3 hours ago, pmb said:

There is a potential issue, though. ORBX may decide to make a new TE Washington or Drzewiecki Design a new Seattle region including advanced POIs, perhaps even new/better buildings etc. Shortly after release, Bing may decide to come up with an update for full or part of Washington, or MS may decide to make a new Azure AI run over the area making ORBX/DD incompatible or completely obsolete.

This is a risk addon developers will take with any product. Even minor upgrades such as P3D v4 - v5 introduces problems or makes certain things redundant. Any developer who decides to tackle a city or even an airport will have no guarantee that it won't suddenly appear in Bing or a better version by another developer. I think the competition will be tough in this new sim as both current ESP and XP developers will want a piece of the pie.

Each new iteration of our flight sims make older products redundant but opens a market for newer products. The amount of effort and skill to make these products also goes up, and what once looked plausible or high-quality in something like FSX will look toyish in newer sims. What I hope doesn't happen is that it makes the entry level too high, leaving only the larger and established developers who can afford it making airports/aircraft and leaving smaller developers out in the cold.

 

 

10 minutes ago, tonywob said:

This is a risk addon developers will take with any product. Even minor upgrades such as P3D v4 - v5 introduces problems or makes certain things redundant. Any developer who decides to tackle a city or even an airport will have no guarantee that it won't suddenly appear in Bing or a better version by another developer. I think the competition will be tough in this new sim as both current ESP and XP developers will want a piece of the pie.

Each new iteration of our flight sims make older products redundant but opens a market for newer products. The amount of effort and skill to make these products also goes up, and what once looked plausible or high-quality in something like FSX will look toyish in newer sims. What I hope doesn't happen is that it makes the entry level too high, leaving only the larger and established developers who can afford it making airports/aircraft and leaving smaller developers out in the cold.

 

 

I agree and I think all this comes to the business model of MSFS that is obviously a new era in PC flight simulators. And I believe scenery developers will need to adapt.

The freeware enthousiast scenery creators like me, will see how much is already done for us in our area of interest and tweak or add. Among other things, I won't worry about generating heavy Orthophoto scenery for example, it's already there, free and all set... 

For commercial groups as you said, they must evaluate their move. This is why big budget productions like OrbX regional VFR scenery might not be required for MSFS as it is done for the actual platforms... They could decide to deliver landmark packages instead, who knows... Let's see.

But if we think about it, even the commercial developers of expensive and fancy sky, clouds and weather addons will need to adapt their business to the new engine technically speaking and in terms of market need... I, personally, as far as the screenshots and videos go, I might not need any other sky other than the default MSFS sky. Also who knows how much will be accessible to modify as per the SDK, in the skies of MSFS...

This is why as an enthusiast scenery developer, I can't wait to learn what I can and what I can't modify in MSFS. But also, the best practices in this new platform when it comes to what I must spend time on improving or adding and what I must not touch as it will be updated in the platform at one point... 

so...if you google "large fleet of drones in night sky", you'll get links to stories about what might possibly could be large scale photogramtery projects.  Either that or somebody is planning a large scale takeover - joke hopefully.

I dont know what all is involved in photogrametry but maybe MS could provide software that allows people with access to planes or even drones with the right equipment attached to survey a local area and recreate it with the software provided.  Then they add textures as always or maybe small designers would have to learn shader code?

1 hour ago, tonywob said:

This is a risk addon developers will take with any product. Even minor upgrades such as P3D v4 - v5 introduces problems or makes certain things redundant. Any developer who decides to tackle a city or even an airport will have no guarantee that it won't suddenly appear in Bing or a better version by another developer. I think the competition will be tough in this new sim as both current ESP and XP developers will want a piece of the pie.

I think the situation is different for airports. I just can't imagine Bing + Azure AI to come up with better quality than Jarrad's KMRY or LOWI or FB KSFO in the foreseeable future. So, plainly excluding default and replacing it by the developer's own version will be fine for at least quite some time.

But yes, I see competition to become tough, even more as this will no doubt be the market leader within short time, notwithstanding what a few people think. Plus, we shouldn't forget MS/Asobo certainly will get a piece of the addon pie themselves.

Kind regards, Michael

1 minute ago, pmb said:

I think the situation is different for airports. I just can't imagine Bing + Azure AI to come up with better quality than Jarrad's KMRY or LOWI or FB KSFO in the foreseeable future. So, plainly excluding default and replacing it by the developer's own version will be fine for at least quite some time.

Azure AI can't create airports, it just does the autogen, trees etc.. However, MFS includes some high quality airports with the sim from the screenshots we've seen. So, let's say a developer had started working on something like Lukla for MFS, and then MS puts a good one in the sim. Who would then buy that version unless it was substantially better? I'd wager to say it wouldn't be a good seller.

I wish LOWI and the surrounding area would be photogrammetry.

Michael you mentions "or FB KSFO". Maybe MSFS' KSFO won't be as detailed as FB's version, but from the screenshots/videos I have seen of KSFO, I ill be more than satisfied with the default. It that's the standard for the detailed airports in MSFS, I can't see any reason to buy an addon airport for them.

I watch Tour de France every year and I'm always impressed of the many Castles,and mansions they show. I could easily see companies like ie. ORBX make poi packages with different landmarks from all over the world, cause I'm not expecting Azure ai to be able to produce them all.

And it will be easier for developers to make addon airports, if they can concentrate on the airport itself and not need to have all the surrounding landscape and terrain in it.

