X-Plane Next Generation Forestry Preview

[GoranM 3,764]

37 minutes ago, strider1 said:

I will send Austin a feature request.

It shouldn’t be hard to add. We have fire in the TBM. Definitely email him. 

[Greazer 1,320]

6 hours ago, GoranM said:

Based on what?

Based on evidence (screenshots) - nothing revolutionary, more like a tweaked version of XP11 !

[GoranM 3,764]

14 minutes ago, Greazer said:

Based on evidence (screenshots) - nothing revolutionary, more like a tweaked version of XP11 !

Wind affected trees. Leaves on trees (something YOU asked for).  Seasons. Water patches on the ground after a storm has passed. New lighting engine. Nothing revolutionary. 
Yes, you’re trolling. 

Edited July 30, 2021 by GoranM

[akita 429]

23 minutes ago, Greazer said:

Based on evidence (screenshots) - nothing revolutionary, more like a tweaked version of XP11 !

Not wrong though.

This is XP11, you can see the old trees and lighting in the shots.

But probably nothing even remotly close to the full upgrade, they are still just teasing.

[Janov 2,383]

3 minutes ago, akita said:

This is XP11, you can see the old trees and lighting in the shots.

And for those not being able to tell...they even included the big, white letters "X-Plane 11" in the video for those scenes showing the current version trees/lighting 😉

 

[akita 429]

15 minutes ago, Janov said:

And for those not being able to tell...they even included the big, white letters "X-Plane 11" in the video for those scenes showing the current version trees/lighting 😉

 

Sure, but not about that obviously.

They released many shots of new autogen and art assets all taken in Xplane 11 with no additional new features.

I was wrong before about the trees video though, the NG part has the new lighting.

[Gary1124 181]

I just hope more towns are finished out. If not actual buildings then at least the footprint and basic street grids.

I like how Orbx did with LC NA. I hope XP12 matches or exceeds.

[Humpty 751]

1 hour ago, Greazer said:

Based on evidence (screenshots) - nothing revolutionary, more like a tweaked version of XP11 !

I would go even with a tweaked version of XP11 provided the Light / Wx / and water / trees (i don't care much for cities or even seasons ) are done as expected.

Edited July 30, 2021 by Humpty

[mikea76 184]

Looks nice! Looking forward to seeing more previews 

[mSparks 2,086]

3 hours ago, Janov said:

That actually used to be a feature in earlier XP versions...including the CL415 aircraft. But it never got upgraded to XP11 standards, so it was dropped from the default aircraft list.

sparky 744 supports the global supertanker livery by fscabral - when you select that livery fmc loading turns to fire retardant and drop key bind works.

Theres at least one va fire fighter team using it but not heard from them for a while.

 

[virtuali 4,421]

3 hours ago, GoranM said:

Wind affected trees. Leaves on trees (something YOU asked for).  Seasons. Water patches on the ground after a storm has passed. New lighting engine. Nothing revolutionary. 

P3D has by default support for Speed Trees since 2015, with V3:

https://store.speedtree.com/
 

Edited July 30, 2021 by virtuali

[RXP 2,338]

12 hours ago, Greazer said:

I think they are targeting the worst aspects of XP11 -> trees, clouds, weather redraws, offline ATC, environment sounds and lighting.  But I doubt whether there will be a big leap in overall graphics and performance.

These are only previews of specific and detailed upcoming features shown out of the next gen context. I believe it is therefore too early to inferring the direction X-Plane is going in its entirety based on these specific features shown in isolation.

What we do know is that X-Plane is used in professional simulators and one strong requirement is stutter free high fps (I'm not sure there is a 60fps requirement but it might also be), and this was one of the main driver to moving to Vulkan (especially to be able to controlling the stutter free aspect). In other words, stutter free high fps is a mandatory goal in the design of X-Plane and I've no doubt they'll deliver.

In addition, the SDK is letting 3rd parties accessing the hardware closer and this helps delivering optimized and low footprint add-ons. For example, I've read lately one of the goal for an FS2020 avionics is 1ms render rate per screen. Usually you'd use 3 of those in the panel which means at 60fps the 3 screens will be eating nearly 1/5th the entire frame render time giving only 4/5 to the sim rendering. By comparison, our upcoming update to the GNS for XP11 for example is now updating in about 75us (micro seconds), and GTN in about 100us (as seen in the XP11 plugin admin).

Edited July 30, 2021 by RXP

[Bjoern 1,157]

23 hours ago, Pascal_LSGC said:

Not necessarily, instancing (and probably LOD) is heavily used here. Remember that the transition to Vulkan/Metal was only the beginning of possible optimizations.

Yes and no. If Laminar pulls off doing everything (including third party modules that draw stuff) 100% in Vulkan/Metal, I'm not worried about performance too much, although there will surely be a decrease with that level of detail. But without Vulkan support on the SDK side, that OpenGL bridging is gonna cost a few frames.

 

12 hours ago, Janov said:

That actually used to be a feature in earlier XP versions...including the CL415 aircraft. But it never got upgraded to XP11 standards, so it was dropped from the default aircraft list.

Can't forest fires be reenabled in the settings.txt or is this only for the visual aspect.

 

7 hours ago, virtuali said:

P3D has by default support for Speed Trees since 2015, with V3:

https://store.speedtree.com/

Using SpeedTree incures licensing costs though.

 

5 hours ago, RXP said:

In addition, the SDK is letting 3rd parties accessing the hardware closer and this helps delivering optimized and low footprint add-ons.

Is that slated for the upcoming release?

[RXP 2,338]

37 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

Is that slated for the upcoming release?

There is nothing much that is slated for the upcoming X-Plane release but what we're already all discussing in these forums.

You are right, I'm talking about XP11 and speculating about XP12, but it used to be a paradigm to be able to run as efficiently as possible, if possible. If not directly like we can do right now with XP11 in having an OGL context we can play with, at least via proper SDK API abstractions giving access to the underlying silicon in one way or the other.

A good example of this to me is the Instancing API, which gives you near like Shader + Uniforms, but in a wrapped and efficient SDK API.

When I compare X-Plane approach to these questions in general, with the alternative which is using a HTML layoutting engine which is inherently heavy and complex, only for displaying a dozen or so short text strings and drawing a hundred or so line segments on an EFIS, let alone JS garbage collection thrown in the mix, I can't help thinking one of the two is meant for performance and the other for GUI only (which is what it is actually marketed for first and foremost in fact, not for real time rendering of complex in game assets)*

 

---

*just to be perfectly clear here, the other APIs available through WASM are offering low level vector drawing APIs - not their GDI+ emulation but the low level path drawing API - which seems faster because aircraft with gauges using it are usually also said to be better on fps.

Edited July 30, 2021 by RXP

[rka 916]

On 7/30/2021 at 9:44 AM, GoranM said:

Wind affected trees. Leaves on trees (something YOU asked for).  Seasons. Water patches on the ground after a storm has passed. New lighting engine. Nothing revolutionary. 
Yes, you’re trolling. 

Sure, with regard to just XP it IS obviously revolutionary. Generally speaking, it's not so revolutionary given this is 2021 AD. They would have to put up a bit more to justify calling any of that stuff revolutionary IMHO.

Edited July 31, 2021 by rka
will -> would