1 hour ago, tweekz said:

admittedly, they didn't care doing nice textures for it though). 

🙂

 

Thats my point. 

Those unique patterns are materials blending, mesh changes, work that have been done like in crop fields, or environmental changes.

They always change! So those go against imagery, which represents a specific time. Let's take seasons as an example; msfs might introduce them, but how? They can change colors, that's a start. But it will immediatly fail in areas like crop fields where imagery should be "the best solution", since the trees and the crops are still baked on to imagery, and changing colors will not work in this case. They can try to introduce overlays, but those will never 100% fit the background and will still suffer from radical changes of scale, unless those overalys are also low resolution....

While, in a proper procedural coherent system, it is a proven practice, its about blending materials and reaching "infinite resolution". 

1 hour ago, omarsmak30 said:

I would say this is right for old engines like P3D and XP. Just picture, you have tons of C++ code that is dated back to 15 years or even more and migrate that to DX12, hell of big job indeed.

However in case of MSFS, since it is using modern gaming engine (Forza tech engine) and I also, I would assume when Asobo modified the original engine, they had in mind that they have to move this engine to DX12 that requires different APIs, so yeah I foresee the amount of work required to move MSFS to DX12 less than P3D and XP for Vulcan 

You are right and wrong too.

You are wrong because dx11 does more for the app hence developers inevitbaly have to compensate with their own targeted code, the big advantage is it is then more predictable and more in control by app. This a lot of new code, crucial for performance and very time consuming even for the biggest studios.

Lastly, your claim works for x-plane since the Vulkan renderer was built in mind with there future needs. 90% of the work is making a stable fast engine, adding new featuers equals to the rest. 60FPS VR in x-plane is possible now, and this is before their planned multi-threading which is their next goal for FPS.

Edited December 19, 20205 yr by mtaxp

1 hour ago, tweekz said:

Scenery wise, procedurally generated scenery will not match MSFS unless they partner up with Google. Procedural generation based on OSM is actually what MSFS does in OFFLINE mode (admittedly, they didn't care doing nice textures for it though). 🙂

Anyhow, a procedurally generated scenery can only look plausible - never authentic. Those distinct patterns in fields, unique local characteristics...

MSFS needs payware airliners and some sim improvements - then it will be hard to beat. FBW is already showing that it's possible. And until then I enjoy MSFS & XP. I don't let stubbornness limit my life. Not with a flight sim at least. 😉

I have seen procedurally generated scenery look much better than MSFS graphics, but you're right, it could never be as accurate looking.
There are new techniques for procedural generation involving high-resolution scanning techniques by Quixel which are then cross-applied to different meshes.

The new Tomb Raider and several games coming out for PS 5 are using the Quixel technique with procedural generated mesh, and overlaying the imagery on top.

If Xplane does go the Quixel route, it may take several years to be optimized enough to get the max settings out of it. 
You can use lower res textures with Quixel and all that, but when doing so it requires a lot more post-processing work, and that would be TOO much work for the entire world.
Once the textures are super super high-res and mapped a certain way, they will be able to use Quixel scans in most games, though the cost of imagery is still a factor.
 

3 hours ago, mtaxp said:

Lastly, you are still not accurate, Vulkan/dx12 is a much, like a really much more complicated task to perfect than creating textures, art or better lightning altogether. Just like building the foundations of your house is a more complicated task than painting it.

Vulkan and DX 12 has reference code all over the Internet, it is complicated, but because so much code exists, it's not really creating anything new.

BTW, I am a renderer / modeler and a programmer. Creating ground textures for the entire world is an incredibly difficult task, way bigger than doing Vulkan. No, it's not as much floating point math or algebra, but it's certainly a lot more work. Game engines are more complicated (math wise) than creating textures, but complication does not = how many people can do something at a certain level of artistry given a certain amount of resources or cost.

How many people can recreate a sculpture by hand out of ice for X amount of money?

It's not as complicated as say doing Calculus or even reading a radiology report, but it's a lot easier to find a Radiologist than an ice sculptor.

My point is to beat Asobo's graphics, they are going to need some master rendering experts, not just any rendering expert can do ground textures like that efficiently out of Quixel imagery. Blending ground textures into mountains is INCREDIBLY difficult (especially procedurally to cover unknown slopes).

Edited December 19, 20205 yr by Alpine Scenery

12 hours ago, scotchegg said:

but there hasn’t been any activity in the XP forum for 3 days..

Ever wonder why? 😉

2 hours ago, mtaxp said:

Laminar hired an army of eastern european artists for that, they have been working probably for a couple of years at least on the "next gen scenery" BTS.

You know how I support X-Plane...but are you sure of what you wrote here?

Every time this gets mentioned the numbers get bigger, now we are at "an army" and "couple years". I don´t know how many inside sources or other info you have on this...but I would warn you against getting your hopes for XP12 up too far in this regard.

26 minutes ago, Janov said:

You know how I support X-Plane...but are you sure of what you wrote here?