I went back and watched the 1st discovery series video (World) -- a good point to watch is around time stamp 4:45 about the island near new guinea . It explains how the satellite data isnt the best there so they heavily rely on Azure to create a realistic looking representation of the island.   Again.. the better the satellite imagery, the closer to a 1:1 match to the real word an area will look. So someone that lives on the island that knows every tree and what every building looks like will see discrepancies.. but it will still look 1000x closer to reality than it will on xplane or p3d by default

If you live in a bad satellite area, i think you still will be pleased.,.. considering.. 

 

I guess ultimately we all have to wait and see. But again.. i cant fathom saying.. 'they promised me a 1:1 version of the world... my house is there but the roof is wrong.. fail!'   and then you uninstall the sim and go back to xplane full-time . (i intend to keep flying xplane AND MFS but, i hope you get my point)   xplane may have a desert where your house is...  And i can massively enjoy xplane despite this (My main purpose in the sim is to FLY)  .. At the same time, being able to have a version of the ground that is close to real life (where most of the xplane world is not even attempting to be accurate)   So since x-plane doesnt even try we give them an A+ on the things they do will and ignore what it fails at...  So yes.. a far more accurate (while not 1:1) is what im looking for..  I am looking for a good flying experience also so i will hold MFS accountable to flight models etc.. but I will give them leeway since its a new sim... xplane has been around forever and i forgive them for what it doesnt do well.  (and if we believe austins hints, will finally improve on also.. ) really its just a great time for simming. 

 

PS. I ramble so sorry

 

26 minutes ago, tonywob said:

Azure AI can't create airports, it just does the autogen, trees etc.. However, MFS includes some high quality airports with the sim from the screenshots we've seen. So, let's say a developer had started working on something like Lukla for MFS, and then MS puts a good one in the sim. Who would then buy that version unless it was substantially better? I'd wager to say it wouldn't be a good seller.

Right. KLAX comes as a prominent example we already know. Honestly, I'm not sure how this will pan out but it certainly would require some will to communicate with addon developers from MS. Outside these limited number of high-detailed airports there is enought left.

2 minutes ago, jlund said:

Michael you mentions "or FB KSFO". Maybe MSFS' KSFO won't be as detailed as FB's version, but from the screenshots/videos I have seen of KSFO, I ill be more than satisfied with the default. It that's the standard for the detailed airports in MSFS, I can't see any reason to buy an addon airport for them.

I watch Tour de France every year and I'm always impressed of the many Castles,and mansions they show. I could easily see companies like ie. ORBX make poi packages with different landmarks from all over the world, cause I'm not expecting Azure ai to be able to produce them all.

Agreed, KSFO certainly wasn't a good example. And you're right on POIs, there should be enough room for such, and ORBX, DD, and others have excellent collections already.

Kind regards, Michael

On 6/7/2020 at 9:06 PM, Claviateur said:

This is why big budget productions like OrbX regional VFR scenery might not be required for MSFS as it is done for the actual platforms... They could decide to deliver landmark packages instead, who knows... Let's see.

Who knows? Well, the guy in the comment above yours knows - Tony is the  main TrueEarth guy. 🙂

On 6/7/2020 at 10:10 PM, tonywob said:

Azure AI can't create airports, it just does the autogen, trees etc.. However, MFS includes some high quality airports with the sim from the screenshots we've seen. So, let's say a developer had started working on something like Lukla for MFS, and then MS puts a good one in the sim. Who would then buy that version unless it was substantially better? I'd wager to say it wouldn't be a good seller.

Yes.

We’re used to a business model where the sim developer puts little effort into airports. There’s no reason why a sim developer (Asobo, Laminar, whoever) can’t build a top-tier quality airport - plenty of people know how to do this, it’s just a matter of hiring them.

 

On 6/7/2020 at 7:17 AM, sightseer said:

I dont know what all is involved in photogrametry but maybe MS could provide software that allows people with access to planes or even drones with the right equipment attached to survey a local area and recreate it with the software provided.  Then they add textures as always or maybe small designers would have to learn shader code?

If you're interested, there are a number of guides and tutorials on YouTube describing how to use drones for photogrammetry, and there are tools available (though not always cheap).

 

 

@goates -- thanks for more cool videos.  the second one is best.

I think I now see why things look as they do in Google's 3d views but I am really wondering when where and how all of this data was collected in the first place and how any photogrametric city would be done if you intend to capture all faces of all buildings.  I was reading not long ago about drones using lasers for surveys (Lidar) and how they can be used at night and I can see that maybe people wouldnt notice drones in the middle of the night surveying everything but how would one attempt to get photos of every face of every building in a city during the daytime?  I dont get it.  But the good news for me is that I dont have to because theres no way I could afford any drone capable of doing photogrammtery (however you spell that) -- but a company like Orbx could and so could anyone who has enough money to actually be a pilot.   But it is interesting for sure.

2 minutes ago, sightseer said:

I think I now see why things look as they do in Google's 3d views but I am really wondering when where and how all of this data was collected in the first place and how any photogrametric city would be done if you intend to capture all faces of all buildings.

In the case of Google, and probably Bing too, they use multiple sources, including satellite, aerial and StreetView imagery to generate their photogrammetry data.

https://www.blog.google/products/maps/google-maps-101-how-imagery-powers-our-map/

As for the cost of a drone to do this, you don't need anything too fancy. DJI drones start at a few hundred dollars and could do it. The key part is the coverage and number of photos, and the software to combine them. You would also need to fly the drone during the day.

I posted this here (I can't remember where) a couple of months ago, which also explains a lot about how its done.