How Austin Meyers responds to MSFS2020

[Flying Fisherman 41]

55 minutes ago, mtaxp said:

So I watched this video in the highest resolution I could and while I agree that maybe procedural generation of terrain + vegetation is potentially something interesting for the future, I'm sure glad that MSFS isn't going to look like this! This doesn't look much better than FSX. I'm seeing extremely dark areas with almost no coloration, the water is pretty ugly, and I don't particularly like the distant view appearance either. Am I missing something here?

 

 

 

[OzWhitey 3,353]

Procedural generation, like landclass scenery, looks OK for hazy shots of mountains where you can’t see terrain details.

Once you get up high - which is what you do in a flight simulator - procedural generation looks lame. Only real-world images have the large-scale patterns that your brain expects to see.

Outerra has been mentioned on these forums for years. There’s a bunch of other programs that also generate large-scale procedural landscapes. But neither procedural generation or landclass scenery can come close to orthoscenery for airliner flying.

Plus, there’s something nice about knowing that what you’re seeing out the cockpit window is real, rather than the invention of an artist or a computer.

[LHookins 3,118]

Seems like there are people who want to rip out everything that makes MSFS great and turn it into... whatever they're currently using.  

I've seen this in other situations as well.

Hook

[FlyBaby 659]

8 hours ago, captain420 said:

Although he seems to be very arrogant in his response about the future of X-Plane.

 

8 hours ago, Chock said:

It's Austin being Austin. He's actually nice to chat to if you ever get the chance, but he's single-minded in what he wants to do; you could never persuade him otherwise.

 

6 hours ago, scotchegg said:

I have a lot of respect for Austin, but I think I can see that his intelligence, passion and drive might sometimes override his attentiveness to his audience and come across as arrogance.

I am not sure if its all arrogance, or mixed with being defensive about a product meeting the demands that he isn't. To me, Austin depended too much on the "cult like" following and he thought that the things that set XP apart would suffice despite XP lacking in some major areas. That single-minded approach may work for Tesla, but Tesla is on the cutting edge of technology and performance....XP is not.

Austin "knows" that the tide has changed...his dismissive comments in the OPs video about Microsoft "sort of coming back"...."hiring a french company"....shows just how "concerned" he is. He can't begin to address the weather / clouds, world modelling, or the dozen of other features that MSFS2020 is bringing to the table. In short...he has no response.

His delusional comments / comparison of starting in 1995 when MS was around has no relevance today. This "aint" 1995, its 2020 and MSFS2020 is the only sim that has learned from, capitalized on and addressed the demands of flight sim community that have grown over the past 25 years.

After seeing this video in 2017, I knew that XP was not going much further....and Austin's arrogant comments (at the 8:20 mark) seemed more like he was "defending" XP disguised as some unique approach / philosophy....with nothing substantial on the horizon. Yeah...he doesn't spend $$$ in market research....and it shows.

Ironically MSFS2020 was behind the scenes...researching / investing & creating a sim that would sweep the community by storm.

 

[tweekz 2,165]

If you want procedural generation, you play MSFS in offline mode. 😄

Honestly, would be interesting on what data the offline mode is based. Those 100GB seem big enough to contain some accurate world data.

 

The big benefit of the ortho approach is not only the ortho images itself, it's the amount of additional data you can draw out of it.

They analyze the images and detect fields, forests, buildings. This technology is currently used to place appropriate 3D objects. Additionaly you can match those things with underlying imagery.

Theoretically you could also use it to manipulate ground textures. Maybe that's already in place to some extent (I am no beta tester). But it could be used to minimize differences between tiles, artifacts or even enable seasons later on.

Edited August 13, 2020 by tweekz

[Groovy_Kincaid 71]

2 hours ago, Murmur said:

(Hilarious: people have been saying the same thing for 20 years; misinformed: in the last 12 months, since MFS announcement, XP sales have actually increased more than in the 12 months before).

I am going to call you out on this. Are you working for LR? Do you have a financial relationship with LR? How would you determine the sales figures for LR? Year over year or monthly? Where did you get the sales data?

 I decided to look this up. LR is a private company that does not need to file any public financial statements. So, unless you are an insider, I am not sure what you are basing this on.

I did find this:

https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-profiles.laminar_research_llc.c33a144760c542e5a70ae297c12f080b.html
 

I don’t know how old it is and it’s an annualized figure but it certainly doesn’t support what you have claimed.

 

[GSalden 4,725]

1 hour ago, mtaxp said:

 

Yes, you can.

Roads and their subtypes are avilable as data, the same goes for buildings and footprints, industrial areas, agricultural fields etc.. go to OSM and you can see how the data is just their to place artwork on. X-plane already does that in a beautiful manner at many areas where data is avilable, however it lacks the proper art work library to give the proper "wow" effect which outterra does have.

Edit: besides, based on my work and every scenery package out there most of the hard drive/ssd space goes to those ortho backgrounds, hence why microsoft needs to stream it because those take A LOT of memory, for a really low visual quality.

