1 hour ago, abrams_tank said:

I'll believe it when I see it, when X-Plane's graphics matches MSFS one day. 

 

The graphics engine is already there, they just updated the engine a few months ago!
That work is done.

VULKAN is modern. You can run RDR2 in Vukan mode, and it looks exactly the same as DirectX 12.

The Xplane engine using Vulkan is better than DirectX11, there are more shaders available and it is more comparable to DX12 not 11.

The current Xplane engine is technically more modern than MSFS which is still using DirectX 11.

The problem is NOT the Xplane engine, the problem is the way they are utilizing the engine (the graphics design and the lighting setup).

In Red Dead Redemption 2, there is no visual difference between selecting Vulkan or DirectX 12. ... Based on the earliest benchmarks are reports from players, Vulkan offers slightly higher average frame rates (< 5%), while DirectX 12 offers a slightly smoother experience overall (particularly on NVIDIA graphics cards).

Edited November 27, 20205 yr by SceneryFX

12 hours ago, Gumerson said:

He replied in plain english that if the had the ability to make a quick and nice port to MSFS they had to do it before others release theirs LSZ. 

I never replied anything remotely resembling that. When asked if we would do the new version of LSZH for P3D as well, I replied with sound reasons why it's way easier to convert an existing scenery from FSX/P3D to MSFS, doing the opposite is not necessarily true, because in order to convert a scenery from FSX/P3D to MSFS, you first you must strip away lots of stuff that can't be used or is not required and then, you must add it again using the MSFS SDK, which has lots of new features that CANNOT GO BACK TO FSX/P3D.

Some examples:

- If your FSX/P3D scenery had custom taxiway lights, you must remove them all, and replace them with MSFS native ones, which follows the sloped terrain automatically. Which obviously mean if the airport layout changed, you must re-do all the custom taxiway lights again to port back the update to P3D.

- If your FSX/P3D scenery had custom taxiway signs, you must remove them all, and replace them with MSFS native ones, which follows the sloped terrain, so it's the same issue as above when you update the scenery.

- MSFS has the ability to colorize textures, which means you can have a single texture with multiple dark/light variations, instead of many textures that are almost identical, save for the hue/brightness. This is of course a big time saving and VRAM saving so, we obviously *used* that in LSZH for MSFS, after having thrown away our old ground textures entirely. This way, we could replicate all different color variations of the aprons very easily, using just the MSFS scenery editor, and this is another feature that *cannot* go back to FSX/P3D.

- MSFS has the ability to automatically create less sharp transition in border areas where aprons and grass meet, just with a ridiculously easy to use "falloff" parameter in the scenery editor. Doing this in P3D is very hard, requiring multiple layers of textures with carefully matched alpha mask. Again, lots of work not needed in MSFS, that you are supposed to do to port the scenery back to P3D.

- MSFS has the ability to terraform terrain very easily, so you can have the whole airport in 3d with multiple "levels" that won't cause any problems to AI traffic. If you used this feature in MSFS, and adapted your 3d models to it, it makes very hard to port back the updated scenery in P3D, because you would then have to create a new custom mesh to replicate in some way what you did in MSFS with the scenery editor and even if P3D now also support sloped runways and taxiways, it's very cumbersome to use because, instead of the MSFS way ( the "AFCAD" is still 2D, but it automatically follows the terraformed terrain ), to do a sloped airport in P3D, you are supposed to specify the altitude at *each* node of the AFCAD, for runways and taxiways. If you change the terrain mesh for any reason, you must go back editing the AFCAD again, no wonder nobody use that feature ( which even LM suggest not to use it if not strictly necessary, since it comes with an fps cost ).

- If your FSX/P3D scenery had baked Ambient Occlusion on the models, you must first throw it away for MSFS, because that engine does realtime AO. This saves a very time consuming step of re-baking all the AO maps if you update the scenery, and obviously mean if you *do* update the scenery (like in this case), you'll have to redo all that work again, just for P3D, because P3D doesn't support realtime AO, and without the pre-baked one (not needed in MSFS), the scenery would look very bad and freeware-like.

- If your FSX/P3D scenery had custom volumetric grass, you just throw it away entirely for MSFS, since it comes with its own extremely efficient shader-based grass, that looks so much better than any custom version you might had before, and it appears automatically where it's supposed to, based on the background aerial image. So, again, if you updated the airport layout in some way, all these areas with grass that have been updated, would have to be redone again for P3D only.

- If your FSX/P3D scenery had custom texture for snow, you just throw them away for MSFS, because MSFS automatically generates snow based on the colors of the background textures. So, again, if you updated the airport layout, you would have to redo the custom snow textures in the updated areas, only for P3D.

