And again:

Pretty word not allowed sure that 9 out of 10 places shown in this trailer having beautiful water masks do not look anything close in the current release of the sim... I call it false advertising and it really drives me nuts. Do they ever stop? Or even better: do they finally provide those water masks at least at those places they show in their world series trailers? 

Relax, they will come.

I've said before that FS2020 feels like a bait and switch. What they showed us is not what we bought, and in an effort to make it run properly they keep stripping down performance and visuals. In my 30 years of PC gaming and simulation I've never seen a product from a huge developer launch in such a poor condition, and then get worse (for most users) with each update. 

Most of the water masks shown in the video are there, are you sure that it is not an issue on your side?

13 minutes ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

Most of the water masks shown in the video are there, are you sure that it is not an issue on your side?

 

No, they are not.

I'm already experiencing the feelings of these videos. It's why I'm so fully invested in the sim.

I just wish their updates would go smoother.

2 hours ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

Most of the water masks shown in the video are there, are you sure that it is not an issue on your side?

Can you show screenshots of them? In my case, they are not. Bahamas looks fine, some other places as well, but as I wrote, 90% of the water masks shown in above trailer and also in other trailers (especially the Oceania one...) are simply not in the sim. 

BTW: I do know that there was an issue with the automatic generation of water masks and they have to do it manually now, but this still does not excuse showing wonderful watermasks not yet in the sim in each and every trailer. This is ridiculous...

39 minutes ago, AnkH said:

Can you show screenshots of them? In my case, they are not. Bahamas looks fine, some other places as well, but as I wrote, 90% of the water masks shown in above trailer and also in other trailers (especially the Oceania one...) are simply not in the sim. 

BTW: I do know that there was an issue with the automatic generation of water masks and they have to do it manually now, but this still does not excuse showing wonderful watermasks not yet in the sim in each and every trailer. This is ridiculous...

Will post in a few hours, if helps, my settings are all high with terrain LOD at 150.

Would be especially interested in Tahiti for example...

12 minutes ago, AnkH said:

Would be especially interested in Tahiti for example...

Just a friendly advice. DONT go there 😄 its poor, proper aerial for this region is notoriously hard to get, due to the climate i guess (lots of huge white clouds). 

1 hour ago, AnkH said:

this still does not excuse showing wonderful watermasks not yet in the sim in each and every trailer. This is ridiculous...

It's always disappointing when reality doesn't meet one's expectations - I should know. But I don't think these trailers ever stated they are from the sim's current state? I always took them as what "trailers" usually are. From wikipedia: "A trailer (also known as a preview or coming attraction) is a commercial advertisement for a feature film that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema, the result of creative and technical work."

Sure, MSFS is not a feature film, but I think that's where game developers borrowed the term. I think these trailers are brilliant and should be able to showcase almost-there features.
 

Sorry, that is bull*. Each and every Game-Trailer clearly states if the graphics shown are not representative of the final product, for e.g. by a written disclaimer "does not represent final product" or "alpha-footage" or something similar. Without clearly stating, it is false advertisment, end of discussion.

Okay, now this is weird... Either my memory is playing tricks on me, or something have changed with the Patch 5. Some of the places (in fact, many) in the video indeed don't have detailed water masks. I am extremely confused.

Here are a few places from the video, you can see that some of them are exactly like the video meanwhile others are not:

Cayos Cochinos

Culebrita

Providencia

St. John's

Hewannora

Edited October 30, 20205 yr by BiologicalNanobot

I've noticed another thing, it looks like water textures are downloaded with the scenery, but applied with an extremely high alpha that they become almost invisible.

In fact, it looks like hidden water features are visible to some degree from some angles as you can see in the screenshot. I'll dive deeper into this, if it's not hard-coded and there's a configuration entry to control the masking intensity, it should be possible to get the same looks with the trailers with no performance impact at all.

Edited October 30, 20205 yr by BiologicalNanobot

Ok, seems that they have covered more places in the actual trailer where water masks are already visible, great. Did you have time to check Tahiti? This was looking faboulous in the Oceania trailer but looks blunt on my end in the sim...

Stupid question @BiologicalNanobot: were you in the alpha testing team? If yes, it is not your memory playing tricks but the fact, that all watermasks were there in alpha (at least to some reports I read...). But they did not disappear with Patch 5 but rather with the release candidate...

Edited October 30, 20205 yr by AnkH