Another XP12 preview drops

[uwespeed 497]

3 hours ago, jarmstro said:

Running out of arguments ->

Opening a new sideshow.

jarmstro said also:

I am trying really hard to understand why wet runways are such a big deal in 2022? 

 

You don't even imagine how right you are. There are companies (with huuuge financial and technical background) which still failed to implement them in 2022. And I doubt, they will do it in the (near?) future correctly.

[uwespeed 497]

1 hour ago, skjiv said:

I am grateful to Laminar that the eye candy came late, otherwise it would have been driven by art and not physics.

But who cares about physics? They are completely irrelevant in a simulation. 😆🤣 

I am watching the weather forecast only because of the nice satellite films of clouds, the nice graphics of the forecast itself, and sometimes even for the weathergirl 😉. But not for the physics behind - nothing is more irrelevant 😂🤣.

1 hour ago, skjiv said:

I am also grateful to them for not ditching Mac and Linux users by adopting DirectX. They waited for Vulkan and Metal to evolve and mature (along with the drivers of course).

Me too, as I'm on Linux.

[Murmur 3,941]

1 hour ago, Rimshot said:

That's what you guys (flightsimmers with a preference for X-Plane) always claim. As a user of FSX, P3D, X-Plane 11 and now MSFS I have never been able to find any solid truth in these claims. I remember the feeling of disappointment after my first take off roll in the default X-Plane 11 C172. After all the hype I read about X-Plane being the holy grail in flight simulation it felt just like any other flying game... Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to X-Plane 12 and what it will bring, the screenshots look promising!

It's not just the flight model of fixed wing aircraft, but many other details.

[Andistio 44]

The preview looks very nice and I always admired LR's lighting and night model. Excited for XP 12! It's always such a pleasure moving around on the airport and flying at night. It's something about being able to create an authentic atmosphere. 

[Greazer 1,320]

On 1/7/2022 at 5:26 AM, mSparks said:

 

Best screenshot so far.  Hopefully it was not digitally enhanced in any way before posting.

[rka 916]

This one really looks great. I hope they start showing a bit more of the world surrounding the airports soon too though.

[Biology 1,347]

17 hours ago, Rimshot said:

That's what you guys (flightsimmers with a preference for X-Plane) always claim. As a user of FSX, P3D, X-Plane 11 and now MSFS I have never been able to find any solid truth in these claims. I remember the feeling of disappointment after my first take off roll in the default X-Plane 11 C172. After all the hype I read about X-Plane being the holy grail in flight simulation it felt just like any other flying game... Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to X-Plane 12 and what it will bring, the screenshots look promising!

This is something I have always wondered too. I always hear people saying how superior X-Plane is when it comes to flight dynamics, aircraft systems and other simulation aspects - while I agree with the flight dynamics part, I completely disagree with the aircraft systems part. X-Plane itself is not better in terms of aircraft systems, the add-ons available for it are. For instance, the newly released Challenger 650 uses zero default systems of X-Plane, all of its systems are custom modelled and X-Plane is nothing more than a flight dynamics engine and a scenery generator from its point-of-view. Fly the default 747 in X-Plane, it is really not any better than MSFS in terms of systems modelling, if not worse. In short, X-Plane is really not any better when it comes to systems modelling, not only that, systems modelling is not even an inherent property of base simulators. Systems modelling is merely a property of add-on aircraft, so it should be out of discussion at first place. When it comes to weather simulation, I would say both simulators are equally worse compared to Prepar3D, though X-Plane allows third party weather engines to inject their own weather to close the gap, which MSFS does not allow. Hence I really do not see any other realism (or simulation, as people call it) benefit other than flight modelling in X-Plane compared to other simulators. This is why I do not think other simulators are years behind, and I am saying this as a user of and developer for all 3 major simulators. I wish people accepted the fact that all 3 major simulators are very capable when it comes to the simulation aspect of flight, instead of berating other simulators as "games" (there is nothing wrong with them being games, in fact this is exactly what they are, but in this case "game" is used as a derogatory term to imply it is not as realistic) and I wish people gave the developers behind such beautiful aircraft add-ons the credit they deserve instead of attributing their success to the simulator they run on.

With that out of the way, people are missing something really important in that screenshot, at least for me it is something more fascinating than the water puddles. Water puddles surely look beautiful but they are relatively easy to render and they are just mere post-processing effects. So I would like to redirect your attention to the runway lights, which has been very underappreciated so far in this thread. Simply put, the runway lights look much better than any other simulator I have seen - it seems like their work on photometric lighting paid off as the intensity of the lights and how the light spreads on the runway looks really natural. This is what gave me the "wow" effect in this screenshot, it looks extremely realistic and natural, really nothing like I have ever seen before.