- MSFS has a completely new ability to create taxiways or roads with multiple layers of textures, which can be customized too so, you can use a custom (or a stock one ) texture for the taxiway base, a custom ( or a stock one ) for the borders, a custom ( or a stock one ) for the center lines, a custom ( or a stock one ) for the dirt or tire markings, etc. We haven't use this much at LSZH, but we use it a lot at CYVR, to improve the quality of some secondary roads/lines and add new ones in the updated areas, which allowed to release the scenery fairly quickly, because using this feature is faster than modeling and texturing the road from scratch, and you can just use the visual Scenery Editor in MSFS to place the roads, very quickly. Again, since this is not possible with P3D, it means if you used this feature in MSFS, it won't port back to P3D and you are supposed to go back with the old method of re-modeling and re-texturing, with no visual editor, since P3D doesn't have one.

These are cold hard facts which explains why, while it's reasonably easy to port an FSX/P3D scenery to MSFS, it's not as if the scenery is also auto-magically ready to use there: it still require LOTS of work to make it a "proper" MSFS scenery, because we don't want to do "just" a quick port, we want to use the MSFS features that helps us improve the quality, if possible. Which means, once you start adding MSFS features, especially those that allows you to do things quicker and better, THERE'S NO GOING BACK.

54 minutes ago, Ricardo41 said:

The fact that people are willing to devote these kinds of resources to a sim that's barely out 3 months speaks volumes about where simmers think the future of flight simming is heading.

Pure speculation on their reasons. You may be correct, but it's still just an assumption.

Flight sim enthusiasts have always been involved in trying to improve what already existed. In this case trying to deal with poorly implimented flight simulation issues which do not match the potential of the scenery.

 

19 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

In other words, I want quality at a cheap price, like every other consumer out there

Speak for yourself because I certainly do not fall in to that bracket. I’ll always pay more for quality every time. But cheap. Buy twice. 

18 minutes ago, virtuali said:

I never replied anything remotely resembling that. When asked if we would do the new version of LSZH for P3D as well, I replied with sound reasons why it's way easier to convert an existing scenery from FSX/P3D to MSFS, doing the opposite is not necessarily true, because in order to convert a scenery from FSX/P3D to MSFS, you first you must strip away lots of stuff that can't be used or is not required and then, you must add it again using the MSFS SDK, which has lots of new features that CANNOT GO BACK TO FSX/P3D.
...

These are cold hard facts which explains why, while it's reasonably easy to port an FSX/P3D scenery to MSFS, it's not as if the scenery is also auto-magically ready to use there: it still require LOTS of work to make it a "proper" MSFS scenery, because we don't want to do "just" a quick port, we want to use the MSFS features that helps us improve the quality, if possible. Which means, once you start adding MSFS features, especially those that allows you to do things quicker and better, THERE'S NO GOING BACK.

Yah, it is much much easier to make airports in MSFS than it was in other sims. That is another reason it is scary for smaller independant 3PD's because the market is getting flooded, but you're releases are under an established brand so I doubt you have anything to worry about.

Thank you for all the hard work, I consider some of those airports released cream of the crop, keep it up.
 

Edited November 27, 20205 yr by SceneryFX

16 minutes ago, virtuali said:

do a sloped airport in P3D, you are supposed to specify the altitude at *each* node of the AFCAD, for runways and taxiways.

lol, like seriously? Who's going to spend time defining a node for every bump, is ridiculously a lot of work to do, especially on big airports. No wonder didn't see much add-ones for P3D that have slopped runways.

5 minutes ago, omarsmak30 said:

lol, like seriously? Who's going to spend time defining a node for every bump, is ridiculously a lot of work to do, especially on big airports. No wonder didn't see much add-ones for P3D that have slopped runways.

P3D was a major pain across the board, I had one airport I was doing, but it was just too much trouble and I then moved to Xplane. I never got that deep into it, but Xplane seemed a bit easier, and I did make a couple for Xplane. I was actually amazed there were as many third party airports for P3D as there were, given the level of frustrations with some of the oddball issues.

MSFS is easier than all of them, even with the terribly annoying SDK issues, though designing the fences is really annoying in MSFS, and also the SDK bugs where stuff starts moving (the moving polygon bug, lol)...
 

Edited November 27, 20205 yr by SceneryFX

@andrecarli737 
Where did I do any comparisons? I have not spent a penny on the Flight Model for X-Plane or MSFS, but "out of the Box" the MSFS one is terrible! so if you want to compare that which is not add-on based then fine. Also the default planes need to be workable, not terrible. Nobody expects the default planes to be amazing, they are however expected to be a reasonable approximation of flying said plane which they are far from!

Also I dont see any Auto Pilot addons for either sim, they all use the default AP and in some situations Add-ons use custom ones but we are not talking about that!. Measure for Measure the default flight model of MSFS is bad. That needs remedy immediately not world updates, not more eye candy, The default planes need much work, not systems, just flight model work.

So please dont try to defend the plainly indefensible. Its funny when you have something bad to say about MSFS its always compared "Well MSFS has Bing maps, Well MSFS has better graphics, better weather" (and by the way that really should be better looking, because the actual weather is not that great) yet when when defending MSFS all you get is your argument.

