Nitpicking a brilliant looking game

[d25bev 47]

Now, before anyone misinterprets what i'm saying. I'm not angry or disappointed in the game in any way. The game is gorgeous, the flight model looks great, the UI looks simple to use but offers a great range of things to do & the hard work & technical achievements that's been put into it has been great. However, that doesn't mean it's perfect or exempt from nitpicks/feedback. Here's my 2 cents, feel free to add yours.
 

• Water reflections 'wiping' across the screen exclusively (i believe) on interior view.
  Every gameplay i've seen where they're using interior view & flying nearby to 'shore'. depending on the direction they are moving the reflections of terrain on the shoreline wipe & disappear, Whether it's looking out front or to the sides. Also, aircraft appear to have edges around the planes structures which affect it too.
  
  A couple examples;
  

 

 

• No water interaction with aircraft.
  Using the seaplane, the water has no reaction to the plane either by way of the fluidity of water around the plane or any particle spray effects etc. Same goes for any other aircraft at low altitude above the water. Also there's pretty ugly clipping of water on interior view in even slightly choppy water. The plane seems to sit on an invisible set altitude rather then float on the actual water & it leads to some pretty poor looking experiences.  
   

 

• Bridges/overpasses etc.
  - The most common issue with them is that the satellite data obviously can't model the space underneath, so it's left with big blocks of terrain that most of the time are very noticeable. They've been working hard to hand model as many as possible, unfortunately they can't tackle millions that need doing. Unfortunately it still seems there's many very noticeable problems per city or popular area.  
  - Many famous bridges with unique designs are very generic, simple bridges.
  - Another common sight are bridges being totally or partially underwater.

 

• Tree's where they shouldn't be & tree's completely the wrong size & density.
  A couple examples i've seen of tree's being in weird places are in Time's Square, NYC & an almost forest looking scene along the Vegas strip. Tree height & density problems are only noticeable in certain places where the surrounding buildings/landmarks make it obvious. Sydney, Aus has some truly giant tree's & in a much higher density then in real life for example. 

 

• Very noticeable area's which need Bing 3D bird's eye imagery.
  - London, out of all the many hours of gameplay I've now watched is probably the worst looking city I've seen. The majority of America & many popular places throughout Europe & Asia look brilliant, even the one's that aren't Bing 3D. So it's quite odd that such a famous, popular & populated city London looks how it does right now. Aside from a couple handmade landmarks it's pretty terrible. The Thames has some very odd geometry with weird height changes, the auto-gen scenery looks very strange compared to virtually everywhere else i've seen it, bridges underwater, missing landmarks or auto-gen scenery replacing landmarks that look terrible (including wind turbines in the middle of the city for some reason). It's strange that London isn't one of the 400 3D bird's eye cities in the game & it sticks out like a sore thumb right now.
  - Natural wonders. A couple of example's i've seen are the white cliffs of Dover & the Grand Canyon. The positioning of satellite data & the terrain need adjusting. But could really do with higher quality, sharper & more accurate scans;
   

 

• AI ground traffic.
  - Airport & road traffic is pretty buggy. I've seen multiple airport vehicles doing barrel rolls & having trouble deciding what direction they want to go.
  - Road traffic is buggy but less of an issue as it's seen less. However, road traffic that can be seen from airport taxi-ways & parking can look very odd, especially if they decide to take off with some invisible road height mapping.
  - Even on ultra settings the road traffic render distance is quite small, so the pop-in is quite obvious. They need to extend the distance in which you can see traffic.
  - Ship & boats can collide with each other.

 

 

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

27 minutes ago, d25bev said:

• Water reflections 'wiping' across the screen exclusively (i believe) on interior view.
  Every gameplay i've seen where they're using interior view & flying nearby to 'shore'. depending on the direction they are moving the reflections of terrain on the shoreline wipe & disappear, Whether it's looking out front or to the sides. Also, aircraft appear to have edges around the planes structures which affect it too.

This is an inherent issue with screen-space reflections, which means that only what is drawn on the screen can be reflected at the same time. Only ray-tracing can fix this.

