Is PMDG indirectly snubbing P3D?

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

9 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

The one "beef" I do have with MS is why the SDK was an afterthought and not an integral part of the product design from day 1? 

This is truly a disingenuous argument. The Prepar3d PDK was not released with P3d 1.0 either. The early P3d SimConnect SDK was a straight port from FSX. Releasing the MSFS SDK in stages was actually good practice in my opinion. Asobo had enough MSFS bugs to squash when the sim was first released. It didn't need hundreds is third party developers releasing add-ons that further broke the sim.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Rob,

I know that this is frustrating.i don't develop anything but I work on MSFS alpha and closed beta 3rd party app teams. For context, one app developer had an issue, contacted the Asobo team and got no responses. In the same timeframe, another developer contacted Asobo and they were really helpful, explained things and fixed bugs that were uncovered by the app developer.

Sometime you step in it, sometimes you don't.

Jay

[Nyxx 6,993]

I can't imagine how frustrating it must be for a developer to have the problems there having. The Frustration is clear to see and understandable. Let alone if its your livelihood.

From a neutral point of view and my personal pov I enjoy MSFS so much I was personly happy to leave FSL PMDG behide even though I could install P3D and enjoy both if I needed to. The lighting and the views are so breathtaking to me, I am now enjoying a diffent type of flying I could never of dreamed of before.

But For sure P3D is for FSL PMDG the only sim to fully enjoy that type of flying. The point being that for me I dont care about the SDK state. I enjoy what I have and now, I'am also very gratfull for it even if you want to call it a beta, with the new PMDG, bring me a DC-6 that looks feature more rich than even the P3D version ever was. I am just enjoying the ride.

I truely hope the SDK moves forward and the Developers get what they want to make MSFS even greater than it is today.

I also surgest developers should approuch Asobo with an old saying " you get more out of people with honey then a stick" 

I wish every sim well as they all do things better than others do. I just wish a very small group of people would not want to peee all over announcement topics just becasue as they, in there own words and clearly point out that MSFS is not for them or that they dont even use it. But happly talk about xyz, well anything negative they can. Shamefull. It also says a lot about them.

I realy hope the probelms for bring your wonderfull developments to MSFS are solved asap and very much look forward to them.

Edited May 26, 2021 by Nyxx

[Doug47 574]

Sorry, but P3D / x-plane are both finished. This isn’t a snubbing. But rather the final nail in the coffin for P3D. 
Advance one year from now. Imagine where MSFS will be, P3D is like the race car 3 laps down, with a bad cylinder. It’s on its last legs. 

[Gary1124 181]

1 hour ago, Doug47 said:

Sorry, but P3D / x-plane are both finished. This isn’t a snubbing. But rather the final nail in the coffin for P3D. 
Advance one year from now. Imagine where MSFS will be, P3D is like the race car 3 laps down, with a bad cylinder. It’s on its last legs. 

As I said in an earlier post.

How do we know that LM or Laminar won't come up with a similar scenery system based on Google earth imagery? All that MSFS has going for it currently is the real time real world scenery. Nice sure but that isn't what makes a flight SIMULATOR.

We need navigation, systems implementation, failures, piston and turbine engine modeling, flight dynamics etc. I'm sure they will get to all of that over time but it will never recieve training or academic credentialing because it is marketed as entertainment.

When the short attention span  youngsters get bored with it (I've seen how kids react to flight simulation) they will move on and all that will be left are people with a genuine interest in aviation. Possibly a larger community drawn in by what's possible but never-the-less the hype will tone down.

Also, as this ridiculous pandemic subsides people will return to life and screen time will be less. And business principles demand that the competition will have to match or exceed MSFS or throw in towel.

[Christopher Low 5,355]

1 hour ago, Doug47 said:

Sorry, but P3D / x-plane are both finished. This isn’t a snubbing. But rather the final nail in the coffin for P3D. 
Advance one year from now. Imagine where MSFS will be, P3D is like the race car 3 laps down, with a bad cylinder. It’s on its last legs. 

Yes, but that old classic with its bad cylinder is still a much better drive than the modern race car with its flashy decals and boring downforce

[Gary1124 181]

As for me, I'm staying away from MSFS. There big umbrella demand of being registered with Live I find unacceptable. For the same reasons I don't do FB or Twitter. I don't want to increase even a little Bill Gates stock value.  I'm sure others' have similar considerations.

[BobFS88 640]

1 hour ago, Doug47 said:

Sorry, but P3D / x-plane are both finished.

For the life of me, why do you always have the factor in Xplane at the demised of PD3?

Since when has Xplane been part of PD3's ecosystem? You mean PD3 won't fail unless X Plane is join at the hip?

Then you say

1 hour ago, Doug47 said:

But rather the final nail in the coffin for P3D

Where is the Xplane statement?

I would not expect neither one of them fail anytime soon and don't hold your breath to expect anything different in a year from now as a lot of things can change.