The Aerosoft post is complete BS but an honest one. They are going to go to where the money is. Nickle and dime add-ons that no one will question because they are gushing over the graphics thinking they are simulating with a terrible flight model. This is what ASOBO are pandering too, and I cant see it changing. I just cant wait to see how this CRJ will turn out? Look at the state of add-on planes. They are broken for 6 weeks, or the updates have been submitted weeks ago, but not released or low and behold busted in a new patch. Please lets stop the tribal behaviour. It is in all our interest that ASOBO wake up! or just be honest and say we are not targeting or cant do Simulation on the competitions level.

2 hours ago, a321 said:

Also I dont see any Auto Pilot addons for either sim, they all use the default AP and in some situations Add-ons use custom ones but we are not talking about that!. Measure for Measure the default flight model of MSFS is bad. That needs remedy immediately not world updates, not more eye candy, The default planes need much work, not systems, just flight model work.

What's with all the bold, I hear you, true to a degree, but there are always some people in ALL forums that do not like opposing opinions. I say "let it rip".
Also, don't forget about all the elevation issues, I just finished my Nebraska fix for 1000 foot tall green spires, it looked like an alien city. There are several more areas that need these same fixes.

I personally believe MSFS is the future, but it seems like there are some 'outliers' still and Micro/Asobo may try their best to shoot themselves in the foot if they don't change the direction of the patches. We also have yet to see what level of fidelity a third-party aircraft can achieve when it comes to flight modeling. 

Edited November 27, 20205 yr by SceneryFX

9 minutes ago, SceneryFX said:

MSFS is easier than all of them, even with the terribly annoying SDK issues, though designing the fences is really annoying in MSFS, and also the SDK bugs where stuff starts moving (the moving polygon bug, lol)...

Indeed, which explains the explosion of freeware and payware scenery in MSFS, for example the freeware Istanbul airport in MSFS. This will push for more tougher competition I guess. Even my hometown in Yemen has now a payware scenery, definitely its quality just meh but I didn't expect it to have a paid scenery, this is an example that shows indeed now is getting a lot of competition in terms of scenery development. 

41 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

I'll believe it when I see it, when X-Plane's graphics matches MSFS one day.  Since I am a software developer myself, I can tell you that you can't alter an engine that quickly.  

Of course not quickly, it took about 3 years and a half to re write the engine for vulkan, now they are done. While the other developers have been working for at least a year and a half (since ben supnik's claims in fseilte a while ago) on new next gen features.

Rewriting from opengl->Vulkan is a much higher tree to climb on than introducing features post vulkan adoption, we are in the features phase finally. I bet we will get previews in flightsimcon2021, just like they did with v11.

1 minute ago, mtaxp said:

Of course not quickly, it took about 3 years and a half to re write the engine for vulkan, now they are done. While the other developers have been working for at least a year and a half (since ben supnik's claims in fseilte a while ago) on new next gen features.

Rewriting from opengl->Vulkan is a much higher tree to climb on than introducing features post vulkan adoption, we are in the features phase finally. I bet we will get previews in flightsimcon2021, just like they did with v11.

Then all that will be left for Xplane 12 is to fix the pointy ears...

It has potential, I just hope they have learned their lesson and realize they need a larger team of hardcore graphics designers, not more engineers.
They already have too many engineers on that team.

 

First of all some comments here said they don't understand the "hate" here. I dont see any. People are writing their comparisons for the sim and that's fair enough. No one is name calling or saying a sim is ####. Criticisms or comparisons are not hate.

 

Right now onto business. Msfs is just amazing. Okay its better in the graphics and scenery department then cockpit and avionics and some people can't understand why we are gushing but i will try to explain

We are gushing because every flight is different. Different scenery, lighting, weather. Thats an important part of flight simulation too. The cockpits and avionics and autopilots can become boring after a while. How long does one enjoy pushing the same buttons and watching a computer fly a route over and over again?

Yes I want the cockpits and autopilots improved - but if I can't have that and graphics right now then I will take the graphics first as msfs is doing. The cockpit and instrumentation does not change per flight really. Its the view outside that does. That's what keeps me coming back.

Edited November 27, 20205 yr by sanh

7 minutes ago, sanh said:

Right now onto business. Msfs is just amazing. Okay its better in the graphics and scenery department then cockpit and avionics and some people can't understand why we are gushing but i will try to explain

Some of the areas are and some are not. It depends where you fly, but overall yes the amount of detail in MSFS is so far beyond what all the others can do, especially for VFR flights. Once you get above 10,000 or so feet, it doesn't matter as much and the mountains leave a bit to be desired in some places compared to using Ortho4XP to be frankly honest.

 

Edited November 27, 20205 yr by SceneryFX

MSFS scenery is outstanding. Clouds are also Amazing. The whole look of the sim is amazing. 

The flight model needs some work. 
The smoothness needs some work.(Yes it does stutter, some claim it doesn’t, maybe I’m more susceptible  to it, Xplane vulkan is the smoothest sim I ever flew). 

The in-flight menu needs some work (shouldn’t have to go all way back to main menu just to switch airport or location or plane)

However when I’ve mentioned this in the past, I just get told “well bugger off back to xplane then.” Not much constructive criticism one can give, if you get launched on.