Every time this gets mentioned the numbers get bigger, now we are at "an army" and "couple years". I don´t know how many inside sources or other info you have on this...but I would warn you against getting your hopes for XP12 up too far in this regard.

No "inside sources"

Ben's interview at fselite jan 2020, he was already talking about "the beautifulll" art work that they create, stuff that'll be shipped later.

Also, said some code for the next "major version" of x-plane is already in place. I would imagine he would not mention that if there is no bulk already, which i guess took a bit more time before this interview.

Also, austin on his youtube comments did confirm internal demos and that stuff like next generation trees are there.

You are right in that a "next generation" claim is a very vague statement and it may end up as inferior to msfs graphics, but there are no doubts about there current priorities, graphics.

55 minutes ago, Alpine Scenery said:

Vulkan and DX 12 has reference code all over the Internet, it is complicated, but because so much code exists, it's not really creating anything new.

Just like many of the industry standart features that msfs has.

The more competition the merrier, but I don't hold out that much hope for the ground textures. They might be able to pull it off, but it's quite difficult. Trees are the easy part.

18 minutes ago, Alpine Scenery said:

The more competition the merrier, but I don't hold out that much hope for the ground textures. They might be able to pull it off, but it's quite difficult. Trees are the easy part.

Did not say it is easy, however flight gear had procedural texturing including shader based seasons since 2013 IIRCL.

So this is not out of scope for laminar IMO, and it is currentlly tagged as a planned thing in there feedback page. 

Quality remains to be seen, they did emphasize there new scenery hires in the last couple of interviews.

Edited December 19, 20205 yr by mtaxp

12 minutes ago, mtaxp said:

Did not say it is easy, however flight gear had procedural texturing including shader based seasons since 2013 IIRCL.

Anyone can create procedural textures, but to do it at high quality is the hard part, otherwise what is the point.
Mtns have always looked terrible, there are only a few people that can do good mountains procedurally.

This sim is really good now. It will be amazing in one year, and incredible in two. The only thing it requires is patience. But these mods are awesome. 

2 hours ago, Alpine Scenery said:

I have seen procedurally generated scenery look much better than MSFS graphics, but you're right, it could never be as accurate looking.
There are new techniques for procedural generation involving high-resolution scanning techniques by Quixel which are then cross-applied to different meshes.

Interesting point. But you need the satellite imagery as source material then again.

I think MSFS is doing a good job with placing objects and blending in the satellite imagery.

There are some spots that look bad and improvements are needed. But I'd say 95% of the time the benefits far outweigh the shortcomings. Being able to practise VFR not only by following rivers and streets, but also by recognizing terrain is priceless.

Edited December 19, 20205 yr by tweekz

      Once again, the discussion seems centered on graphics--which is fine.  I know there are those for whom this is very important. ( I do sometimes wonder why, if the scenery is so spectacular, such a huge industry has spring up overnight to develop replacements for it.)

  What I am suggesting is that there are those of us who see a big difference among the sims in flight systems and dynamics.

To be clear, I am not necessarily referring to airliners which I fly very infrequently. Let's just consider the 172 as an example.  For things like:

                  -realistic crosswind landing practice

                  - a reliable autopilot and

                  - IFR approaches with glide slope interception which can be                counted upon and

                  -at least a minimally usable ATC such as the one in P3D

there is still very little reason for me to prefer MSFS

I read again and again that "the sim has only been out a few months--just be patient."   But let's also bear in mind that MSFS has been in development for years and these fundamental things have yet to be attended to.  

It just seems to me that MS/Asobo are not very interested in those features and are therefore unlikely to improve them any time soon--if at all.  Yet there are alternative platforms available right now  for those who find them essential to realistic flight simulation.

39 minutes ago, TASCHMANN said:

    It just seems to me 

Yes it is just you

I have a different take than anyone in this thread. I now find myself using a flightsim maybe once every week or two, down from 3 to 5 times a week. Why? I blame it on MSFS. It looks so real compared to the other sims that it ruined my experience with those sims. I uninstalled XP11 and DCS World, because I wasn't flying them at all. I kept P3d5 for the high fidelity aircraft, AIG AI traffic and VOXATC. But every time I try a flight in P3d5, it just looks so bland and old school.

And then there's MSFS, glued together with mods, TrackIR, FSUIPC, Navigraph, REX  and offline AI traffic that took a lot of personal effort in converting schedules and models. Every patch day, I try another MSFS flight. And it looks great. But then something breaks. The autopilot becomes possessed by Satan. The ATC tries to kill me. That's when I say to myself, "You know, I must have better things to do with my life". Then I look to see what movies are streaming. At least I can be confident that my TV isn't going to blow up while I'm watching. 

But next week my G2 arrives. I'll try it with P3d5 and I hope with MSFS when compatible. Maybe that will rekindle the fire.

Edited December 20, 20205 yr by jabloomf1230