Seafront: Vessels Enhanced AI and Global Shipping!

[styckx 1,871]

6 hours ago, Noooch said:

Coming July 2021!

I am really looking forward to these.

I hope we will be able to land with helicopters on cargo ships as it is not the case with the current Global AI Ship Traffic.

Seafront Simulations is going in the right direction by developping global addons and not just regional ones!

https://seafrontsims.com/

Their `mission' (though not outright stated) has vague hints of when Orbx started.. Small little regions and then John decided to take on the world despite the detractors.. The word not allowed ended up pulling it off.  

This is giving me the vibes of the aquatic version of that development and I hope I'm right. 

[Noooch 1,084]

@styckx Yes if they continue with their global approach, they could develop really cool stuff like Global Oil Rigs, piers and marinas on a larger scale (continent) etc...

Edited July 22, 2021 by Noooch

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

1 hour ago, styckx said:

From my perspective. The free "Global AI Ship Traffic MSFS V1" package while great, was operating on a hobbyist level.. And let's face it, hasn't been touched since March. 

I tried it, but around Vancouver, the shipping traffic is all wrong..  Cruise ships going every which way and no freighters in the bay..

Will be interesting to see how this version operates... and the cherry on top would be accurate ferries for the PNW.. 🙂

[KL791 2,272]

On 7/22/2021 at 5:11 PM, ryanbatcund said:

How is this different from the freeware Henrik Nielsen (sp?) Ships package?

i think the most important perspective will be the density of ships; if what they promise is real then you will have the same density of ships as in the real world. Now, that of course has some implications - I do not know if they base on AIS data or not. If is the standard AI engine which has to handle it then, I would doubt it will work out well. If programmed based on e.g. AIS or outside the standard AI engine in some other way it can work out, but as I wrote on another site - to have this number of ship movements either you have tremendous amount of models or you have endless repetitions. I have personally said no to working with some of the mayor developers who proposed something similar, because I simply think the realism will be lost due to the limited number of models - even with the more than 1300 we have available in Global AI Ship Traffic. Ships are far more different than airplanes which for commercial airliners can be boiled down to less than 50 base models representing Airbus, Boeing, and Embraer... Ships are usually built in just a few units unlike a 737 or A320... To my knowledge Seafront has so far based their project on purchased models - their ships can be found on sites like Turbosquid and cgtrader, and there is a limited number available and while some are extremely high quality others are .... not so much... So unless they have really been busy modelling or purchasing since last time I doubt you will have a very varied traffic. But let's see.

To Styckx other comment on that the Global AI Ship Traffic has not been touched since March I can say that is not correct -  models have been updated to native format; new models created and a minor new package with native MSFS ships is getting ready to be launched in August. But there is not point in releasing a mayor update with MSFS being a moving target - and unfortunately it is technically not possible to launch "half a package" - it is either or. And as Stycks correctly say - the Global AI Ship Traffic is and will continue to be a hobbyist project - and therefore also free 😄 

 

 

[Tuskin38 6,468]

On 7/22/2021 at 12:14 PM, styckx said:

hasn't been touched since March.

There's only one guy working on it and he also has a full time job outside of it.

While there hasn't been an update since March, he has been working on it since then, he posts pictures every once and a while in the thread on the official MSFS Forums.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/global-ai-ship-traffic-v1-for-msfs/368369/677

 

Edited July 26, 2021 by Tuskin38

[captain420 3,099]

Henrik Nielson's Global AI Ships + AIG OCI Traffic AI are must have addons for any flight sim! They make the world come to life and adds a tremendous amount of immersion to sea and air traffic.

KL, you do amazing work, and I have been a long time user of your ship package since P3D! Thank you so much for your contribution to the flight sim community!

[Seat* 53]

Thank you Henrik for your fantastic work. I really appreciate your contribution to the realism of both P3D and MSFS.

[Ixoye 1,821]

I'm looking forward to this, I have try Henriks add on, it works ok, but I don't like the short hiccups when the ships are loading in.

