Looks Great!

 

FSDT is just one of those 3rd Party airport Devs I will always be a customer of... Just Like Flightbeam and Fly Tampa!

10 hours ago, Twenty6 said:

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.

This has been explained on our forum:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php/topic,24166.0.html

Without our software modules, is not possible to have a Trial. This might change at any time, when the SDK and Simconnect will restore all the missing features from FSX Simconnect, which would allow us not only to restore a Trial, but (more importantly) to do GSX...

 

 

Edited September 13, 20205 yr by virtuali

51 minutes ago, virtuali said:

GSX

Hehe....those 3 letters....changed ground ops forever in flight simulation.  We can clearly see how sorely we need it in MSFS (I just hope its easy to turn off the goofy default ground crew who seem to love runway incursions) 🙂 

Although it wasn't a day 1 purchase for me in P3d, it will be in MSFS.  I had to justify why I needed it back then, as I had no idea how much it added to the immersion, now its one of the few commercial non-aircraft titles I'm anxiously waiting for release

Does anyone has problem getting ATIS at KORD? I tune ATIS freq but it silent!

B

2 hours ago, Steve Dra said:

(I just hope its easy to turn off the goofy default ground crew who seem to love runway incursions) 🙂 

You might call them goofy but at least they don't limp, look far more realistic and I saw today variable characer models, so if a new GSX can modernize visually over the old GSX I & II, which don't get me wrong I very much was happy about purchasing and use all the time in P3D, then bring it on I'm ready to buy!  MSFS has raised the bar considerably to where somethinig like the characters in GSX just look out of place and dated now.

The new KORD is beautiful work I agree and look forward to future releases from FSDT.  Thanks Umberto!

Edited September 13, 20205 yr by Noel

On 9/1/2020 at 11:54 AM, GCBraun said:

Third high-end developer releasing sceneries already included in the premium package. 😞

Yet no Vegas, San Diego..

6 minutes ago, Noel said:

look far more realistic and I saw today variable characer models

Absolutely no question there!  I'm sure Umberto did the best he could with what he had to work with in P3D, but the human modeling in MSFS is simply superb, so I suspect @virtuali will take full advantage of the new features when he gets enough SDK content to start on GSX.

Even blemishes and facial hair are very well done....and the animations are very convincing.  Can't wait to see what happens with all this new goodness down the road!!

 

Dave sorry but I have to ask, what the heck are you referring to?

17 minutes ago, DaveCT2003 said:

Baseball caps in the aircraft?  offensive initials not allowed?  Nothing like self-limiting visibility.  Bad message, I have to rail against the stupidity even if it's from my friend Umberto.  Stupid, we were always warned about doing stupid things like that, and even though it's a sim, it's stupid.  Sorry.

 

 

 

Are you alright?

I have had payware scenery off Chicago O’Hare for more than 10 years and many many other sceneries (Im into flight simulators since last century). As a European it has been very expensive to land there once or twice in a year. I had to force myself to land there on my long hauls because I payed for it. If you are planning to buy payware scenery than first have a minute and think what you are going to do with it.  Also, there is a new trend in the flightsim industry: KORD 1.0, next year, KORD2.0, year after KORD 3.0,...And yes the industry is in these forums too. This advice is completely free.

Edited September 13, 20205 yr by Smoky

36 minutes ago, Noel said:

Dave sorry but I have to ask, what the heck are you referring to?

I am completely lost also. I reread Dave's post a couple of times, and I truly do not have a clue what he is trying to discuss... Perhaps I should get drunk first, and then maybe his argument will become more clear....

43 minutes ago, DaveCT2003 said:

Baseball caps in the aircraft?  offensive initials not allowed?  Nothing like self-limiting visibility.  Bad message, I have to rail against the stupidity even if it's from my friend Umberto.  Stupid, we were always warned about doing stupid things like that, and even though it's a sim, it's stupid.  Sorry.

 

 

 

You can't be serious....🙄

6 minutes ago, Smoky said:

I have had payware scenery off Chicago O’Hare for more than 10 years and many many other sceneries (Im into fligjtsimulators since last century). As a European it has been very expensive to land there once or twice in a year. I had to force myself to land there on my long hauls because I payed for it. If you are planning to buy payware scenery than first have a minute and think what you are going to do with it.  Also, there is a new trend in the flightsim industry: KORD 1.0, next year, KORD2.0, year after KORD 3.0,...And yes the industry is in these forums too. This advice is completely free.

That is an astute observation and I wholeheartedly agree!   I jumped on KORD just because I wanted to see something that good, and I like what they did w/ my old home airport, KSBA, so I have both of those installed now.  

What I really appreciate in MSFS is how everything is really in one spot.  The number of hours to install P3D and what is required to make it work is massive by comparison, and often some of those needs to be updated w/ the various updates in P3D.

 

Just now, RustyFlyer said:

I am completely lost also. I reread Dave's post a couple of times, and I truly do not have a clue what he is trying to discuss... Perhaps I should get drunk first, and then maybe his argument will become more clear....

I wonder if maybe he was responding to a different post, or something like that.

8 hours ago, Steve Dra said:

Absolutely no question there!  I'm sure Umberto did the best he could with what he had to work with in P3D, but the human modeling in MSFS is simply superb, so I suspect @virtuali will take full advantage of the new features when he gets enough SDK content to start on GSX.