OSM data is as good as the country has given the data.

I have made custom AG for Turkey using OSM data and many smaller towns ( up to 20.000 residents ) are not present ....

[tweekz 2,165]

28 minutes ago, Groovy_Kincaid said:

I don’t know how old it is and it’s an annualized figure but it certainly doesn’t support what you have claimed.

They might still sell a lot, but that curve will flatten.

Then a certain economy will kick in:

Addon devs develop for a profitable market -> people move where addons are -> market grows -> addon devs develop for a profitable market -> ...

I'm not saying XP will die. But it will likely go back being that hobby project that it always has been.

Edited August 13, 2020 by tweekz

[tweekz 2,165]

1 hour ago, mtaxp said:

Roads and their subtypes are avilable as data, the same goes for buildings and footprints, industrial areas, agricultural fields etc.. go to OSM and you can see how the data is just their to place artwork on. X-plane already does that in a beautiful manner at many areas where data is avilable, however it lacks the proper art work library to give the proper "wow" effect which outterra does have.

Edit: besides, based on my work and every scenery package out there most of the hard drive/ssd space goes to those ortho backgrounds, hence why microsoft needs to stream it because those take A LOT of memory, for a really low visual quality.

OSM data is about 1.3 PB in size. I'd be honestly interested how much size all roads, lakes, forests, building shapes consume.

But as @GSalden mentioned - while pretty good coverage in general, there seems to be a lot missing as well.

Edited August 13, 2020 by tweekz

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,318]

1 hour ago, Julian Roschlau said:

He thinks 3rd party developers only exist by the grace of LR when it clearly is the other way around. 3rd party developers keep his platform alive. Same as any other sim.

Looks to me like LR got a nasty surprise when MS announced their August release date.

Nothing against X-Plane, but this arrogance is just not healthy.

3rd party developers don’t keep xplane alive at all. Freeware community does. In fact, prior to XP11 and the end of FSX, there were hardly any developers for xplane. Yes, there were a few, however, they certainly ‘didn’t keep it alive’.

Some it the drivel spouted in here is ridiculous. 
 

PS, it’s 25 years old. It’s survived along side MSFS iterations before, and will again. People getting their knickers in a twist and spouting rubbish. 
I will use MSFS, however XP will still survive, and I’ll be sure to check out XP12. 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Ianrivaldosmith

[snglecoil 1,829]

3 hours ago, mtaxp said:

There is nothing new about the ortho+3d on top of it.

I agree, but there is everything new about the scale and degree to which MSFS has implemented it. It is not just buildings a few hand crafted POIs, This is procedural generation down to grass, dirt, pavement level. It makes all the difference in the world. And again, I'm not bashing Xplane, and what I have seen from Outerra is cool (but can you point me to the flight sim that uses Outerra? I can't seem to find it) I'm just super impressed with the world that MSFS is delivering. I'm looking forward to seeing Austin's solution to the "plausible world" problem that exists with XP out of the box today. I hope he comes out with something very innovative! I'm having trouble imagining a solution better than MSFS at this time...but that's my own limitation. I hope XP12 makes my jaw drop as hard as MSFS has.

[Murmur 3,978]

1 hour ago, Groovy_Kincaid said:

I am going to call you out on this. Are you working for LR? Do you have a financial relationship with LR? How would you determine the sales figures for LR? Year over year or monthly? Where did you get the sales data?

I should have been more detailed indeed. The Steam numbers (average players) of XP have increased +80% in the last 12 months vs +70% in the preceding 12 months.

Now even if technically speaking it's not strictly sales, that is a good proxy. But the main point remains: the growth in XP average users has not slowed down since MFS was announced.

Maybe it will in the future, but I was calling out all those claiming that XP is gonna die and similar nonsense.

[mtaxp 666]

1 hour ago, tweekz said:

OSM data is about 1.3 PB in size. I'd be honestly interested how much size all roads, lakes, forests, building shapes consume.

But as @GSalden mentioned - while pretty good coverage in general, there seems to be a lot missing as well.

OSM data has data that you don't need in flight simming. Other data like meshes can be shipped in reduced quality and you can use tessellation. You dont have to use 1.3pb.

And if OSM data lacks at one area, you can mix sources. X-plane does that howeveri t lacks in art works+proper lightning so this is why it lools ugly.

 

[Murmur 3,978]

2 hours ago, FlyBaby said:

He can't begin to address the weather / clouds, world modelling, or the dozen of other features that MSFS2020 is bringing to the table. In short...he has no response.

 

If you weren't blinded by your grudge towards LR and Austin, you would know that weather, clouds and world modeling (scenery) are exactly the features that have been announced to be improved in XP12.

[arsenal82 120]

6 hours ago, LHookins said:

Current MSFS is CONFIRMED to have a new weather engine (and weather rendering) and new scenery. 😄 

Available August 18.

Hook

 

yea it will be

in what shape and form have to be seen

 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2020 by arsenal82