[Amon1973 1,421]

Just now, Ixoye said:

I'm looking forward to this, I have try Henriks add on, it works ok, but I don't like the short hiccups when the ships are loading in.

We'll have to wait until release of this product to see if they any similar problems?

[KL791 2,272]

17 minutes ago, eaim1973 said:

We'll have to wait until release of this product to see if they any similar problems?

As soon as the models are in native format this issue is gone and you can have more detailed models - however, it also disappears as ships from the carry over package are converted by the sim and stored in the CVT folder. Anyway... soon we will see what the next MSFS update brings. 

[Tuskin38 6,468]

They posted pictures of wakes, they're don't look great on the big ships, they look fine on the small boats

Edited July 28, 2021 by Tuskin38

[captain420 3,099]

Wow it looks pretty god to me! Better than no wakes at all! Do the wakes automatically appear after updating to SU5 or do we need to get the updated addons?

Edited July 28, 2021 by captain420

[Seafront Simulations 90]

Hi All,

Firstly, thanks for all the interest in these upcoming releases and the feedback on what we've been able to share thus far! Since we started working with the sim back in August and dipping our toes into the world of addons we've had an amazing reaction and it really, really helps knowing people are enjoying what we're putting our available time and effort into (especially with the last 18 months that the world has had!). A few points that we need to clarify about the 'team' here and the upcoming scenery...

How big is Seafront Simulations?
Like many other commercial developers we're actually tiny. We're a husband and wife team who do this in our spare time (currently) and work far too many evenings in development mode because we enjoy a) the creative side of what we do and b) tinkering with ideas/code/models. The good news is we will be spending more time on this from September.

How many models will be in Enhanced AI and Global Shipping?

Enhanced AI
Enhanced AI replaces the default AI models but it doesn't a) expand on the number of models or b) add more routes by itself. It uses the games own engine to drive the models.

Global Shipping
Global Shipping uses an expanded set of models within Enhanced AI and we will be adding more variety over time. However as Henrik points out (and it is an important point) 1300 models is a lot so we have taken the alternative approach: using our time to increase traffic volume over model quantity. We are always balancing the addition of models (which with their various high detail texture layers and multiple LODs can end up quite large) over storage/download size. For that reason (and we will stress here as we have elsewhere) we believe that such addons compliment each other and we are not seeking to compete with or replace anyone's mod including Henrik and his team's efforts. The ocean is a very large place and as far as we are concerned the more boats the better.

Wakes
In addition to these two products, wakes are included in the next update for our Vessels Core that underpin the Channel Islands and Anguilla, St Martin & St Barts releases. We love the fact we now have wakes but we also committed to making the most of the SDK. So as we learn more (and the documentation develops) we will be building on what's there already.

Our other sceneries
Obviously we have some other projects underway too and are still working on them. Added to many changes that were required as a result of the UK World Update, some unfortunate sad news in the Seafront Sims family has meant we've had to focus on other things and delay the release of Vessels: UK South East. That said a big part of the last 11 months (wow that's flown by!) has been working on tooling/pipeline to be able to get more to you and we hope that starts to happen soon.

As always, thanks again for the feedback and love! We hope you enjoy what we have to offer (which will be on Friday by the way - hot off the press 🙂)

Edited July 28, 2021 by Seafront Simulations

[Tuskin38 6,468]

So running both your product and Henrik's at the same time, probably won't have any conflicts? Other than maybe some ships running into each other?

Edited July 28, 2021 by Tuskin38

[Seafront Simulations 90]

2 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

So running both your product and Henrik's at the same time, probably won't have any conflicts? Other than maybe so ship clipping with each other?

That's correct. Clipping between the sceneries 'should' be very rare. As Henrik will tell you it all depends on the coordinates of the routes themselves, loiter timings and start/end positions. The AI engine still operates like the old FSX one so it's method of navigating around oncoming ships could do with an update. 🤞