1 minute ago, b737800 said:

Debbie Does Dallas? Perhaps I'm confusing one organic/biological being with another though.

I don't think the discussion is being driven from a developer or engineer point of view unfortunately.

But a small research can tell you that you can't compare character animation in games to the way simulator features are done...

3 hours ago, nickhod said:

When you break down this "simulator game engine", it's just tried to tested game development techniques.

The volumetric clouds are a noise distribution and a clever vertex shader
Cloud shadows by ray marching
The ground is a satellite image on subdivided surfaces
The buildings are 3D models that someone or AI created
The grass is a shader
Airports are content creation work

There's no magic going on here.

The flight model is a complicated bit of software, no doubt, but so is the AI or world environment physics in a FPS.

You will likely only convince a few. I think these misunderstandings about the complexity of sims vs games is possibly due to unfamiliarity of the non-gamers here with exactly how far things have gone while we have been fairly stagnant for the last decade or more.....

And just how far we have fallen behind.

I see this thread is quickly leading to a discussion of unladen swallow carrying capacity. 😋

Edited February 24, 20206 yr by HiFlyer

7 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

Or can you give me the example of one game with the character being a simulation of an organic/biological being interacting with the forces of the environment around it and these environment elements are themselves a simulation of the real world environement?.

Just like flight sims don't simulate everything that happens mechanically when you press a button in the cockpit the AAA games won't simulate characters in a biomechanical level. It would be pointless and you know it.

Edited February 24, 20206 yr by Kopteeni

4 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

I don't think the discussion is being driven from a developer or engineer point of view unfortunately.

But a small research can tell you that you can't compare character animation in games to the way simulator features are done...

Yet Asobo is an experienced game studio, doing not much more than bringing gaming technology to this niche of simulation. All the lustful sighing we are doing is over tech that has been out in the wilds of gaming for years.

In fact, it's an irony that all our most popular sims...... Came/come from game studios.

Edited February 24, 20206 yr by HiFlyer

14 minutes ago, Jazz said:

If I'm honest, I am not really understanding these complaints about the Alpha and they tend to sound a little like sour grapes and well, as I said, they don't owe us anything. You like it? You buy it. Simples. The Alpha is necessary and how they go about it is entirely up to them and the fact they are involving any of us is a positive as far as I'm concerned.

You're quite right, they don't owe us anything and they'll manage their alpha however they want.

@HiFlyer makes an excellent point that flight simmers are 1000 times fussier than your average gamer and so maybe that warrants a different approach to "early access".

Well, it was a bit quiet around here anyway, and I like hearing different perspectives on things.

Edited February 24, 20206 yr by nickhod

To summarize:

1) A flight simulator is simulating the forces of the planet vs human made machines

2) Rendering a complex environement from any angle / alt / speed while keeping the flight model usable.

3) Optimizing all this...

I work on scenery and I can admire the complexity of that thing...

 

Games today are very advanced graphically and some feature the graphics of what MSFS has now but:

1) games do not care about simulating a living world

2) games do not simulate a human being 

3) games are optimized for a limited environment rendering

1 minute ago, HiFlyer said:

Yet Asobo is an experienced game studio, doing not much more but bringing gaming technology to this niche of simulation. All the lustful sighing we are doing is over tech that has been out in the wilds of gaming for years.

Exactly and this is what impressed me when I saw the level of simulation coupled with game like rendering capability being implemented in this simulator version... 

They took flight lessons as far as we heard but that's not enough I think, as far as I could see in their videos and discussions, their attention to detail in everything seems to be deep into researches about the world elements such as weather etc.

So I think they pushed their knowledge beyond games development...

 

23 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

Games today are very advanced graphically and some feature the graphics of what MSFS has now but:

1) games do not care about simulating a living world

2) games do not simulate a human being 

3) games are optimized for a limited environment rendering

*Coughs* guess you've never heard of Star citizen and other open, planetary-sized games that are becoming more and more common. The community has been pounding its chest on this subject for years... and it's not even warranted.

Not for a long time.

In truth, it's not games that are catching up to us, its us that are catching up to games.

 

Edited February 24, 20206 yr by HiFlyer

15 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

*Coughs* guess you've never heard of Star citizen and other open, planetary-sized games that are becoming more and more common. The community has been pounding its chest on this subject for years... and it's not even warranted. It hasn't been for a long time.