[shamrockflyer 647]

Considering that the previews we have seen are most likely from the alpha build, we cant judge what the sim looks like from these previews. The sim is now in Beta and I am sure many of those issues have been reviewed and fixed by now. The release build will be different again and I'm sure asobo have quite a list of new features and fixes up their sleeve that even the beta testers don't know about. 

A little over 2 weeks away and we will be able to see if these issues are still present and if they are then I am 100% sure that Asobo will take care of them. 

I believe this topic is premature as you cannot base a final product off of an alpha build.

 

Edited August 1, 2020 by shamrockflyer

[RudyB24 296]

I'd add the sometimes laughable car traffic. I know .. it's not a car simulator ... but still.

EDIT: Oh ... I did not read well, you had already mentioned car traffic.

Boats all seem to be static?

Edited August 1, 2020 by RudyB24

[d25bev 47]

17 minutes ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

This is an inherent issue with screen-space reflections, which means that only what is drawn on the screen can be reflected at the same time. Only ray-tracing can fix this.

They've said rtx is coming i believe so that's good news.

 

9 minutes ago, shamrockflyer said:

Considering that the previews we have seen are most likely from the alpha build, we cant judge what the sim looks like from these previews. The sim is now in Beta and I am sure many of those issues have been reviewed and fixed by now. The release build will be different again and I'm sure asobo have quite a list of new features and fixes up their sleeve that even the beta testers don't know about. 

A little over 2 weeks away and we will be able to see if these issues are still present and if they are then I am 100% sure that Asobo will take care of them. 

I believe this topic is a bit too early as you cannot base a final product off of an alpha build.

 

The footage from the last couple of days has been from an updated build separate & further along then the alpha build. Certain journalists/creators were given access to it for a short time. Whilst i completely agree, various small things will be tweaked before release in a couple of weeks, there's a limit to what they can do in that time & at this stage it's incredibly rare for a game to change much before release. The thing's i've pointed out aren't game changing problems or something anyway, they're just nitpicks that need looking at within the near future before or after release.

 

18 minutes ago, RudyB24 said:

I'd add the sometimes laughable car traffic. I know .. it's not a car simulator ... but still.

EDIT: Oh ... I did not read well, you had already mentioned car traffic.

Boats all seem to be static?

I've seen boats/ships in San Fran & Sydney moving on paths. Thinking about it, they'll have the same problem as the aircraft i imagine where they don't float on the water but sit on a given height. So i imagine they might look odd too in certain scenario's 

[Chock 17,769]

26 minutes ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

This is an inherent issue with screen-space reflections, which means that only what is drawn on the screen can be reflected at the same time. Only ray-tracing can fix this.

At a stretch, there would be another way to fix it other than ray tracing, although it might be a bit of a faff and would also depend on how the 3D engine handles things. If for example, the aeroplane could be on a different z-index, effectively this would make it possible for the terrain behind stuff such as the A pillar to stiff be drawn, but obscured by the stuff on a layer above it. Most 3D stuff does not work like this though, and if it did, it would probably mean a big hit on frame rates because you'd effectively be generating two 3D environments, with one layering over the other and obscuring parts of itself with alpha channels or similar to make certain bits translucent, and even then I'm sure it would probably throw up some other unforeseen side effect. I think I'd take the slight visual anomaly over that amount of 3D shennanigans.

The water thing is probably going to need something akin to what Lockheed Martin have done with P3D's bathymetry in conjunction with NVidia's waveworks stuff to be resolved. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to occur, although I do think given the additional applications the 3D world might be used for outside of the flight sim for additional MS products, would probably mean it was worthwhile having a stab at in the longer term.

[Farlis 2,276]

1 hour ago, d25bev said:

It's strange that London isn't one of the 400 3D bird's eye cities in the game & it sticks out like a sore thumb right now.

That is not strange at all. Bing doesn't own that data. Google does. If you look at the coverage Google has for 3D areas in the U.K. in general it really puts Bing to shame. And not only there. The coverage of Bing in photogrammetry is years behind Google's coverage.

