Absolutely gorgeous: FSDT's upcoming KORD

[virtuali 4,421]

8 minutes ago, Jeff Nielsen said:

Please don't give the asphalt that reflective(tin foil) look at night when the landing lights shine on it.  It's horrible....lol.  

We'll try not to overdo it, but concrete ( asphalt maybe less so, but KORD is mostly concrete ) has some specular effect, especially on painted lines.

 

10 minutes ago, Jeff Nielsen said:

Will you be able to get the sign boards at the gates going again in the new sim?

Right now, it doesn't seem possible, and even in P3D4 it was extremely complex to do, which explains why nobody has ever done it before. We had our Addon Manager .DLL, which is a PDK plugin for P3D4, that is allowed to intercept texture creation, and use native DirectX 11 code to write into the scenery texture in realtime. This was extremely fast ( nothing beats native C++ making DirectX calls directly ), very difficult and possibly very dangerous, because any mistake would likely result in a crash of the sim. But the Addon Manager was providing only the fundamentals. The panel logic was a made with a Python script running under the Couatl Python interpreter, which both made calls to Simconnect, to know about all AIs location, flight plans, etc, to GSX, to know about the status of services going underway, and Couatl in turn made the calls to the Addon Manager, to translate the Python logic into communication commands to the Addon Manager Render To Texture DirectX 11 engine. THAT's exactly how complex it was...

In MSFS, .DLL modules are still not possible as of today. When they will, they will run in a very secured sandbox mode ( Webassembly ), and won't be allowed to call any API except those that will be explicitly allowed. We are 100% sure DirectX 11 calls will never be allowed.

HOWEVER, MSFS has 3 new graphic APIs, which stays on top of DirectX ( 11 or eventually 12, it won't be our concern ), which can be used by Webassembly modules ( when they will be available, as of today, only Gauges work with WASM ), so we can only hope the SDK will be extended to a point that we might use one of these in scenery objects, like we did with RTT in P3D4. These will be a new "modern" and probably better/safer way to draw dynamically on the scenery, which will allow to do realistic Docking Systems, Jetway with numbers, etc.

 

[virtuali 4,421]

10 minutes ago, Baber20 said:

I have noticed that many if not all the aircrafts aren't connected to jetways at all. Is this a bug or an sdk limitation?

We don't know exactly. The jetways are made in a very similar way as FSX, which is why at a certain point SODE arrived to improve the situation.

In some cases there might be bugs of the animation system, in other cases, it might simply because AI don't usually park with the same level of precision as the user airplane ( with a proper GSX customization that places the door in a predictable position for all airplanes ), but it also due to the fact that it seems AI don't stay with the jetway docked all the time. It might be combination of all these factors. We all have been a bit spoiled by SODE/GSX L2, I guess.

However, the standard system is similar to FSX, but it's not *identical*, there are some things which seems to be better, which we hope will be better documented ( the hood is not fully documented yet, we had to figure it out with trials and error ).

Edited September 10, 2020 by virtuali

[Baber20 1,438]

5 minutes ago, virtuali said:

We don't know exactly. The jetways are made in a very similar way as FSX, which is why at a certain point SODE arrived to improve the situation.

In some cases there might be bugs of the animation system, in other cases, it might simply because AI don't usually park with the same level of precision as the user airplane ( with a proper GSX customization that places the door in a predictable position for all airplanes ), but it also due to the fact that it seems AI don't stay with the jetway docked all the time. It might be combination of all these factors. We all have been a bit spoiled by SODE/GSX L2, I guess.

However, the standard system is similar to FSX, but it's not *identical*, there are some things which seems to be better, which we hope will be better documented ( the hood is not fully documented yet, we had to figure it out with trials and error ).

Thanks for the detailed answer. Fingers crossed for GSX !

[ahsmatt7 1,199]

51 minutes ago, virtuali said:

FIY, here's the fps I get sitting with the 152 on rwy 28C, realtime weather as of now:

Resolution is 5120x1440 32:9, which even if it's a bit less than 4K in total pixel count ( about 6.5 M/pixel vs 8.2 M/pixel ), can still be quite demanding because of the extra wide aspect, showing more objects in sight. I can reach 47-48 fps with a non-ultrawide resolution, like 1440p.

My settings are a combination of High and Ultra, since my system is a bit weak CPU-wise, but very strong in GPU, I started with High, and set to Ultra all those settings that are completely related to the GPU, since I'm not GPU-limited.

