France VFR roadmap for MSFS (2020

[dobee51 348]

France VFR and Orbx have been my two favorite scenery developers for Prepar3d. 

https://www.vfrnetwork.com/forums/index.php?/topic/17847-roadmap-feuille-de-route-2020-2ème-semestre/

 

The arrival of FS2020 scheduled for August 18 has somewhat upset our little world of simulation! Indeed the latter is in full effervescence, everyone seems to be waiting for this release announced with great noise, even if it seems however to be a beta version very far from a stable and relatively complete version!

Now that we have been able to test the alpha version, that the release date is known, the approximate content and the price known as well, it is time to give you some information which will be completed after the release of MSFS, even if this information does not. Are of course not 100% guaranteed given the uncertainty that still exists.

We receive a lot of questions from support, mainly on two themes: what will we do for MSFS and what will happen to the scenes for P3D?

- What will we do for MSFS?

Above all, yes! Of course, we will participate in this adventure, which even if it is full of dangers and uncertainties remains exciting!

After having studied the reactions, the beta versions, the forums and other opinions a lot, we have already worked a lot on the specifications of the future scenes compared to what we have seen of MSFS and what we Is able to offer while maintaining a certain profitability.

To put it simply, some of the scenes remain fully relevant because MSFS will not be able to offer equivalent products because they are too local and specific. These scenes are mainly regional airports, Paris, Traffic, Obstacles and VFR landmarks, Discover scenes and upcoming missions. I think we will take these scenes completely to improve them even more while adapting them as well as possible to what MSFS can produce.

Meshes alone, even if they are transposable, may not be of great interest anymore, unless MSFS does not offer a 5m rendering for the mesh. If this is not the case then all our 4.75m mesh will remain interesting because the simulation being extremely precise it will benefit from using a very high terrain resolution.

The only scene family to be really directly impacted by MSFS is our flagship range, namely VFR 3DA scenes!

The main advance at the 3D level in MSFS is the use of procedural 3D, systematically absent from all previous simulators. Even if visually we can think that it is rather photogrammetric 3D, the latter is present in extremely small quantities and its generalization is not for the near future, because its high production cost is only justified by a focused commercial demand Almost exclusively in cities.

3DA technology is based precisely on the use of this procedural 3D, exploited on a large scale in MSFS! Considering that the simulator offers mesh, aerial photography, vegetation and buildings, and that the whole is of high quality, it is obvious that our current 3DA scenes can no longer be imposed ...

We therefore have the possibility of creating a new generation of 3DA to try to obtain a superior rendering, particularly in rendering fidelity, because this is where MSFS can be limited: pretty buildings but not adapted to the context. We started this new generation but for now it's 'standby' we are waiting to see the final product.

The other possibility, and this seems to be the preferred option for the moment, is to completely overhaul the 3DA scenes to adapt them to the future needs and lacks of MSFS! Imagine a regional pack that complements MSFS everywhere where it doesn't offer anything or offers something approximate !? VFR landmarks, precise modeling of small areas of interest, detailed aerodromes, ULM tracks, helipads, animations, realistic traffic covering an entire region ... These packs could quickly become 'must-have' and we have the technical means to do so. Produce with our accumulated experience in these fields.

- What will happen to the scenes for P3D?

We promised to continue the ranges so as to complete them for both FSX and P3D, at least for the VFR 3DA range!

We remain on this objective for the moment, because even if it will make us waste time in relation to the work to come on MSFS, we will enter a difficult period (we have already been there for months since the MSFS announcement) or simmers wait and buy very few P3D scenes!

This should be put into perspective a bit, because it is obvious that once MSFS is released, there is a very good chance that the simmers will not find their account there to the point of almost all switching only to MSFS. We are therefore counting on a somewhat hazy period of P3D and MSFS cohabitation, hoping that P3D sales will pick up a bit, otherwise the period will be very complicated given that it will take us a while before we release solid MSFS addons and Well targeted!

We will therefore continue the

[dilore 126]

Thanks for the update. I use France VFR in P3D.

I would believe ORBX will be following a similar route.

[hjsmuc 393]

Good news, the South of France is again left forgotten by Microsoft like in all previous iterations of their sim. So we'll need at least one developer to get this region right. It may not matter for many but for me it is dear.