1 hour ago, Doug47 said:

Imagine where MSFS will be

Hopefully better than where is right now and the gamers are not driving the wishlist to where you may not wanted it go.

[abrams_tank 7,426]

17 hours ago, Gary1124 said:

As I said in an earlier post.

How do we know that LM or Laminar won't come up with a similar scenery system based on Google earth imagery?

 

So first things first, the real time streaming of the satellite/photogrammetry data to the MSFS client is free.  If you purchased a $60 copy of MSFS back in August of last year, you have had some 9 months of free satellite/photogrammetry data streamed to MSFS.  Can LM or Laminar do it for free too?  That's still unknown.  For all we know, LM or Laminar may charge users for such a service.  It would require servers to stream that data, plus employees to maintain those servers, plus the cost of the bandwidth too.  That's extra $$$ that LM or Laminar has not factored into the price of P3D/X-Plane.

Second, the only company that I can think of that has that satellite/photogrammetry data, with the servers readily available, is Google.  Google isn't going to do this for free.  Google would charge LM or Laminar.  This is assuming Google is even interested in doing it in the first place, which they may not be, if they determine the amount that P3D and X-Plane can pony up for such a contract is too little to be worthwhile.  It would help if P3D and X-Plane had sold more copies and has a larger user base to cover the cost of an extra service like real time streaming of satellite/photogrammetry data, but the user base of P3D and X-Plane is quite small.  Notice that Microsoft factored in the cost of free streaming of satellite/photogrammetry data with copies of MSFS being sold on X-Box as well.  This was pretty smart of Microsoft because they estimated that with the PC sales of MSFS, plus the X-Box sales of MSFS, it was enough to cover the cost of the streaming of the satellite/photogrammetry data (plus, it also helps that Microsoft owns Bing and the Azure servers, which helps to further cut down the costs).

Either way, if LM and Laminar want to close the gap with MSFS, they need real time streaming of satellite/photogrammetry data.  And preferably, they need to match MSFS and offer it for free.  

 

 

Edited May 27, 2021 by abrams_tank

[Gary1124 181]

46 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

So first things first, the real time streaming of the satellite/photogrammetry data to the MSFS client is free.  If you purchased a $60 copy of MSFS back in August of last year, you have had some 9 months of free satellite/photogrammetry data streamed to MSFS.  Can LM or Laminar do it for free too?  That's still unknown.  For all we know, LM or Laminar may charge users for such a service.  It would require servers to stream that data, plus employees to maintain those servers, plus the cost of the bandwidth too.  That's extra $$$ that LM or Laminar has not factored into the price of P3D/X-Plane.

Second, the only company that I can think of that has that satellite/photogrammetry data, with the servers readily available, is Google.  Google isn't going to do this for free.  Google would charge LM or Laminar.  This is assuming Google is even interested in doing it in the first place, which they may not be, if they determine the amount that P3D and X-Plane can pony up for such a contract is too little to be worthwhile.  It would help if P3D and X-Plane had sold more copies and has a larger user base to cover the cost of an extra service like real time streaming of satellite/photogrammetry data, but the user base of P3D and X-Plane is quite small.  Notice that Microsoft factored in the cost of free streaming of satellite/photogrammetry data with copies of MSFS being sold on X-Box as well.  This was pretty smart of Microsoft because they estimated that with the PC sales of MSFS, plus the X-Box sales of MSFS, it was enough to cover the cost of the streaming of the satellite/photogrammetry data (plus, it also helps that Microsoft owns Bing and the Azure servers, which helps to further cut down the costs).

Either way, if LM and Laminar want to close the gap with MSFS, they need real time streaming of satellite/photogrammetry data.  And preferably, they need to match MSFS and offer it for free.  

 

 

That is indeed true. There would surely have to be some actuarial juggling. Ironic in LM's case considering their logo may be on many of the satellites Google uses. 

Actually, Google earth data wouldn't be needed. In fact a publisher could get as much sat data as needed.

The US Gov's Landsat system is free to the public. If any company could incorporate that it would be Lockheed Martin. They do have just a little experience at working with the US Gov and satellites in general. While they may not necessarily do a continual data stream they could do a monthly update. And really, that would be sufficient.

You aren't seeing the actual ground in MSFS. You are seeing a digital representation based on the sims scenery library. Here is a test to do Sunday. Fly over the Indianapolis Speedway in MSFS and see if you see a race going on the track or the Goodyear Blimp in the air. Or the same over Charlotte. I bet you won't. Unless that sort of traffic is in the sim already.

It isn't necessarily Love. It looks great but it's a gimmick which compensates for bugs. 

Edited May 27, 2021 by Gary1124

[Christopher Low 5,355]

2 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

Either way, if LM and Laminar want to close the gap with MSFS, they need real time streaming of satellite/photogrammetry data.  And preferably, they need to match MSFS and offer it for free.