In truth, it's not games that are catching up to us, its us that are catching up to games.

 

This looks like a simulator done in a simulation oriented world engine?

In GTA quite literally everything is created from scratch. In Flight Simulator almost everything is imported from other sources and/or procedurally generated.

Why has this got to five pages on a rant about not getting into an alpha? You didn't get in, deal with it. 

48 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

This looks like a simulator done in a simulation oriented world engine?

Well, a space simulator, but in fact the effort is actually larger than MSFS2020, with a larger workforce, more money, larger scale (several planets) and greater detail (you can fly from interstellar space land on planets, wander the landscape of those planets and moons, enter cities and buildings, interact with other players, experiance weather.......

The point being, we should stop underestimating games vs sims.

The things we formerly pointed at; scale, view distance and complexity, were surpassed years ago, but the old arguments persist, and they're outdated.

I give all credit to Microsoft for bringing this genre up to speed (kind of) at long last. But I don't believe what they are doing is quite the tour de force it seems to those that have not been keeping track of gaming technology.

Interestingly, Star Citizen is working more in line with the OP's beliefs, as essentially its a huge, paid alpha, more in accordance with his thinking.

The difference is that at least to my eyes, history shows that simmers are probably much less likely to be patient, and more likely to inundate forums like this with with thread after thread of complaints and demands.

That being the case, I believe Microsoft is wise, especially considering our behavior with previous releases, to hold back a general release as long as possible while major kinks are addressed, and complaints are largely contained on a private forum.

On the matter of Star citizen, more info regarding scale, weather, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUFcerTa6Ho

 

Edited February 24, 20206 yr by HiFlyer

1 minute ago, HiFlyer said:

Well, a space simulator, but in fact the effort is actually larger than MSFS2020, with a larger workforce, more money, larger scale (several planets) and greater detail (you can fly from interstellar space land on planets, wander the landscape of those planets and moons, enter cities and buildings, interact with other players, experiance weather.......

The point being, we should stop underestimating games vs sims.

The things we formerly pointed at; scale, view distance and complexity, were surpassed years ago, but the old arguments persist, and they're outdated.

I give all credit to Microsoft for bringing this genre up to speed (kind of) at long last. But I don't believe what they are doing is quite the tour de force it seems to those that have not been keeping track of gaming technology.

Interestingly, Star Citizen is working more in line with the OP's beliefs, as essentially its a huge, paid alpha, more in line with his thinking.

The difference is that at least to my eyes, history shows that simmers are probably much less likely to be patient, and more likely to inundate forums like this with with thread after thread of complaints and demands.

That being the case, I believe Microsoft is wise, especially considering our behavior with previous releases, to hold back a general release as long as possible while major kinks are addressed, and complaints are largely contained on a private forum.

On the matter of Star citizen, more info regarding scale, weather, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUFcerTa6Ho

 

Well you just described Star Citizen, so it's a Simulator, not a game. Thus the whole architecture of this software/engine is oriented toward simulation.

Now how many people work on it is usually oriented toward the content/assets developement and not the core simulation architecture because this was proven to require a bunch of skilled dev / engineers to achieve.

51 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

Well you just described Star Citizen, so it's a Simulator, not a game. Thus the whole architecture of this software/engine is oriented toward simulation.

I'm gonna say that's semantics. You shoot people (headshot!) drive cars, play as a pirate, a bounty hunter, a space marine... and kill and blow up lots and lots of "things". All the behaviors many people turn up their noses at here, and place squarely within the provenance of games and gaming. Even the developer hasn't brought into the conceit of styling it (except with the broadest brush possible) as a simulation. (How do you "simulate" non existent interstellar travel, imaginary technologies and even physics?

That's kind of like "simulating" talking sheep! (sheep simulator to the rescue?)

Can I split the difference with you and say game with simulation aspects? 🤗

Edited February 24, 20206 yr by HiFlyer

word not allowed you HiFlyer! Just as I was formulating my reply, up popped 'HiFlyer has posted a reply'  saying exactly what I was about to say. On the plus side, it saved me from being a grouch..So cheers.

Oh for God's sake! For 'word not allowed' read d*a*m*n

Edited February 24, 20206 yr by Ron Attwood