X-Plane Technology Preview One

[vesalius 153]

4 hours ago, Janov said:

The video shows an impressive advance in the lighting engine, I am sure other videos of scenery and weather will follow. Just to be clear (again) - I am sure that there will be no satellite scenery in X-Plane future.

 

As long as we can enjoy orthoxp + simheaven... I wont complain (a lot) about the satellite scenery 😉

[tonywob 4,769]

If previous releases are anything to go by, XP11 and even XP10 scenery will remain compatible.. I think at a minimum XP11 scenery will continue to work. The lighting will be like a great free upgrade to scenery we already know and use.

 

[Janov 2,383]

1 hour ago, Murmur said:

Anyway, where does the quote come from?

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/246962-first-real-x-plane-12-news/&page=2&tab=comments#comment-2202042

 

[Biology 1,347]

26 minutes ago, vesalius said:

As long as we can enjoy orthoxp + simheaven... I wont complain (a lot) about the satellite scenery 😉

As someone who don't have the time and hard disk space for ortho (not even mentioning largely broken & inconsistent colors in many areas), default ground textures are really important to me. Even default FSX ground textures look better than default X-Plane 11 ground textures in non-urban areas, so X-Plane definitely needs significant improvements in this regard. This is one of my main turn-offs with X-Plane right now and there is nothing like Orbx Global for it either. SFD Global is promising, but it's still not there yet.

In short, having beautiful default ground textures in X-Plane 12 out of the box would be really nice, especially for people who don't want to use ortho. Streaming scenery is definitely not a must-have, as long as default ground textures look good and convincing, I'll be fine.

Edited June 2, 2021 by BiologicalNanobot

[Janov 2,383]

4 minutes ago, tonywob said:

I think at a minimum XP11 scenery will continue to work.

Definitely - and that includes all orthophoto solutions. I believe there will be new art assets, but those will be "on top" and/or replacing default LR art assets.

[Pascal_LSGC 298]

19 hours ago, Murmur said:

Preview of next gen lighting:

 

Thanks Murmur! I missed the info yesterday!

Looks very very good, searching for infos on what is a photometric lighting model now.

I suppose (and hope) they revise the atmospheric effects shader, it's not up to the standards now.

Pascal

[mSparks 2,086]

2 hours ago, Janov said:

Definitely - and that includes all orthophoto solutions. I believe there will be new art assets, but those will be "on top" and/or replacing default LR art assets.

I think the results of that will depend on the scope of the art assets that are replaced.

Its easy to just think of the "simple" library files - like the building facades, airport objects etc - these are in desperate need of replacement.

XP also ships with a very powerful but underused decal system (which I used to put snow on the ortho textures), which if made more versatile and used to its full potential could knock many of the issues with high LOD out of the ballpark - curbs on the sidewalk, better grass and vegetation - this I am really looking forward to/hoping to see.

What I am most excited to see however is probably of little interest to the general user - what new toys we get for cockpit displays and lighting. (even simming I pretty much never leave the cockpit...so while very nice to have these lovely fuselages are actually of little interest to me personally)

Edited June 2, 2021 by mSparks

[tonywob 4,769]

4 minutes ago, mSparks said:

XP also ships with a very powerful but underused decal system (which I used to put snow on the ortho textures), which if made more versatile and used to its full potential could knock many of the issues with high LOD out of the ballpark - curbs on the sidewalk, better grass and vegetation - this I am really looking forward to/hoping to see.

I think the decal system is open to abuse and can give everything a washed out or even more non-natural look. In MFS, if you head down to ground level the decals have been used too much IMO and most autogen buildings look like they're currently 10 years in to a zombie apocalypse (covered in dirt, grime etc) even though they have fantastic detail. I understand why it's done to get rid of repetition and make things look higher resolution than they are, but it can also have a negative effect as well.

In X-Plane, the decals used on orthos look pretty bad and have a noticeable repeating pattern when the terrain is excessively green or forested. I'm hoping this is one of the things that can be improved, i.e. by perhaps making it more procedural rather than texture based.

 

[akita 429]

I think what we need is tessellation so we have bump maps driving actual geometry (vertices) changes, "displacement maps" for terrain. It is performance scalable since we are talking about a tessellation on the GPU and will make terrain much more complex by actually generating stuff like rocks, debris, curbs etc.

