) a procedural method which should be easier on the framerate

well, easier yes, but still a hit.  shader code (I think it is what they are doing) runs inline somehow and is much quicker but it still takes runtime cycles.

I just think we need to add this consideration to our wants and desires of perfection.

on a different note:  although I would rather see an episode on IFR, I speculate that having real aircraft traffic MUST need to complicate IFR for a simmer and so maybe not everything is tied together enough to produce a video on "how we did it" because they havent completely done it yet (speculation).  but the airport video makes me believe I really will be able to sit and watch airplanes takeoff and land at my favorite airport while sitting at my desk drinking coffee.  COOL!

[Minos 26]

With 350hrs of general aviation PIC time and 600 commercial flights flown just in 2019, I can say that a vast majority (>60%) of runways have some form of undulation.

Using the start and end altitudes of runways to get an average slope won't cut the mustard. A perfect example of this is runway 8R at Atlanta. The starting altitude is 1024fr and the end altitude is 995 for a change in elevation of barely 30ft. That would be almost an imperceptible slope using an average slope measure over the 10,000ft length of the runway. However, the runway do dip significantly in the middle to the point that some part of aircraft almost dissappear beyond sight when you are lined up low enough on the runway.

[GlideBy 324]

19 minutes ago, sightseer said:

well, easier yes, but still a hit.  shader code (I think it is what they are doing) runs inline somehow and is much quicker but it still takes runtime cycles.

"Sebastian Wloch says the gameplay will be just as good on less capable rigs. That’s thanks to what he calls deferred rendering. “Twenty years ago, you would render one little piece of an airplane and do all the shadows and lighting on it at the same time,” Wloch says. “Now we’re able to give each element a memory of what it looks like and defer all the lighting and reflections to the end of the rendering process. Because the world is very consistent visually, this helps speed it up a lot.” In short, the graphics rendering process no longer requires total reconstruction of every element every millisecond."

It is not our job to decide if they can or can not do something.  They are smart guys, they can figure out if they can do it or not.  They have asked for people to mention issues, as they don't want just a bunch of comments about how great it looks.

Edited February 22, 2020 by GlideBy

[sightseer 895]

thats probably why Im not a good tester.  I tend to not be critical enough I suppose.

 

Ok fine: the grass needs work. but Im still fine with it.

[sightseer 895]

On 2/21/2020 at 12:54 PM, Jeff Nielsen said:

Exactly.  We have an airport here in KC (KOJC) that we have to DAPP in to if landing the other direction.  Most times performance numbers won't allow for it even with 2 pilots if it's wet.  This affects landing and take off performance and affects flights all the time in the real world.
 

Could you explain "DAPP".  I've never heard of it and apparently neither has google.  thanks.

[bonchie 2,305]

One thing that they still haven't implemented is proper water classes.

There's some places that should clearly have tropical water colors that are dark blue. And brown rivers (i.e. most rivers in the world) aren't brown yet. I suspect that's coming but it's a flaw if we are looking for them. 

Improper water colors are a big immersion breaker in XP11, especially flying in areas like the Caribbean.

Edited February 22, 2020 by bonchie