Austin Interview on Threshold

[Colonel X 1,430]

https://www.thresholdx.net/media/ife21a

"How Austin Meyer Will Respond to FS2020"

 

[tonywob 4,768]

Moved this to a new topic as I'm sure it's an interesting thing to discuss.

Overall, good interview and Austin's answers are pretty much expected

[Treetops45 1,082]

Can someone paraphrase his main points on MS2020?

T45

[tonywob 4,768]

What I took out of it:

• He's not scared of MFS2020, he sees it more as a game (like Halo). X-Plane is more of a tool and professional sim that can be used to design and test aircraft
• LR has survived throughout the history of MFS/P3D and will continue to do so
• They intend to keep backwards compatibility in new versions and will always remain open with open file-formats, etc.
• Vulkan was intended to keep their commercial clients happy, e.g For those using 5 monitors the simulation stays smooth and doesn't stutter.
• They've hired some more devs to work on scenery (seemingly from Eastern Europe). They'll show stuff when it's ready
• Austin does not like photoscenery, and doesn't see it being standard in X-Plane. Some good reasons give.
• XP12,,, he hinted that they're looking at subscription models... I hope this doesn't happen, but seems they want to follow suit with their mobile version
• It seems the next "big" thing we may see is the online multiplayer stuff from the mobile version inside the sim

Overall, nothing new or unexpected, but worth a listen none-the-less

[MagentaChild 226]

I agree that XP will survive given its unique selling points, especially for professionally oriented users. However, I feel LR has missed its chance of becoming the consumer-oriented flight sim in the market. MSFS will take that position once it releases and LR seemingly doesnt even want to compete. I find this understandable given their limited ressources and long-cultivated niche appeal, yet I think its a bit sad as well, because I think they really had a shot at taking and competing for the pole position if they had dared more over the last years.

[ronh99 14]

Interesting interview.  As far as FS2020, He sees that XP and FS2020 are going to be so different that MS can go their direction and XP will go in a different direction. As long as the commercial flight sim market is satisfied, then the non-commercial market will be satisfied also.

XP next big thing is multiplayer, were all the devices will be able to see each other, PC (windows, linux, MAC), iPhone, Android.  Open file system for 3rd party devs to do whatever they dream up. Zibo mod is a good thing.

Ortho - He's not a fan.  XP will rely on autogen and artists for scenery, for now.  Next gen scenery will be "better", He's hiring for scenery. Vulcan/Metal has taken all the dev time for the last few years.Weather to be updated too.

Start at the 28 min mark and listen.

Edited June 22, 2020 by ronh99

[mSparks 2,086]

45 minutes ago, ronh99 said:

Ortho - He's not a fan.  XP will rely on autogen and artists for scenery, for now. 

Ortho or photogrammetry? (not got round to actually listening yet, will do... but interested if he just wasn't clear about this)

XP doesn't need more ortho, Ortho4XP more than covers it tbh for the foreseeable, sure there is a bit of a learning curve, but easy an solid once you get over it.

Photogrammetry such as flight 2.0.2.0 has got everyone excited for is something different altogether and I have big doubts over - in that I have't seen one shot yet where it actually looked good enough to be consumer ready, let alone commercial customers that have much higher requirements.

[peroni 541]

15 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Ortho or photogrammetry? (not got round to actually listening yet, will do... but interested if he just wasn't clear about this)

 

Austin not keen on aerial imagery due to being static. Cars, planes, shadows, etc burned into the pics with no easy way to remove them. This gives a feeling of a static world while he is looking for a dynamic experience

Edited June 22, 2020 by peroni

[BobFS88 635]

I enjoyed the interview. It gave us a peek as to what Austin is thinking about for the future. I like the idea that he wants to remain focus on what they do best and not on what the Microsoft folks are doing. Reason is, he never had to do so before to get him to this point. Up until last year Microsoft was on an 13 year hiatus in development until the MSFS announcement to reveal what they were doing. So he had nothing to go by except their own mission and meeting there own expectation that we are able to enjoy like performance in Vulkan, VR, improvements to the UI other advances while keeping compatibility with our investments. So I am grateful for what they are able to bring so far and looking forward to the things yet to come.

[Bjoern 1,156]

New scenery sounds good. Hope this involves better mesh resolution, more regional autogen variety, better ship traffic, more texture variety and seasonal shaders.
It isn't that all of this isn't possible right now with 11's rendering engine, but who has the time and energy to implement it?

I wouldn't mind a subscription based payment model if the price, payment method (not just credit card, looking at you Lockheed) and benefits (continuous updates and releases) are right. The upside of this may be quicker X-Plane development as Laminar might be able to keep more devs on its payroll thanks to the continuous cash flow.

[Kopteeni 819]

I like it that he seems to be very enthusiastic about improving the weather engine next.

I can't help but to feel that I as a measly consumer desktop flight simmer am not really a concern at all when it comes to XPlane future. Perhaps MSFS will be that platform then.

[tonywob 4,768]

11 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

No mention of adding TrueSKY?  Or Did I miss it ... thought that was on the road map for an XP update?

Photogrammetry doesn’t really work well at speed with current data sources, tech is still a good 10 years out.

No, and knowing how LR, I don't think they'd use a third-party tool to do it... TrueSky was never on the roadmap for XP, but rather they had hinted at work on the atmosphere and lighting. It seems effort will now shift to multiplayer instead

9 hours ago, Bjoern said:

I wouldn't mind a subscription based payment model if the price, payment method (not just credit card, looking at you Lockheed) and benefits (continuous updates and releases) are right. The upside of this may be quicker X-Plane development as Laminar might be able to keep more devs on its payroll thanks to the continuous cash flow.

With everything these days going subscription, I'd prefer to avoid this and pay for updates as and when they release them. I'd have happily paid for the Vulkan update as an example, but I'll pass with the multiplayer mobile stuff. 

After the recent Easyjet announcement of leaked CC details, I blocked my credit card and I was amazed to see just how many things are taking money each month from me (Netflix, Amazon, Spotify, Photoshop, etc....).  including things I somehow managed to subscribe to from Apple without realising. It was ideal because it gave me a good opportunity to clean-out sneaky subscriptions for things that simply aren't value for money, like a password manager charging me 3.49 a month, and TomTom mapping when I have google maps for free.

[Fizzelle 66]

MSFS more of a game says Austin?

I definitely agree with him there based on what I've seen.

[tonywob 4,768]

7 minutes ago, Fizzelle said:

MSFS more of a game says Austin?

I definitely agree with him there based on what I've seen.

This is Austin... he doesn't use the sim the same as we do, so take what he says with a grain of salt.. He uses it to test aircraft designs (being an aeronautical engineer). So of course he'll consider MFS, FSX or even P3D games in comparison, because they don't ship with plane-maker. This is also why I suspect he's not bothered/concerned about Microsoft.. but I bet the rest of his staff are

 

[Murmur 3,941]

5 hours ago, tonywob said:

they had hinted at work on the atmosphere and lighting. It seems effort will now shift to multiplayer instead

Meaning work on the new weather is already finished? Because if that means instead that their future effort is on multiplayer and not on improving current weather, I think that would be a very bad choice...

5 hours ago, tonywob said: