Today's Livestream: WU VI (D-A-CH), Ju52, Floatplanes

[Der Zeitgeist 1,575]

In case you missed it: Make sure to watch todays Twitch livestream. Jörg had some great info about coming updates and general goals about future world updates.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1059056931

Most important points:

• Next world update VI will be Germany, Austria, Switzerland. Several new photogrammetry cities (including Vienna), and handcrafted airports, good quality and availability of aerial imagery makes them especially optimistic about that update and its content.
• That update will include a Ju52 (using support from the actual Junkers company)
• They are working on the long list of missing airports.
• They are looking at additional World Updates long-term. They plan to go once around the world with regional updates, but are also thinking about theme-specific updates, like bridges or features like marinas.
• Floatplanes will come with the XBox release, several existing airplanes will get floats

Edited June 17, 2021 by Der Zeitgeist

[wim123 758]

yay, ty, that sounds good. i sure do like a ju 52.

[Tuskin38 6,451]

did you mean to post this twice?

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

Any update on DX12?

[Der Zeitgeist 1,575]

3 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

did you mean to post this twice?

No, sorry, the forum was really sluggish for me right now. I marked the other post for deletion.

[Tuskin38 6,451]

2 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

Any update on DX12?

That will be with the X-Box release.

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

I created a quick summary during the stream as well, with some more details:

 

[Shack95 2,658]

Next update Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Sweet. I really hope it will include new imagery for the Alps. 

Edit: Just heard that it‘s going to include all new aerials and mesh. good news.

Edited June 17, 2021 by Shack95

[Der Zeitgeist 1,575]

I can't stress enough how enthusiastic Jörg is about his whole "Digital Twin" idea, a realistic representation of the real world in the sim.

I don't think he cares too much about study-level aircraft, but he has a real vision about developing the scenery aspect of the sim over the whole life cycle of MSFS, with constantly improving Bing data, imagery, height maps. They are very much aware of the current limitations and problems in this area, but I really get the impression they are thinking long-term about improving this more and more.

Edited June 17, 2021 by Der Zeitgeist

[wim123 758]

1 minute ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

I can't stress enough how enthusiastic Jörg is about his whole "Digital Twin" idea, a realistic representation of the real world in the sim.

I don't think he cares too much about study-level aircraft, but he has a real vision about developing the scenery aspect of the sim over the whole life cycle of MSFS, with constantly improving Bing data, imagery, height maps. They are very much aware of the current limitations and problems in this area, but I really get the impression they are thinking long-term about improving this more and more.

thats not  a bad thing, let them do the scenery, 3rd party will make hq aircraft, but there is still quite  a bit amiss with the bing source.

[abrams_tank 7,393]

7 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

I can't stress enough how enthusiastic Jörg is about his whole "Digital Twin" idea, a realistic representation of the real world in the sim.

I don't think he cares too much about study-level aircraft, but he has a real vision about developing the scenery aspect of the sim over the whole life cycle of MSFS, with constantly improving Bing data, imagery, height maps. They are very much aware of the current limitations and problems in this area, but I really get the impression they are thinking long-term about improving this more and more.

Like I said in the other thread discussing the future of MSFS, the more accurate the world they create in MSFS by satellite & photogrammetry, etc, the more valuable this technology can be used for other purposes,

I bet the CEO of Microsoft (or a high level exec) has given direction to Jorg to develop this further.

Think of all the applications that can be built off this.  You have game companies that would love a 3D representation of the world to make their games on.  There will be other software companies that want this.  And for Microsoft, they can reuse a 3D representation of the world to make a modern combat simulator, a train simulator, etc ... products that Microsoft has made in the past.

[MattNischan 3,778]

13 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

I don't think he cares too much about study-level aircraft

He absolutely does pretty deeply, just that for some audiences that doesn't really play that interestingly. I'm a big avionics dude as you all know, I geek out about the super obscure details, but flight is certainly equal parts pressing interesting buttons and seeing interesting parts of the world. He's big on capturing that first discovery flight feeling, when everything is a total wonder and cars look like ants to you for the first time from the air and you can really feel the plane. That's what gets people hooked when they fly in real life, and then they graduate to managing systems, if they want to.

For so long simulation has been hyper-focused on complex systems management because frankly the technology was simply not there to make the rest particularly interesting. No bones about it, he wants to beat every other sim at the complex systems part and that's a huge goal of us all on the team, but capturing that childlike wonderment is always going to be a big deal to craft, as an experience.

-Matt

[pmb 5,137]

I recall Jane asked about the landing + taxi lights being on all day. Both guys gave sort of a short answer but I didn't get it. Does a native speaker know their reply?

Thanks and kind regards, Michael

[bobcat999 8,444]

8 hours ago, pmb said:

I recall Jane asked about the landing + taxi lights being on all day. Both guys gave sort of a short answer but I didn't get it. Does a native speaker know their reply?

Thanks and kind regards, Michael

It was kind of an mumbling reply because they do care, and do feel embarrassed if they cant give a definite answer or timescale straight away, but basically it was acknowledged as an issue that they need to fix, but by the body language and the type of wording he was trying to find during the reply, it is not on their immediate to-do list.  

When they do fix it, it would be great to be able to use radio clicks on the smaller airfields to turn the lights on.  At some airfields / airports, I believe you can actually request the lights to be turned up in intensity, either by request to ATC, or radio clicks again.

[pstrub 998]

15 hours ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

I can't stress enough how enthusiastic Jörg is about his whole "Digital Twin" idea, a realistic representation of the real world in the sim.

Absolutely, but comparing to Google Maps / Earth, they still have a long way to go. I have the feeling that's what they want to do, but as Jörg explained in his answer about photogrammetry cities in the Nordics update, aerial photography requires a long-term effort, and getting all the permissions may require years of planning.

15 hours ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

I don't think he cares too much about study-level aircraft, but he has a real vision about developing the scenery aspect of the sim over the whole life cycle of MSFS, with constantly improving Bing data, imagery, height maps. 

Well, I don't think it's entirely true. Before and shortly after the release yes, Jörg maintained that the level of realism in the glass cockpit avionics wasn't very important, but soon (still in 2020) they realised that it's a necessity to accommodate the needs of 3rd party developers that want to use the default Garmin suites in their cockpits - and maybe at some point he probably understood that IFR involves a lot more nowadays than just VOR to VOR navigation and ILS landings, and the base of MSFS has to support it to a higher degree than they aimed for initially. That's when they got in touch with Working Title.

They made it very clear that they still care about improving the default aircraft until they fly and perform realistically. It's taking a while, but as we've seen with the Cessnas, they're getting there over time. The default aircraft will never be study level, but bugs aside, their depth has been better than FSX default aircraft even at release. It took them really long to get the AP right (ridiculously long, to be honest), and the original glass cockpits left a lot to be desired. But with Working Title on the team I have no doubt that most of the default aircraft will be on par with X-Planes better default aircraft within a year's time.

And from what I've seen in the interview with Hans Hartmann about the ATR, and yesterday's interview about the Ju 52, Jörg does care about system depth. Maybe not for himself personally, but he was eager to point out that all buttons are going to work as they should. They seem to aim for a similar level as the CRJ. Ok, it's open to discussion whether or not that's study level  (certainly it's enough for many of the serious simmers), and it remains to be seen whether they can hit their goals. 

But as far as aircraft fidelity is concerned, they're aiming a good bit higher than previous versions of MS Flight Simulator.

 

Edited June 18, 2021 by pstrub