....or they could develop realistic procedurally generated landscapes that look infinitely better than the stone age landclass textures that have been used in earlier versions of MSFS (and P3D). In fact, it is the generic nature of those landclass textures that has made photoscenery so much more desirable to me in the past, but I can't argue that really high quality procedural stuff (like Outerra) could potentially interest me even more.

[abrams_tank 7,426]

29 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

....or they could develop realistic procedurally generated landscapes that look infinitely better than the stone age landclass textures that have been used in earlier versions of MSFS (and P3D). In fact, it is the generic nature of those landclass textures that has made photoscenery so much more desirable to me in the past, but I can't argue that really high quality procedural stuff (like Outerra) could potentially interest me even more.

Are you talking about auto generated scenery? That doesn't cut it anymore, especially for VFR simming.  Having real landmarks, real roads, that reflect the geography of real life is the way to go now.

Auto generated scenery is inferior and will always be inferior.

Edited May 27, 2021 by abrams_tank

[abrams_tank 7,426]

38 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I'll disagree, to steal Chris's phrase, what you have is "photostatic" ... a capture in a moment of time.  This is not a platform specific comment since P3D, XP, MSFS all run into this problem.

Cons with "photostatic":

1. Low resolution
2. Shadows are captured at the time the image was captured and only match up to the sims sun location once every 365 days.
3. Color matching problems
4. Drastic changes in terrain due to year gaps between image captures leaving mismatched roads/building/parking lots etc.
5. Always out of date and our populations expand and build
6. Use significant amounts of storage
7. Blending problems
8. Textures don't match with sim time of day 

Pros with Procedural:

1. Far less memory used as one is working with hardware accelerated instancing. 
2. No need for PetaBytes of storage and no need for an internet connection.  
3. Permits for persistent change and/or environment change (snow accumulation and/or melting that can vary over time/weather).  
4. Eliminates the problem of "shadows" and "clouds" and bizarre coloration and mismatched colors as they aren't snapshots in time (covering various times of year).
5. Allows for better blending (i.e. roads, lakes, rivers, etc.) no terrain data cutting thru the roads.
6. Less CPU/GPU demanding.
7. Easier to extend with increasing library of procedural objects that integrate and blend.
8. Respond to light sources accurately. 
9. Also permits for expansion of towns and cities, they can dynamically grow or shrink or turned into rumble

I think many look at the existing "landclass" implementations and AutoGen (dysfunctional connections of textures and sharp edges) as "Procedural", it's not.  There is so much more than can be done with a procedural world.

The world will not be drastically "different" but it will be 100% blended, more dynamic, and respond to light sources accurately and look much more "realistic".

Cheers, Rob.

We agree to disagree.  Autogen scenery does not reflect the real world.  The point of a simulator is to reflect the real world as best as possible.

Autogen scenery will always be inferior and should be seen as such.  Specifically, if you want to simulate VFR, satellite/photogrammetry is the superior route to go.

Edited May 27, 2021 by abrams_tank

[dave2013 1,130]

1 hour ago, abrams_tank said:

We agree to disagree.  Autogen scenery does not reflect the real world.  The point of a simulator is to reflect the real world as best as possible.

Autogen scenery will always be inferior and should be seen as such.  Specifically, if you want to simulate VFR, satellite/photogrammetry is the superior route to go.

Autogen refers to the 3D objects in the sim such as buildings and vegetation.  I agree that this is awful and very limited in scope in FSX and P3D.  I've often wondered why someone doesn't make new 3D buildings and vegetation instead of just the textures.  Then there's the problem of placing the objects in the right locations - P3D uses texture annotations to do this for buildings and vegetation and it looks so artificial because it is.

No doubt the procedurally generated and placed objects such as in MSFS look much better and more realistic.  However, it is unrealistic to expect every building to be a replica of its real-world counterpart.  Even the accurately located 3D buildings in MSFS, non-photogrammetric, were somewhat of a disappointment for me.  Hopefully 3rd party developers will offer better 3D objects in MSFS.  Good photogrammetry can render this type of thing, but it will be many years before the entire planet has good photogrammetry data.

Dave

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

6 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

We agree to disagree.  Autogen scenery does not reflect the real world.  The point of a simulator is to reflect the real world as best as possible.

Autogen scenery will always be inferior and should be seen as such.  Specifically, if you want to simulate VFR, satellite/photogrammetry is the superior route to go.

I have to agree with Rob on this point. In all my years of flying VFR and not to mention hundreds of additional hours as a helicopter passenger, it's a rare event to use ground objects for navigation. And when it is, it's usually mountains, radio towers, roads and waterbodies. I don't remember myself or any other pilot that I flew with using a specific building for navigation. Actually, let me qualify that. One helicopter pilot did buzz a retired pilot's cabin, which was in the woods. He came running out to say hello. 

P3d with ORBX landclass and Vector has quite accurate waterbody and road coverage. Obstacles such as radio towers are also present. Although I do prefer the MSFS approach, it's not an incredible leap forward as far as piloting. Rather, it just looks a whole lot more realistic.