April 2nd, 2020 – Development Update

[aleex 551]

WOW

 

 

And the second one didn't even have the night lights improvements from the new alpha changelog (18 March)

Edited April 3, 2020 by aleex

[tweekz 2,165]

15 minutes ago, pmb said:

Time for ORBX MSFS HD buildings.😁

Kind regards, Michael

haha... well... I guess it must be a balancing act between detail and performance. But I have the feeling that there is more potential, since we also have full photogrammetry cities.

[tweekz 2,165]

3 minutes ago, aleex said:

And the second one didn't even have the night lights improvements from the new alpha changelog (18 Marc

They changed the night lighting? Didn't even get that. I remember people complaining about it being too bright.

[Shack95 2,658]

35 minutes ago, tweekz said:

Looks nice as well.

But some criticism: Those autogen houses could use a little more detail. Looks like straight out of XP.

This could be offline or very low detail mode. That mountain in the background for instance looks much better in Bing Maps. This could be the reason for the low autogen detail.

[aleex 551]

17 minutes ago, tweekz said:

They changed the night lighting? Didn't even get that. I remember people complaining about it being too bright.

Yeah! from the alpha public update

Quote

Night lighting Improvements

Added night lighting to buildings in photogrammetric cities where there was none before

Improvements to street lights

 

Edited April 3, 2020 by aleex

[Mengy 814]

These  new pics are making me cry.

 

They are tears of joy mind you, happy little tears, but yep my face is wet with anticipation.

[sightseer 895]

1 hour ago, Shack95 said:

This could be offline or very low detail mode. That mountain in the background for instance looks much better in Bing Maps. This could be the reason for the low autogen detail.

Gee...and I was thinking how good that mountain in the background looked. 

 

Dear MS/Asobo - Thanks much for the patch notes.  love to read the developers thoughts.

Edited April 3, 2020 by sightseer

[steves53 8]

Is there any way to edit my original application for testing? My system specs have changed since I originally applied to be an Alfa Tester. I thought maybe it would help qualify me. Thanks and keep up the great work!

 

[Doug47 574]

2 hours ago, pmb said:

Time for ORBX MSFS HD buildings.😁

Kind regards, Michael

And divide the world into ‘regions’ and charge exorbitant prices? 


Please no!! 

[bonchie 2,305]

15 hours ago, abranpuko said:

I am worried about the clouds. They are not bad seen from afar, but according to the photos, the closer they are, the more they resemble a mass without many nuances. Many clouds (not all), even up close, have their edges trimmed, and when we dive into them they present high contrasts. Fligh Simulator is being a fabulous gift of illusion, but I do not understand how detail increases with a mountain and not with a cloud, when it is with this that we are going to interact with the most. From afar, the clouds are fabulous, but how close? And within them? someone understands me?

They aren't just sprites like P3D.

Assume there's a lot of difficulty in getting clouds to present certain ways when they are being formed by real world data like moisture levels, pressure, etc.

[bonchie 2,305]

2 hours ago, tweekz said:

 

Looks nice as well.

But some criticism: Those autogen houses could use a little more detail. Looks like straight out of XP.

I agree, but you gotta remember that they aren't just regular 3D models. The houses are being dynamically created to fit the satellite footprint.

Hopefully, they figure out a way to add more detail though without it looking silly (i.e. windows appearing in weird places).

[Claviateur 789]

32 minutes ago, bonchie said:

I agree, but you gotta remember that they aren't just regular 3D models. The houses are being dynamically created to fit the satellite footprint.

Hopefully, they figure out a way to add more detail though without it looking silly (i.e. windows appearing in weird places).

I think it's a mix of extruded footprints as well as 3D ready made library objects

[bonchie 2,305]

4 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

I think it's a mix of extruded footprints as well as 3D ready made library objects

Every building I see fits the footprint and there would be millions of different footprints to fill (probably more). The aspects of the models like walls, roofs, windows, etc. are obviously already modeled, but I think the AI is dynamically sizing them to fit the footprint, which may cause oddities, a lack of windows, etc.

[Shack95 2,658]

5 minutes ago, bonchie said:

Every building I see fits the footprint and there would be millions of different footprints to fill (probably more).

In most screenshots that is true but in some the autogen doesn’t fit. In Tokyo for instance it appears that they used OSM data rather than footprints extrapolated from the imagery.

[Claviateur 789]

2 hours ago, bonchie said:

Every building I see fits the footprint and there would be millions of different footprints to fill (probably more). The aspects of the models like walls, roofs, windows, etc. are obviously already modeled, but I think the AI is dynamically sizing them to fit the footprint, which may cause oddities, a lack of windows, etc.

I observed many screenshots and I saw a mixed bag of extruded footprints as well as 3D ready made objects as far as my eyes could see. And in 1 case (Tokyo neighborhood), I saw a purely procedural implementation of infrastructure (i,e: not based on any footprint data, but rather based on "random" rules inside the lots).

To know how MS AI works to detect footprint:
https://blogs.bing.com/maps/2018-06/microsoft-releases-125-million-building-footprints-in-the-us-as-open-data