My CPU it's a 2016 i7-6700 NOT overclocked, with 64 GB RAM and a 2080 Ti. I just took the screenshot as I were, so I had all sort of word not allowed utilities running in the background, like Ms Teams, Xbox, Skype, Steam, the ElGato Streamdeck software, Adobe Creative Cloud, Dropxbox, the Asus audio panel, the 3dConnexion 3d mouse interface, Mozilla Thunderbird reading emails in the background, my Task manager has more than a hundred processes running, and I haven't turned off any or optimized anything. I'm sure I could get at least another 4-5 fps more, if I tried, even with no overclock.

 

This opens up a whole other can of worms for me. Now I'm really curious as to what your settings are lol

Just a heads up, this scenery is extremely well done. Being based here in the real world.....it feels to much like im at work hahah. If you get it to feel like that, you know you've done something right. Also, for the first time in a the franchise, I feel the ground textures look super duper real. Good job.

It's rare that I give public accolades to developers ....don't let it go to your head haha

Edited September 10, 2020 by ahsmatt7

[Brandon01110 407]

@virtuali  a couple things to fix please.  only have the inner two runways for takeoff please.  ai mainly uses the two most outter runways for departures.  no small GA on the airport please.

[Unlikely Spider 6]

Does it come with the singing barista who works at the Terminal C Starbucks?

[dobee51 348]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the trains. I love the trains...followed one all around the airport for like twenty minutes....

[FilbertFlies 980]

I've just uploaded a 15 minute video review of this scenery on my YouTube channel. There's an approach in the A320, a look at the central terminals in different weather and lighting conditions, and (for what they're worth) my opinions on it.

Spoiler alert: I like it a lot.

 

 

Edited September 11, 2020 by mrfilbert

[virtuali 4,421]

Very good review and, if I had to say anything, I'm happy to say that all the minor issues you found are all entirely due to things we cannot control ( yet 😞

- the jetway hood animation is not as good as it might be, because there's no documentation in the SDK how to do jetways hoods, we had to improvise a bit with trial and error, but I'm sure it can be improved, once this part of the SDK gets cleared.

- the grass polygon showing a too sharp transition with snow seems to be caused by the sim ignoring ( only in snow ) the falloff parameter which normally makes polygon edges more smooth.

- the glass materials not reacting well to fog is a known issue that is being discussed right now with other developers and Asobo and affects every scenery just the same. It seems that glass + fog is hard to do, because even P3D has a similar issue, semi-transparent things and objects behind glass don't work properly with fog.

- rain too uniform it's because we haven't modeled any rain puddles (like we did in the P3D version, including ice in freezing conditions), we are just getting it as a default feature from the sim, since it's not very clear if it's possible to create custom puddles, since the SDK doesn't allow smart materials ( materials that change dynamically, like P3D materials with a LUA script attached ) and Simconnect doesn't allow to create/destroy custom objects yet, which was another method we programmatically created rain puddles that change overtime in some of our past sceneries.

- The only terminal we ever advertised to have "fully modeled interiors" has always been Terminal C, both on our site and on MS Marketplace description. We never claimed to have modeled interiors for any other terminal, even if we DID have *some* ( not at the same level of Terminal C ) 3d interior modeling in other terminals. We never claimed to be a modeled interior, because it was just some structure with a flat texture. Doing the whole O'Hare with fully 3d modeled interiors is probably overkill, considering MSFS doesn't even have an "Avatar mode" you can use to walk in.

- The reason you see the pseudo-3D effect on Terminal B which disappear if you go inside, is a NEW feature, possible only with MSFS, which is called Parallax Interior Mapping, and if you look at previous posts in this thread, you'll find another post of mine, with a video showing how it works. It's a really neat optical illusion, that looks as if there was some interior, but there's none, and this SAVES some polygons, I think we probably saved a couple of thousands polygons from Terminal B, because instead of an interior which wasn't on the level of quality of Terminal C, there's just nothing there now, but it still looks very similar as if it were 3D, when seeing it from the outside.

The idea is that, if something is not very good, you might just as well use an optical illusion, and save some fps in the meantime. However, other terminals are still made with "some" 3D interior, because in that case, they way they are done, doing them with the Parallax Window method wouldn't have save polygons but instead would increase them for many reasons related to how they are modeled differently that are just too long to explain here. We don't use new features as a buzzword to make marketing noise: we use them when they are *helpful* in reaching the goal, which is always finding a good balance between detail and performances.

