GSX in MSFS 2020 First Preview

[virtuali 4,446]

1 hour ago, Noooch said:

What does it bring more than what we will actually have with the FBW A320? I mean controlling all ground services from the EFB.

GSX doesn't simply "control services". it replaces the default services with better versions, like a customizable Pushback, or a better Fuel service/Baggage loader/Gpu, and adds entirely new services that don't even exists in the sim, like Cargo loading, visible Passengers, a FollowMe car, Deicers, Visual Docking Systems, and all of them are heavily customizable for each airport and each gate.

Also, several 3rd party airplanes already interact quite deeply with it ( FS Labs, Aerosoft, Leonardo ), so I'm sure anybody doing an airliner for MSFS will likely add support for it, as it was in P3D.

[Carts85 1,203]

3 minutes ago, virtuali said:

.

Any idea on a release date?

[Twenty6 694]

Ah, the dev is here.

Is GSX going to be required by all FSDT airports in MSFS2020? That is something that stopped me from purchasing your airports in P3D. I'm sure it's a great addon, but GSX just does not do anything for me.

[virtuali 4,446]

1 minute ago, Twenty6 said:

Is GSX going to be required by all FSDT airports in MSFS2020? That is something that stopped me from purchasing your airports in P3D. I'm sure it's a great addon, but GSX just does not do anything for me.

If you knew the reasoning behind that, you would probably changed your mind so, I'll explain it again ( even if we explained so many times ).

First, GSX has always been FREE at all FSDT airports so no, it's not as if you are required to buy something else. So, even if you think it's not useful to YOU, it's surely useful to the scenery so, not buying a scenery because it requires GSX is like saying you don't want to buy an airplane because it comes with a free copy of FSUIPC because it won't work without it, or you don't want to buy an airport because it comes with a free copy of SODE and won't work without it.

So, instead of saying what GSX does it for you, try to understand why it does for the scenery instead ( and again: it's free ).

GSX comes with a big library of Jetways, Docking Systems, and all these are used in many airports so, if we made a scenery that didn't require GSX, we would have to supply each scenery with a separate copy of its jetways and its docking system, if needed. This, of course, is highly inefficient and confusing, because it causes a lot of file duplication, which take extra space on disk and it makes a nightmare updating all sceneries. Instead, if they are in GSX, there's only a single copy of every object, which reduces the scenery installers size and make it easier to keep all the shared elements always updated.

A couple of our latest sceneries for P3D have passengers walking inside terminals. Their models and textures are the one that come with GSX, and the walking logic IS done by GSX, it should be pretty obvious that, instead of supplying each scenery with its own copy of the passengers and perhaps an "hidden" version of GSX to control their logic ( JUST so you won't feel "forced" to install GSX ), it's really dumb, and won't do anything extra other than increasing the installer size and make it more difficult to maintain it.

Doesn't OrbX comes with an extra 1.0GB "Library" you MUST download and install ?

Doesn't FlyTampa comes with its own Library too ?

And why GSX should be any different, other that, in addition to be a shared library of objects, it ALSO does something that MIGHT be useful to you as well ? So, if you are not interested in using GSX, just not use it, call it "FSDT Library" and consider it an extra (free) download required by the scenery to work.

[pmb 5,138]

So, will GSX arrange the ground vehicles to no longer drive on taxi lines? I find these guys continuously barring my way.

Kind regards, Michael

[Ricardo41 5,959]

Will we see the return of the OMSI granny?

[virtuali 4,446]

21 minutes ago, Carts85 said:

Any idea on a release date?

Not really, but we are now moving to work almost full time on it.

Some things in the SDK are still missing, they are not total showstoppers like in the previous SDK, for example is still not possible to create a custom ATC-like menu that would work natively with the sim so, for the time being, we are working with a temporary custom menu ( made using the same GSX GUI system we use in the editor ), which works just fine, but it's really a separate window, so it doesn't look as integrated as we would like and, more importantly, it doesn't work in VR, so we are waiting for it in the SDK. But we can at least test it with the provisional menu and, in worse case, we could decide to release it that way, and switch to a native menu as soon the SDK will allow it ( it's really changing 4-5 lines of codes for us... ).

But the "hard" stuff is done: reading the whole airport database ( .BGL format changed quite a bit ) and supporting custom animation driven by the normal GSX code, which is what this video is showing. Fortunately, lots of the big modeling/texturing effort was already made in 2019 when we remodeled most of our objects in PBR so, those that already looked good in P3D, will look even better in MSFS, and those few looked a bit dated in P3D ( because they were still using legacy FSX models ) will be remade from scratch. We expect a big graphical improvement for the FollowMe cars and especially Passengers.

[virtuali 4,446]

6 minutes ago, pmb said:

So, will GSX arrange the ground vehicles to no longer drive on taxi lines? I find these guys continuously barring my way.

 

GSX vehicles don't normally drive on taxi lines. They always prefer to take vehicle paths, even if they are not the shortest routes. Taxiways and even runways are only used if there's no other way, which is usually caused by the scenery having a badly designed AFCAD, either with too few vehicle paths or even entirely missing.

MSFS default scenery is already better than FSX/P3D in this aspect and, we hope the availability of an integrated scenery editor in MSFS, which makes criminally easy to create and adjust vehicle paths ( which is in any case required to have some ground traffic in MSFS ), will results in better designed 3rd party airports, which will work best with GSX too.

[virtuali 4,446]

9 minutes ago, Ricardo41 said:

Will we see the return of the OMSI granny?

Sure, even if she's not really "the OMSI granny", it's part of a model collection made by a company in Italy called Axyz design ( makers of Anima 4D ), that sell 3d models to game developer so, it simply happened both FSDT and OMSI licensed some of the same models.

[David Roch 1,984]

Excellent news!!

 

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

29 minutes ago, pmb said:

So, will GSX arrange the ground vehicles to no longer drive on taxi lines? I find these guys continuously barring my way.

Kind regards, Michael

I would purchase it purely just for that alone. 

[omarsmak30 4,068]

35 minutes ago, virtuali said:

Some things in the SDK are still missing, they are not total showstoppers like in the previous SDK, for example is still not possible to create a custom ATC-like menu that would work natively with the sim so, for the time being, we are working with a temporary custom menu ( made using the same GSX GUI system we use in the editor ), which works just fine, but it's really a separate window, so it doesn't look as integrated as we would like and, more importantly, it doesn't work in VR,

I thought somewhat there is a way to add menus to MSFS, for example https://flightsim.to/file/3181/fspm-vfr-map ?

[omarsmak30 4,068]

38 minutes ago, virtuali said:

But the "hard" stuff is done: reading the whole airport database ( .BGL format changed quite a bit ) and supporting custom animation driven by the normal GSX code, which is what this video is showing.

Will it support custom airports bought in Marketplace?

[Alaska738 8,517]

Great news! 

[Twenty6 694]

51 minutes ago, virtuali said:

So, instead of saying what GSX does it for you, try to understand why it does for the scenery instead ( and again: it's free ).

Good answer and to be honest I never thought to look at it that way. I do use the Orbx Libs and SODE to a very minimum degree. I have bought Vancouver for MSFS2020 so will wait for the release of GSX and try it there. We'll go from there. Good luck with the release.