PMDG UPDATE

[cooperwarner8 77]

Robert added this not too long ago...

 

Captains,

...But this would go seriously wrong.
Because we all know I can't rhyme, or write out in song.
My post must be well crafted and worded with care.
Because some bloke from Australia will just tell me its already Christmas over there.

We'd much prefer to give you a preview, you see.
Of the work we've been doing on our new Seven Three.
Backlighting's installed and more tweaking we've done.
The dimmers now work which just makes it more fun.

The flap handle moves and it clacks and it clatters.
The stick shaker shakes so you know something's the matter.
The flaps you can set to your every whims
the trimwheel will rattle and grind while it spins.

Panel flood lighting floods and annunciators flash.
The TCAS ain't yet working, so maintain visual on that Dash.
The non-reflective coating is on the screens with great care
So you won't have problems reading the screens through a glare.

Autobrake works but is still subject to tweeking,
for proper acceleration gives you the brake distance you are seeking.
The FMC is running and draws a nice magenta line.
Follow the Flight Director and you should do just fine.

You'll have options by the hundreds you can choose with a click,
Along with ground maintenance support In case a valve it should stick.
The Ground Ops is there, just like in P3D
with Lav Trucks and Cleaners, chocks, belt loaders, or even AC.

EGPWS is griping about flaps, gear and terrain,
Nav display shows it like a green, yellow and red stain.
The same screen will give you a nice VSD.
STARs are easier to plan when the profile you can see.

So things are progressing, in spite of knee knockers.
Performance is fast, even if you aren't an over-clocker.
Each week I think "Ah! I shall shoot something for YouTube!"
Then my schedule explodes which makes for a bad mood.

We still have components to wire into place. 
But we are sure when see, this will put a smile on your face.
We are taking a few days off, but soon this bird shall take flight.
For now Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good DC-6 flight.

https://forum.pmdg.com/filedata/fetch?id=156100&d=1640331689

Okay, okay okay... If that doesn't get an award for the most horrible butchering of a pithy poem, I don't know what would.  

On a more serious note, I wanted to drop a few images for you to kick off this Christmas weekend. BIG BOLD REMINDER THAT THESE ARE IN-DEVELOPMENT IMAGES and the images are about a week out of phase with the latest build, but it has taken me a few days to cleave out some free time to get them posted for you.

The last two weeks have been busy. Much of the focus is on stuff you can't see, but Vin and Henning have been hard at work on lighting related functionality. One of the things I particularly love is that we have gotten the non-reflective coating in place on the displays and you can see from the image above that the main panel flood lighting gets gauzy as it plays off the lower display unit and the CDUs from this angle. I have had the misfortune of sitting on the jumpseat in the 737 on more occasions than I care to recall (you don't sit IN the 737 jumpseat, you sit ON it...) and the lighting quality and mood conveyed in this image is exactly as I recall it. Fortunately, I don't have to do that any more- as one's backside can only take so much 737 jumpseat- and you REALLY haven't lived until you have sat on the second jumpseat, but that is a story for a different day.

The backlighting is being tweaked and most of the flood lighting is now working properly. We are doing a bit of research on the specifications for a few of the different lighting elements and bulbs used in some key places, as getting their emissive qualities just right takes a bit of technical data. As we dial them in, things really start to look convincing, especially at night when surveying the flight deck while at high altitude with the ground lighting well below the airplane. It is a really impressive look, especially if you have VR to work with.

Next up in the lighting department are some of the point lights and purpose lighting, such as the environmental lighting, etc. I have lost track of whether Jason has finished tweaking all of the lighting options for the exterior model, but we have variations with standard lighting and others with LED, along with their various property differences and emmisive qualities. 

https://forum.pmdg.com/filedata/fetch?id=156101&d=1640332413

We are currently working to finish implementing the various load-states that are customary to MSFS. These are the "pre-configured" states in which you might load the airplane from the flight menu in MSFS and include configurations such as parked on the ramp, taxiing onto the runway, climbout, cruise, descent, approach, etc. These have to be knit tightly to the sim's expectations and norms so that when you load the airplane and choose, say, a spot where the airplane would be expected to be in a specific configuration- it should match that expectation immediately upon load. We have been working through these and while some of them are quite straight forward, others are not when you have thousands of realistic system inter-dependencies modeled within the airplane, so we are slowly working through stamping out the problems. 

For those who like them, we will also ship the product to you with a number of scenarios from Cold/Dark to various stages of preparation so that you can load those as starting points just like you can do in the Prepar3D version. Our main goal here is to avoid capability loss so that you have as much of the functionality you are used to as we can possibly deliver.

Some other good news is that we have eliminated the much maligned 20 second timer that we introduced back in 2008 with our MD-11... This was a necessary evil in Prepar3D but we have managed to remove it finally in MSFS- and this will mean that you will have the airplane running normally the moment you enter the sim, which is a nice thing.

