@Janov I wondered the same and did compare P3D, FS2020 and XP11:
Change camera zoom to properly zoom and not just enlarge - Self-Service / Wishlist - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

hope this helps!

15 minutes ago, Janov said:

Just a genuine question - I see this on a lot of videos from MSFS - the camera angle seems to be really wide? Almost like a fish-eye lense, is that something that you can set up or is that field of view fixed?

I know what you mean.  It was captured at 3440x1440 which is my screen's native resolution.   You would need to be able to change the aspect ratio I suppose until you got rid of the wide-angle lens view.

21 minutes ago, RXP said:

but not revolutionary visually, because there exists other engines equally or superior visually already before it.

This is why I always come back to Ace Combat 7. If you only want "the best visuals in flightsim", don't care about accurate flight dynamics, and want an otherwise 100% flawless experience, there is nothing better. For now it still has the best clouds and VR of any flight sim despite being released in 2019. Its also only like $20 these days (but you do need a PS4 and PSVR).

21 minutes ago, RXP said:

@Janov I wondered the same and did compare P3D, FS2020 and XP11:
Change camera zoom to properly zoom and not just enlarge - Self-Service / Wishlist - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

hope this helps!

This sounds like something that could be modeled differently I don't know why not.  Perhaps it's not currently on the radar with their aggressive deployment but will be soon hopefully.

37 minutes ago, RXP said:

FS2020 visuals might revolutionary from FSX, but not revolutionary visually, because there exists other engines equally or superior visually already before it.

But are any them fully featured flight simulators, or just engines per se?   I guess for me the 'revolutionary' part is that there is a better sense of how it would appear outside the real deal in the real air.  I can't define it well and I guess that is where the lure has been for me.  I'll always fully welcome something substantially better in that regard.

Edited December 23, 20214 yr by Noel

Yippie, the long awaited additional video from Noel 😀. Anyhow, it still about clouds - although not from X-Plane, but from MSFS 2020. But I can live with that. And now ... for something completely different. Ok, not completely, but slightly. As we are talking about clouds - one thing is how they look, the other, how they are simulated.

It's not a good idea to fly right through the middle of a thunderstorm cloud - neither in reality, nor in X-Plane. In FSX, forces acted (more or less) only on the center of gravity, but MSFS 2020 has improved with a kind of airflow around the wings. So ...in FSX, when you entered a thunderstorm even with the default trike, it rocked only a little bit like a boat on a small water waves. But it wasn't dangerous at all. As I don't have MSFS 2020 (and never will - I'm on Linux), I'd be interested, what happens there in thunderstorms?

 

21 minutes ago, Noel said:

This sounds like something that could be modeled differently I don't know why not.  Perhaps it's not currently on the radar with their aggressive deployment but will be soon hopefully.

I believe it could be modeled differently indeed... 🙂 The point is that if you read any Direct3D tutorial, the way you setup the projection matrix / set the viewport is always the same: take my screen and fit the frustum to the edges... It is not dissimilar with OpenGL either, and this is pretty much how any game is doing because it is just meant to be done this way, not fuss and not complexities behind a 1 line of code.

However, the 3D projection properties are also a contributing factor that some are considering paramount for a simulator, because the simulator approach is also to recreate the optical system you're starring the simulated world with (your eye, a virtual camera system, a VR headset*) and this implies being somewhat monitor dimensions and surface flatness agnostic (in other words, this requires being able to warp the display to accommodate the surface you're projecting the rendering onto).

I especially wanted to highlight VR, because it is getting an incredible traction in the professional training market (we're involved with a few projects all using VR). Supporting a wide variety of headsets is becoming paramount for serious gaming but for example even in the "entertainment" sphere, last time I heard about it, Asobo was refusing to work with Pimax:

Quote

Unfortunately Pimax just posted on their forums they reached out to Asobo and were informed they have no interest in a collaboration with them so it sounds like Asobo has absolutely zero intent in supporting wide fov headsets…

 

28 minutes ago, Noel said:

But are any them fully featured flight simulators, or just engines per se? 

"just" engines indeed, this is their business model if I'm not mistaken (and also probably the reason P3D rendering didn't need more "realistic" terrain rendering because there exists COTS solutions for this).

1 hour ago, Noel said:

But are any them fully featured flight simulators, or just engines per se? 

unigine sim is a fully featured flight simulator.

just the aircraft are a tad pricey.

1 hour ago, uwespeed said:

As I don't have MSFS 2020 (and never will - I'm on Linux), I'd be interested, what happens there in thunderstorms?

I don't know to be honest as I've never tried it.  What is important to know is whenever you are discussing almost anything about MSFS you're really just looking at a very small window in time because the rate of change is still going to be substantial and anything can be expected at nearly any time going forward over the next year or two maximum.  There's a saying in Colorado:  if you don't like the weather just wait 15 minutes, and in a way it's true here.  They even inject change into MSFS from the backside w/o warning, for example fixing something w/o a formal update, and screwing something else up as well on occasion.  So really, you just are hard pressed to say much about anything including clouds, zoom control, or anything else because it is subject to change on a time scale heretofore hardly witnessed in this domain.  P3D did their major version updates for $200 a pop every 2y and almost nothing changed, compared to the sheer volume of change from World and Sim Updates over such a short time in MSFS.  Not all good as you know, but rapid nonetheless.

35 minutes ago, mSparks said:

unigine sim is a fully featured flight simulator.

Are you sure of this?

1) In the YT video descriptions: CIGI host (meaning Unigine here is used as a rendering channel connected to a simulator).

2) Product page says: "Real-time 3D visualization SDK (C++/C#) for simulation & training" https://unigine.com/products/sim/advantages/
(redirected from https://sim.unigine.com)

What is equally impressive though is:

1) Video published 4 years ago! Dec 7, 2017

2) 4320x2560 @ 60 Hz

3) 3 visual channels (single GTX 1080 + Barco F70-4K6 projector)

impressive!

PS: I'm sorry I'm derailing the thread so I'll try to stop talking about anything else than XP12 clouds!
 

Edited December 24, 20214 yr by RXP

29 minutes ago, mSparks said:

unigine sim is a fully featured flight simulator....just the aircraft are a tad pricey.

Looks to be currently commercial only but available for games etc.  Is it able to work off of satellite imagery so that not only detail at fractal scale for creation of virtual worlds is possible, but our exact world is possible, within obvious limits (change, for example)?  This looks like a cutting engine for next gen flight simulators for desktop pilots.

4 minutes ago, Noel said:

Is it able to [...]

I believe the videos I've posted are showing it can and even more. Really if you have the time, watched them in their entirety, it is eye opening and relegating the current tech we do have in our simulators looking like dated, even FS2020.

Edited December 24, 20214 yr by RXP

5 minutes ago, RXP said:

impressive!

Those two screenshots are a definite step up from default MSFS, but they are also, at that elevation, in the same ballpark IF they're adherent to satellite imagery.  Are they, in the unigine sim?

The most impressive 3d engine!  If I was the CEO of Google I would straight up buy this company and hook up the engine to Google earth data and real time weather / environment data and from there anything is possible.