Even blemishes and facial hair are very well done....and the animations are very convincing.  Can't wait to see what happens with all this new goodness down the road!!

We are not far from that in GSX ( and in some things, like headsets, we are definitely more detailed already ), these are some of the PBR characters that are in GSX right now:

And this is P3D V4, they look auto-magically look better in MSFS, even without any changes.

Not all GSX characters looks like this, those are the ones we remade in PBR. The plan was to convert them gradually, until no old characters made for FSX remained, saving the most important ones ( Pushback/Wingwalkers ) to be the last.

This would have worked well, if only Microsoft didn't surprise everybody and announced MSFS and, while waiting for it with a very early SDK in hand, P3D V5 came out, which we had to support it too so, all plans had to stop to understand how to work with the new sim.  Of course, the thing we learned about character animation that allowed us to reach this quality in P3D, surely won't be wasted with a better graphic engine...

Problem is, we were always limited in what we could do, because of the baggage of having to support FSX, which is particularly limited with character animation. There's an ancient limit of 22 maximum bones for a human skeleton, which nowadays is considered ancient, not even "legacy". Unreal engine, for example, consider 75 bones to be standard for the "mobile" profile, a character that should be used in a game that could run on a *phone*...PC profile is like 144 bones, I think.

THAT'S why some of the GSX characters "limps", you cannot do a smooth and natural human animation with only 22 bones, some in the spine must be removed ( so the character walk cycle will be hampered ), and no modern animation software or motion capture system work with so few. And, with no chance to have articulated fingers and toes, the character movement will be very stiff.

P3D is better, with 64 connected bones, so these guys up here moves way better, even if we still can't use all we could, like facial animation, expressions and lip-sync.

In regard to rendering, the MSFS engine allows at least two important features to increase realism for humans, that is a dedicated shader for Hair, and Subsurface Scattering ( SSS ) shader, which simulates the color of the blood vessels shining through skin, which in reality is not entirely opaque, and this ups a notch realism for characters. The software we use to create humans obviously supports this, but there was no simulator ( until now ) that had this kind of shaders, so we can't wait to see our people the way they are *supposed* to be seen.

Edited September 13, 20205 yr by virtuali

9 minutes ago, virtuali said:

We are not THAT far from in GSX, these are some of the PBR characters that are in GSX right now:

And this is P3D V4, they look auto-magically look better in MSFS, even without any changes.

Not all GSX characters looks like this, those are the ones we remade in PBR. The plan was to convert them gradually, until no old characters made for FSX remained, saving the most important ones ( Pushback/Wingwalkers ) to be the last.

This would have worked well, if only Microsoft didn't surprise everybody and announced MSFS and, while waiting for it with a very early SDK in hand, P3D V5 came out, which we had to support it too so, all plans had to stop to understand how to work with the new sim.  Of course, the thing we learned about character animation that allowed us to reach this quality in P3D, surely won't be wasted with a better graphic engine...

Problem is, we were always limited in what we could do, because of the baggage of having to support FSX, which is particularly limited with character animation. There's an ancient limit of 22 maximum bones for a human skeleton, which nowadays is considered ancient, not even "legacy". Unreal engine, for example, consider 75 bones to be standard for the "mobile" profile, a character that should be used in a game that could run on a *phone*...PC profile is like 144 bones, I think.

THAT'S why some of the GSX characters "limps", you cannot do a smooth and natural human animation with only 22 bones, some in the spine must be removed ( so the character walk cycle will be hampered ), and no modern animation software or motion capture system work with so few. And, with no change to have articulated fingers and toes, the character movement will be very stiff.

P3D is better, with 64 connected bones, so these guys up here moves way better, even if we still can't use all we could, like facial animation, expressions and lip-sync.

In regard to rendering, the MSFS engine allows at least two important features to increase realism for humans, that is a dedicated shader for Hair, and Subsurface Scattering ( SSS ) shader, which simulates the color of the blood vessels shining through skin, which in reality is not entirely opaque, and this ups a notch realism for characters. The software we use to create humans obviously supports this, but there was no simulator ( until now ) that had this kind of shaders, so we can't wait to see our people the way they are *supposed* to be seen.

Umberto,  I hope other folks here find it as fascinating as I do the absolute breadth of knowledge a competent dev has to have in the flightsim arena. 

I thoroughly enjoy your detailed (well, detailed at a consumer's level at least) explanations as to why things are the way they are...and that, despite some who'd say otherwise, should pretty much prove that your goal is to provide a good product that is balanced both in quality and performance.

I have some experience in that area when it comes to aircraft painting...especially when the industry moved to 4k texture maps.  There are some paintkits we get from the devs that start out will all 4k maps, which we all know can be a factor in performance, especially on marginal machines. (Not nearly as bad as it used to be with the monster hardware we have now in comparison to a few years back). But a conscientious painter will typically re-scale ancillary maps to 2048 or even 1024 in some cases. (This of course also saves final package size for those on metered internet).

Anyway, I just wanted to say I appreciate your explanations, and to me they always justify the tough coding decisions you make with your software.  I cringed when I read "the limping" because I did a little reading way back and discovered what you mention about the limited bone count in previous versions (heck, it may have been you explaining it way back then)...so I knew you didn't purposely code it wrong because maybe it was faster to code that way than doing it properly....it was a limitation of the sim version/SDK.

I took a flight outta' O'Hare this morning to Detroit, loved looking over my shoulder as I departed...