[mSparks 2,086]

24 minutes ago, tonywob said:

I think the decal system is open to abuse and can give everything a washed out or even more non-natural look.

depends on the decal

https://developer.x-plane.com/article/using-decals-to-add-detail-to-scenery/

can turn

into

But by "full potential" I mean they could tie it to fragment shaders and get (unigine engine)

 

 

[FlyBaby 659]

9 hours ago, GoranM said:

Doing what most other trolls like to do.  Reaching for the "calm down" card.  It takes a lot more than a faceless attention seeker to get me worked up.  

I can let it go?  You're the one who wants a 1 million count on a video, without any supposed reason for that number.  "Let me just pull a number out of my hat.  1 million will do."  

Since you can't give me a reason for the number, the discussion is moot.

So, you can either let me know, or let it go and actually do something worthwhile with your life.

Have a wonderful day.  (Extremely calm typing)

 

 

Apparently you can't...

You are the one with "long" rants about Elon Musk, Celebrities and baseless comparisons....and calling folk trolls because you do not agree with what they say.

We are at about 25k views now...looking for that 1M.  

 

 

 

[GoranM 3,764]

19 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

Apparently you can't...

Can't what?

19 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

You are the one with "long" rants about Elon Musk, Celebrities and baseless comparisons

Of course you failed to see my point.  

19 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

and calling folk trolls because you do not agree with what they say.

I think it's unanimous.  You're a troll.  Because YOU don't agree with what this entire forum says.

19 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

We are at about 25k views now

Congrats.  You can read.

19 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

looking for that 1M.  

Why?

Edited June 2, 2021 by GoranM

[FlyBaby 659]

4 hours ago, HighTowers said:

What a surprise. A heated debate that divides the hobby.   Competition is good. This will push each others platforms, and we users have a choice.  Degrading either one doesn't help the hobby. This is great to see, and quite sure LR are feeling the pressure from the advances in MSFS, but they will have strengths and weaknesses just like MSFS does.  Question is how do they pull it off against a conglomerate corporation which has hundreds working on the platform vs LR and their small team.  Im guessing the way to do that is use the many established high fidelity addons already existing that can be ported easily into the new light and WX engines, since it will still be a few more years before MSFS gets a good selection of established high quality aircraft in the air. MSFS already has quite the lighting and wx and a whole lot of awesome visuals, although the obvious growing pains exist and will simply take time to weed out.

That said, many will have to choose. Supporting 2 platforms is darn expensive. 

Who are the ones "heated" on the thread? Folk can't agree to disagree without labeling and name calling...the so called XP gatekeepers get so much latitude with this in these threads (not to mention driving the comparisons themselves).

To me this isn't an XP vs "whatever" issue. For years... LR did not do much to update their sim, and the user base has always wanted more engagement, more frequent updates, better graphics etc. Will there be a substantial user base left to support major development going forward? Not to mention the number of folk who may just stick with XP11, as every platform experiences when making a new version.

XPs teaser vid doesn't even show more views than the number of subscribers for the channel. We will have to see what else LR brings to the table, but to me, they have sat back for too long.

Edited June 2, 2021 by FlyBaby

[GoranM 3,764]

6 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

Who are the ones "heated" on the thread?

You

6 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

Folk can't agree to disagree without labeling and name calling

Yes...they can.  And I'm not going to repeat myself again.

6 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

the so called XP gatekeepers get so much latitude with this in these threads (not to mention driving the comparisons themselves).

Incorrect.

6 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

To me this isn't an XP vs "whatever" issue.

Then quit perpetuating it.

6 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

For years... LR did not do much to update their sim

You haven't been reading the dev blogs.

6 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

and the user base has always wanted more engagement, more frequent updates, better graphics etc.

By whose standard?  Vulkan is now implemented.  Graphics have got the go ahead.  As can be seen in the video.

6 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

Will there be a substantial user base left to support major development going forward?

Yes.  According to my accountant.

6 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

XPs teaser vid doesn't even show more views than the number of subscribers for the channel.

You place a lot of importance on numbers.  It's a teaser video.  Not a Hollywood Movie trailer.

6 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

We will have to see what else LR brings to the table

Nothing they do will satisfy you.  

6 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

but to me, they have sat back for too long.

I'm pretty certain they'll stay in business, even if they sit back for another year or 2.  

Edited June 2, 2021 by GoranM

[FlyBaby 659]

6 minutes ago, GoranM said:

Of course you failed to see my point.  

I think it's unanimous.  You're a troll.  Because YOU don't agree with what this entire forum says.

Congrats.  You can read.

 

You do a lot of ranting, personal attacks, name calling, and tough talk to someone on the forums simply for sharing their opinion....

10 hours ago, GoranM said:

let it go and actually do something worthwhile with your life.

It is time to take your own advice....you are the only one "heated" and arguing here. Just you.