We have heard a lot about Asobo having their Azure AI to generate non photogrammetry cities and areas. Now in the latest parner ship video there's a "new" player, called Blackshark, in the game.

What and how do they differenciate from each other or what does Azure do and what does Blackshark do? 

I have seen the videos about it, but I still don't get it.  Yes, I may be a slow learner, so please explain it to me in a " for dummies" way.

 

Just think of Azure as a farm of computers...Blackshark develop the AI algorithms and the technology to scrape the satellite imagery into the world you see and the Azure cloud is where they process everything. Because you need a lot of computing power to process every inch of the world and turn it into something the Simulator can render. So what they are probably doing is dividing the world in segments and each segment runs on a computer in the Azure cloud to be processed and the final output put into the virtual world. 

Edited August 8, 20205 yr by highflyer2020

Azure is the IT infrastructure providing the processing and capacity to perform the algorithms designed by blackshark.

In other words, they're dependant on each other? Azure needs the algorithms to compute the world, and Blackshark needs the computer power of Azure, to create the building blocks of the world?

1 hour ago, jlund said:

In other words, they're dependant on each other?

Correct.

For a mammoth task like this one needs tens of thousands of computers (enter Azure). Those computers need crafty machine learning programs to give us what we want (enter Blackshark).

Azure is also being used to run the multiplayer where they just scale to more and more computers as demand dictates. In other words, multiplayer runs on a single server that just happens to be a massive cluster with dynamic load matching capability.

When you think about it, these two technologies basically mean there will never be competition that can match this, not unless Google or Amazon decide to enter the flight sim arena or are subcontracted by someone. Then again, Google might considering they have invested in Stadia which is an allied technology to MFS.

Black Shark Matters!

10 hours ago, Bottle said:

 

When you think about it, these two technologies basically mean there will never be competition that can match this, not unless Google or Amazon decide to enter the flight sim arena or are subcontracted by someone. 

Lockheed Martin has the intellectual assets and a product not far from what  BSai does. They also use Azure for other purposes and are working with Amazon. A pity to see Prepar3D in a dead-end. I hope they will get the waking  call before MS brings FS20 to the institutional market.
 

 

20 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

I hope they will get the waking  call before MS brings FS20 to the institutional market.

LM is currently using and building on Microsoft's ESP, under license. So who's they say Microsoft wasn't planning on developing the current MFS into another licensable platform in the future, once they've made back some money in retail sales and DLC. Then they can make money on the license and we might see P3D morph into their custom training version of MFS. 

Duplicate

Edited August 9, 20205 yr by Dominique_K

18 minutes ago, Sethos said:

LM is currently using and building on Microsoft's ESP, under license. So who's they say Microsoft wasn't planning on developing the current MFS into another licensable platform in the future, once they've made back some money in retail sales and DLC. Then they can make money on the license and we might see P3D morph into their custom training version of MFS. 

We can speculate at length, MS licensed a product they didn’t want to use anymore. And twice, smart guys !   Not sure that they’d want to license a product they do use and sell. Specially they go to the pro market. Microsoft is also a defense contractor after all.

But that was not my point in answering Bottle. Lockheed Martin has its own technological means to compete with the new MS flight simulator. I wish them a bit more proactive than patching the ESP a sixth time or even licensing FS20.

2 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

A pity to see Prepar3D in a dead-end.

I don't see it as a dead end.  Sure, the current version is based on older technology, except for Enhanced Atmospherics which isn't even finished yet.  But what might P3Dv6 be like?  Imagine a partnership between Lockheed Martin, Google and Hifi (makers of Active Sky) to bring a "generation after next" flight sim to market.

Hook

One thing we can say for certain no one will be using Google earth to build a flight sim on, on the new streaming platforms coming in the next few years from Amazon Apple and Google or can WE!!!

21 minutes ago, G-RFRY said:

One thing we can say for certain no one will be using Google earth to build a flight sim on, on the new streaming platforms coming in the next few years from Amazon Apple and Google or can WE!!!

If it's not Google, Apple or Amazon itself, it is doubtful.

Otherwise you would have to pay them, which is probably more expensive than if you can do it in-house. Thus you will either need a really well flourishing addon market with integrated market-place or a paid subscription.

Edited August 9, 20205 yr by tweekz

1 minute ago, tweekz said:

If it's not Google, Apple or Amazon itself, it is doubtful.

Otherwise you would have to pay them and is probably more expensive than if you can do it in-house. Thus you will either need a really well flourishing addon market with integrated market-place or a paid subscription.

Google have all the tools but do they want to for a niche product.

Just now, G-RFRY said:

Google have all the tools but do they want to for a niche product.

That's the point. I see no indication they're willing to dig deep into the gaming market, especially on a well populated niche.