Edited August 1, 2020 by Farlis

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

9 minutes ago, Chock said:

At a stretch, there would be another way to fix it other than ray tracing, although it might be a bit of a faff and would also depend on how the 3D engine handles things. If for example, the aeroplane could be on a different z-index, effectively this would make it possible for the terrain behind stuff such as the A pillar to stiff be drawn, but obscured by the stuff on a layer above it. Most 3D stuff does not work like this though, and if it did, it would probably mean a big hit on frame rates because you'd effectively be generating two 3D environments, with one layering over the other and obscuring parts of itself with alpha channels or similar to make certain bits translucent, and even then I'm sure it would probably throw up some other unforeseen side effect. I think I'd take the slight visual anomaly over that amount of 3D shennanigans.

I believe that screen-space reflections are performed very close to the end of the rendering process, almost like a post-processing effect, so this would probably be very hard to do though it is an interesting idea.

[Chock 17,769]

16 minutes ago, Farlis said:

That is not strange at all. Bing doesn't own that data. Google does. If you look at the coverage Google has for 3D areas in the U.K. in general it really puts Bing to shame. And not only there. The coverage of Bing in photogrammetry is years behind Google's coverage.

Yup. I've long since tempered my enthusiasm for the notion that 'you can see your house in the sim' based on this. I'm sure you can see your house in the sim if you live in Los Angeles or Washington DC, but I bet you can't if you live in Glasgow or Prestatyn or or somewhere like that, and even if you can see a building in that location, I bet it won't look much like your house.

Edited August 1, 2020 by Chock

[MatthewS 761]

1 hour ago, d25bev said:

Tree's where they shouldn't be & tree's completely the wrong size & density.
A couple examples i've seen of tree's being in weird places are in Time's Square, NYC & an almost forest looking scene along the Vegas strip. Tree height & density problems are only noticeable in certain places where the surrounding buildings/landmarks make it obvious. Sydney, Aus has some truly giant tree's & in a much higher density then in real life for example. 

Yep... many have been complaining about the same thing for months... Asobo doesn't care. 🤷‍♂️

I'll be turning the trees off completely, Sydney especially is an abomination. 🤦‍♂️

[WarpD 824]

I'd suggest that if it's got to be perfect... then there is no software for you.  None.  Simply turn off your computer and toss it in the trash.  You simply will never be satisfied and will constantly "nitpick".  Not the best way to spend your life.  Really.

[Chock 17,769]

3 minutes ago, WarpD said:

I'd suggest that if it's got to be perfect... then there is no software for you.

Yup. Going from previous sims looking like a post-nuclear war desert in many places unless you spend thousands on add on sceneries, to one or two trees not being in the right place in a default sim which costs 60 quid is really being a bit picky.

[vcarlo 529]

In defense of the OP, he did qualify his post in his second sentence.  

Quote

 I'm not angry or disappointed in the game in any way. 

Having said that I agree, this post would be much more appropriate as "constructive criticism"  to MS/Asobo AFTER the RTM version on August 18.

This forum will be INUNDATED with these comments soon enough, and I would prefer seeing them at release time 😉  Thanks d25bev for your input and obviously the amount of time spent on your suggestions

[Farlis 2,276]

42 minutes ago, Chock said:

but I bet you can't if you live in Glasgow or Prestatyn or or somewhere like that

If you were living in Glasgow you could if the data was not bound to Bing.  Prestatyn not so much.

I also am in the uncomfortable situation of living in a place that is represented in photogrammetry... in Google.

It's kind of aggravating knowing that the data exists, but won't show up in the sim because Microsoft is only using their own services. I know I should probably be glad that they offer this at all, but I'd say people would probably feel the same if they knew high def data for the places they grew up and now live in is available, but not for the sim.

Edited August 1, 2020 by Farlis

[eslader 1,774]

Microsoft could choose to pay Google for their photogrammetry data. But that would not only significantly increase the price of the sim, but would also be throwing money at their direct competitor, which it's kind of understandable why MS would not want to do that.