This week we finished implementing the terrain awareness capability on the NAV display. I will try to remember to include that in our next round of cockpit visual updates so that you can see how nice it looks in MSFS. The good news is that the display logic for the terrain is the same display logic that gets used to apply a weather radar layer, so once the community convinces Asobo to give developers access to the weather layer, it will be a quick thing to tap into it in order to draw the radar returns as appropriate. We haven't heard much other than innuendo on this topic- but I am sure it will come around eventually.

The plan for 737 is still to release her on both PC and for Xbox. She will be made available both on our site and via MS Marketplace. Those who qualified for promotional pricing on the new 737 by purchasing the PMDG 737NGXu for P3D back when it released two years ago will obviously need to make the purchase from us directly in order to have the promotional pricing applied at checkout. We will have more information for those qualifying customers as we announce an actual release plan for the PMDG 737 for MSFS.

On the topic of releases: We are still awaiting confirmation from Microsoft to tell us when the update required on the Xbox platform will allow PMDG DC-6 for MSFS to get turned back on for sale on the Xbox platform. We are hoping it won't be long and we shall keep you posted with any information we learn.

Many folks have asked if we will be doing videos to preview the 737 and also if we will have a video tutorial series. The answer on both counts is yes.

When? That is a bit harder to nail down. I am pretty task focused on areas of the 737 development that are my responsibility and forward progress is miserably, painfully complex at the moment so it is taking longer than I think any of us like. Once I have my areas of responsibility secured I will transition to production- and you'll know that has happened when you see things start trickling into the youtube channel. I always think "it might be next week" and every week, I prove myself right.  

All of us at PMDG hope all of you have a pleasant weekend ahead and a Happy Christmas. The last two years have been particularly difficult for all of us here on this marble we call Earth. I know that we all come from different places with different perspectives and sometimes our community can get a bit grumpy within itself. We hope that in spite of this, each of you can take a few moments to say hello to someone you might not normally acknowledge, greet someone new and welcome them to the community, and share a few laughs and smiles with those who's company you enjoy here in the PMDG forum.

We are glad you are here, and we are really looking forward to an exciting 2022 with all of you!

Robert S. Randazzo 
PMDG Simulations
http://www.pmdg.com

Edited December 24, 2021 by cooperwarner8

[737_800 434]

Any chance someone insert the pictures here for those who haven't a pmdg account?

[rob0203 689]

Where is my creditcard? I want it all and I want it now!

[omarsmak30 4,068]

Good news! It seems RSR now is more confident about it. I think that was a good call not to communicate any release plan until they are sure and it seems they are getting there!

I also think the investment they put into the 737, will pay off in the 747, 777 and the 757 as they have the experience now to develop for MSFS.

Edited December 24, 2021 by omarsmak30

[Sethos 4,336]

Re-hosted images for those that aren't logged in;

 

[gb09f 298]

Anybody got a TL:DR? 

Is it delayed again due to SDK limitations? 

[Jazz 1,046]

8 minutes ago, gb09f said:

Anybody got a TL:DR? 

Is it delayed again due to SDK limitations? 

It's not exactly a long read.

[Bernard Ducret 790]

1 hour ago, 737_800 said:

Any chance someone insert the pictures here for those who haven't a pmdg account?

You don't need an account if you go there.

[Jazz 1,046]

14 minutes ago, Bernard Ducret said:

You don't need an account if you go there.

Yes, but you can't see the pics there without an account.

[Bernard Ducret 790]

2 hours ago, Jazz said:

Yes, but you can't see the pics there without an account.

Did you actually click on the link to Elite that I created for you guys???!!! You don't need an account, I don't have one and the pictures are there too.

Edited December 24, 2021 by Bernard Ducret

[Alaska738 8,407]

Great news!

[Jazz 1,046]

1 hour ago, Bernard Ducret said:

Did you actually click on the link to Elite that I created for you guys???!!! You don't need an account, I don't have one and the pictures are there too.

No, I beg your pardon. I was actually talking about the PMDG website. You can't see the pics there unless you login.

[threexgreen 3,139]

No word though on whether the items that are holding them back as per the last update have been answered to in any way by Asobo.

[JBDB-MD80 1,473]

55 minutes ago, threegreen said:

No word though on whether the items that are holding them back as per the last update have been answered to in any way by Asobo.

Don't point fingers at Asobo perhaps more at MS it may get us somewhere faster afterall the title is called Microsoft Flight Simulator not Asobo Simulator.

Edited December 24, 2021 by jbdbow1970

[mwilk 1,106]

12 minutes ago, jbdbow1970 said:

Don't point fingers at Asobo perhaps more at MS it may get us somewhere faster afterall the title is called Microsoft Flight Simulator not Asobo Simulator.

Isn't Asobo the software developer and Microsoft the publisher? I'm guessing that third party developers work directly with Asobo and not Microsoft. It will be done then PMDG decides it's ready to be released. This is probably the least of most people's worries right now.