Edited September 11, 2020 by virtuali

[FilbertFlies 980]

Morning Umberto,

I'm glad you like the review and thanks for taking the time to reply to my comments on the minor issues I pointed out. It's a fascinating look into the development process and the challenges you face with the new sim and SDK. I'll put a link to your post under my YouTube video.

I swear I read on the MyCommerce product page "Terminal 2 completely modelled with interior and LOD optimizations" instead of "Terminal C completely modelled with interior and LOD optimizations", though it's definitely correct now. If I misread it then I apologise unreservedly! I assumed it was a simple typo.

Anyway, congratulations on the release - it really is a triumph. I look forward to Basel and whatever comes afterwards. If you're looking to dish out any pre-release press copies in the future in return for an unbiased review, you know where to find me! 😉 

All the best,
Filbert

[Noel 4,501]

Well I went for it, couldn't resist, but I'm afraid it's not useable at anywhere near the setttings I'm using--my RTX 2070 Super was trembling big time.  Makes me wonder if I don't have somekind of a bug happening as it just goes to the full 8GB of vram and 99% utilization, then frames start going under their minimum threshold for vsync to a 30Hz screen.  I guess we park it until a new GPU and lots of VRAM.

Except I just looked at the video and the author said it was performing even a little better than default airports, now I'm confused! 

Edited September 12, 2020 by Noel

[virtuali 4,421]

1 minute ago, Noel said:

Well I went for it, couldn't resist, but I'm afraid it's not useable at anywhere near the setttings I'm using--my RTX 2070 Super was trembling big time

Then the problem are the settings. If you tuned your settings in a sparser area or on a smaller airport, they will surely not work as well in a huge airport with hundreds of jetways, AI and ground vehicles.

Since your system is exactly the opposite of mine ( I have a fairly weak CPU i7-6700, not overclocked, with a 2080 Ti ), while you have a very good CPU with a mid-class GPU, you can probably afford settings that affect more the processor, like AI density, traffic density, etc, but you must lower the settings that affect more the GPU, like texture resolution, supersampling, and try to stay safely under 8GB, like 6-7GB or so. Use the fps counter of the developer mode to help you finding the proper settings.

Note that, with almost all GPU-related settings to Ultra, I'm using about 7.GB ( as you can see in the screenshot I posted ), I wonder how high are yours, if you can exceed 8GB. And yes, when VRAM is exceeded, the fps drop is dramatic.

 

[Noel 4,501]

11 minutes ago, virtuali said:

Then the problem are the settings.

Thank you Umberto for sure the problem is the settings.  I'm thinking this sim demands as much VRAM as you can find (I think RobA mentioned his Titan was hitting 19Gb.   Before reading this note I was already adjusting the GPU sliders down because yes clearly there is massive CPU headroom.  I'm stoked it's clearly becoming most important to update your GPU versus needing to build a whole new platform.  I know P3D 5.x likes VRAM too.  Thanks for encouraging me to go back and really reduce settings.  All set at the HIGH-END, plus increasing SS to 6x6 and AF to 16x and staying around 7Gb VRAM so will work well now.  I used pre-configured graphics settings in P3D depending on where we are and in what, and we will need to do that here or always adjust to the worst-cast scenario, which of course means you miss quite a bit in all of average or easier scenarios.

[Twenty6 693]

According to the FSDreamteam website all their products are distributed as try-before-you-buy but I can't seem to locate this version of KORD for MSFS2020. Any help appreciated.

TIA

[Steve Dra 7,588]

Two things I think stand out...

I've always liked the signage when it comes to land-side places...like the entrance to the airport and parking decks.  I know it may seem minor, and of course you won't necessarily see them air-side in your A320, but adds to the immersion when I'm taking a virtuali tour around the airport (See what I did there? hehe, I crack myself up) 🙂 

Love the Hilton sign too....I know many a late night flight that was delayed, and I'm arriving in the shuttle to it at 2am vs the 8PM I was supposed to, it is such a welcome sight!

And here is the important one when we're in our tiny Cessna, trying to navigate this immense airport...the taxiway signs!  This is something the default scenery is sure to mess up, and when we start getting the commercial birds in MSFS, and on VATSIM they issue you taxi instructions, it is nice to know the airport markings are spot-on. (You can see on the Jepp chart in Navigraph my pink triangle matches up exactly where I am on the taxiway.)  THIS is a very compelling reason to buy good payware airports if you're going to be on VATSIM and visiting thm.

Great work Umberto!  I know I said I wouldn't buy anything from FSDT until you had KDFW up in the marketplace, but since KORD is another major American Airlines hub...I'll need it when I fly flights out of my hometown to the Windy City. 😉