Edited January 9, 2022 by BiologicalNanobot

[Biology 1,347]

4 hours ago, Greazer said:

Best screenshot so far.  Hopefully it was not digitally enhanced in any way before posting.

They are not edited, LR never shares edited screenshots. It would be somewhat obvious anyway.

Edited January 9, 2022 by BiologicalNanobot

[jarmstro 2,402]

2 hours ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

This is something I have always wondered too. I always hear people saying how superior X-Plane is when it comes to flight dynamics, aircraft systems and other simulation aspects - while I agree with the flight dynamics part, I completely disagree with the aircraft systems part. X-Plane itself is not better in terms of aircraft systems, the add-ons available for it are. For instance, the newly released Challenger 650 uses zero default systems of X-Plane, all of its systems are custom modelled and X-Plane is nothing more than a flight dynamics engine and a scenery generator from its point-of-view. Fly the default 747 in X-Plane, it is really not any better than MSFS in terms of systems modelling, if not worse. In short, X-Plane is really not any better when it comes to systems modelling, not only that, systems modelling is not even an inherent property of base simulators. Systems modelling is merely a property of add-on aircraft, so it should be out of discussion at first place. When it comes to weather simulation, I would say both simulators are equally worse compared to Prepar3D, though X-Plane allows third party weather engines to inject their own weather to close the gap, which MSFS does not allow. Hence I really do not see any other realism (or simulation, as people call it) benefit other than flight modelling in X-Plane compared to other simulators. This is why I do not think other simulators are years behind, and I am saying this as a user of and developer for all 3 major simulators. I wish people accepted the fact that all 3 major simulators are very capable when it comes to the simulation aspect of flight, instead of berating other simulators as "games" (there is nothing wrong with them being games, in fact this is exactly what they are, but in this case "game" is used as a derogatory term to imply it is not as realistic) and I wish people gave the developers behind such beautiful aircraft add-ons the credit they deserve instead of attributing their success to the simulator they run on.

With that out of the way, people are missing something really important in that screenshot, at least for me it is something more fascinating than the water puddles. Water puddles surely look beautiful but they are relatively easy to render and they are just mere post-processing effects. So I would like to redirect your attention to the runway lights, which has been very underappreciated so far in this thread. Simply put, the runway lights look much better than any other simulator I have seen - it seems like their work on photometric lighting paid off as the intensity of the lights and how the light spreads on the runway looks really natural. This is what gave me the "wow" effect in this screenshot, it looks extremely realistic and natural, really nothing like I have ever seen before.

And yet I find that planes in XP are much much easier to fly especially with regard to landing than any other sim?
 

But I am still waiting for a "wow" effect with regard to XP12 instead of five year out of date technology. I was rather hoping that XP12 would be "Next Generation".

Edited January 9, 2022 by jarmstro

[Biology 1,347]

33 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

And yet I find that planes in XP are much much easier to fly especially with regard to landing than any other sim?

Ease of flight does not necessarily correlate with the accuracy of aircraft performance though.

33 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

But I am still waiting for a "wow" effect with regard to XP12 instead of five year out of date technology.

They have showed shader-based sky, volumetric clouds, 3D trees and water which are all new technologies. I find it really unfair to dismiss all of this as "five year out of date technology". Genuine question, if shader-based sky, volumetric clouds, 3D trees and water are not "next generation", what exactly would be "next generation" in your mind?

Edited January 9, 2022 by BiologicalNanobot

[RXP 2,338]

4 hours ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

[...] So I would like to redirect your attention to the runway lights, which has been very underappreciated so far in this thread. Simply put, the runway lights look much better than any other simulator I have seen - it seems like their work on photometric lighting paid off as the intensity of the lights and how the light spreads on the runway looks really natural. This is what gave me the "wow" effect in this screenshot, it looks extremely realistic and natural, really nothing like I have ever seen before.

I agree with this too, but not just the runway light in my opinion, and of course this is entirely subjective: to me the "wow" effect in this screenshot is that it looks authentic per what I'd see with my own eyes IRL vs what I see when looking at a photography capturing this moment in time. In terms of relative intensity, contrast, lighting etc..., I find this screenshot is just tricking my brain to believe it just look real as if not starring a monitor (when watching it full screen) but this is personal only 🙂

[RXP 2,338]

1 hour ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

what exactly would be "next generation" in your mind?

I believe you answered this question already: Next Generation would be "in your mind" 😂

Total suspension of disbelief and total immersion!

Edited January 9, 2022 by RXP

[Bjoern 1,157]

Has Laminar indicated any update to the surface friction modeling if they're already improving the visual aspect of contaminated runways?

[OlliePen 88]

I would really like to see that A330 doing a pre-flight, pushback and engine start, then a taxi to the hold, then a flight up into and through the new volumetric clouds.

[CarlosF 1,239]

Why not just wait until its release, test, then criticize or praise.