May 12th, 2022 - Development Update

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

MAY 12TH, 2022 DEVELOPMENT UPDATE

Posted by: Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

Screenshot by MihamaBlend (Twitter)

Yesterday, we released a patch to Sim Update 9 that addresses some Xbox crashes as well as some bugs that were found in the Beta. Release Notes can be found here. We are also planning to host our May Dev Q&A on Wednesday, May 25th at 10:30 am PT (1730Z), the same day as the release of our free Top Gun: Maverick DLC! If you wish to ask or upvote a question, you can do so here.

MSFS Team

 

DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP

Click here for the web-friendly version.

 

SDK UPDATE

Roadmap:

• Sim Update 10:
  • Terrain & Weather Radar Drawing APIs
  • Aircraft Editor V2
  • Game rendered in a window in the DevMode

General:

• We’re working on our samples, listing them and evaluating which ones can be improved, revamped, and which new samples should be added to the SDK. If you have an idea about that, please let us know on DevSupport!

DevMode:

• We fixed the “Save As” option.
• We removed ContentInfo & MarketplaceData from the available types when creating a new Asset Group.
• We added a limit to the Marketplace Data backgrounds number.
• We now warn the user when discarding media because of a limit overflow.
• We now properly save settings upon checking/unchecking the “Don’t show again” checkbox.
• We fixed the .xml gauges string formatting (\t, \n, etc.).

Aircraft Editor:

• Final review with the entire team happened this week. The tool is ready to go live on Sim Update 10! The old Aircraft Editor will remain available until SU 11, then removed.
• We fixed the wrong coordinate order in camera/InitialXYZ.
• •  

Scenery Editor:

• We fixed bugs with polygon point altitudes.
• We now allow real time editing for exclusion rectangles.
• We fixed a crash when opening a scene after building a package.

 

THIRD PARTY UPDATE

• As of 05/07, we have now approved 251 (+0) third parties into the in-sim marketplace and – so far 147 (+0) have released 1,100 products on PC (+21) and 812 on Xbox (+18).
• In total, 2,113 products (+18) have already been released in 3rd party stores and the in-sim marketplace. Beyond that, another 544 products (-5) from 3rd party developers are in production (293 announced, 251 unannounced). In total, over 2,657 3rd party products (+13) have either been released or are in development.
• Airports:
  • 1,491 airports (+7) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 1,266 airports (+7) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 731 airports (+9) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 118 airports (+2) beyond the released airports have been announced.
    • 107 airports (-2) are not announced, but the dev let us know that an airport is in production.
• Aircraft:
  • 369 aircraft (+3) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 131 aircraft (+3) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 91 aircraft (+3) have been released in the in-sim PC marketplace.
    • 65 aircraft (+0) have been released in the in-sim Xbox marketplace.
    • 160 aircraft (+1) beyond the released aircraft have been announced.
    • 78 aircraft (-1) are not announced, but the dev let us know that an aircraft is in production.
• Scenery:
  • 710 scenery packs (+2) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 630 scenery packs (+3) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 158 scenery packs (+2) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 15 scenery packs (-1) beyond the released scenery have been announced.
    • 65 scenery packs (+0) are not announced, but the dev let us know that scenery is in production.
• Mission Packs:
  • 87 mission packs (+1) are either released or are in various stages of development.
    • 86 mission packs (+5) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
    • 24 mission packs (+5) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
    • 0 mission packs (+0) beyond the released missions have been announced.
    • 1 mission packs (-4) are not announced, but the dev let us know that they are in production.

 

MARKETPLACE UPDATE

Click here for a web-friendly version.

Released Wednesday, May 11:

New on PC ✅

 

There are 23 new and 29 updated products in the Marketplace today. Marketplace updates generally go live on Thursdays between the release of this blog post and 5pm PT.

23 NEW PRODUCTS: 11 ON PC, 12 ON XBOX
New on PC ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅
New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅
New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on Xbox ✅
New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅	New on PC and Xbox ✅
	New on Xbox ✅

 

29 UPDATED PRODUCTS: 15 ON PC, 14 ON XBOX
Updated on PC and Xbox ✅	Updated on PC and Xbox ✅	Updated on PC and Xbox ✅
Updated on PC and Xbox ✅	Updated on PC and Xbox ✅	Updated on PC ✅
Updated on PC ✅	Updated on PC and Xbox ✅	Updated on PC and Xbox ✅
Updated on PC ✅	Updated on PC and Xbox ✅	Updated on PC and Xbox ✅
Updated on PC and Xbox ✅	Updated on PC and Xbox ✅	Updated on PC and Xbox ✅
	Updated on Xbox ✅

 

TWITCH UPDATE

We stream weekly on Twitch.tv/MSFSOfficial! Third Party Developer Just Flight recently released a new complex airliner for Microsoft Flight Simulator, the BAe 146. We know many of you in the community are excited to fly one of the first “study level” airliners to be released for MSFS, so we’re planning this week’s Friday Fly-In to feature this new aircraft. IMPORTANT NOTE: you do not need to purchase the Just Flight 146 Professional to participate in this event. You can choose to fly any other plane with a similar cruise speed (suggestions in link below).

To help make the 146 Professional addon as realistic as possible, Just Flight had hands-on access to a real BAe 146 (registration number G-JEAO). This plane is now retired from service and is on display to the public at the de Havilland Aircraft Museum in Hertfordshire. Our flight this week will see the group depart from EGVN, fly over this museum, then turn northward and make our way to Aberdeen, Scotland. Along the way, we will complete a few touch & go landings and pass many handcrafted POIs from World Update III: UK & Ireland. 

Click here for flight details. All are welcome to participate! 

Next week we also have our Flying Lessons with Jayne and ForderLearntoFly! We will be introduced to the basics of the Beechcraft Bonanza G36 on Wednesday, May 18th at 2pm PT. All students are welcome to learn with us!

 

COMMUNITY VIDEO

It’s been a huge few weeks for new aircraft addons for Microsoft Flight Simulator. In addition to highly-anticipated airliners like the Boeing 737 from PMDG and the British Aerospace 146 Professional from Just Flight, fans of general aviation planes also received a high quality addon from Milviz, the Cessna 310R. Now available from the in-sim Marketplace, YouTuber and real-life Cessna 310 pilot zkdos recently posted a starter guide for this excellent twin engine plane from Milviz. Check it out!

 

SCREENSHOT CHALLENGE

You can submit your screenshot via Twitter with #MSFSchallenge or the Weekly Forum Post ! This week’s screenshot challenge: Amazing Airliners

This past week our Screenshot Challenge was “Above the Clouds”. Here are our runner ups this week:

Screenshot by Stanty16 (Forum)

Screenshot by akysmile (Twitter)

Screenshot by LeDrss (Forum)

Screenshot by FireKill213 (Forum)

Screenshot by Matt_Photomode (Twitter)

Screenshot by gopensgo291 (Forum)

Screenshot by MacroMelon (Forum)

Screenshot by isaiahnparadise (Twitter)

Screenshot by jienbacktory2 (Twitter)

Screenshot by Parorng (Forum)

NEXT DEVELOPMENT BLOG UPDATE – May 19th, 2022

Sincerely,

Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

Edited May 12, 2022 by ChaoticBeauty

[abrams_tank 7,422]

It’s interesting that the bug fixes in this hotfix were found in the public opt-in beta. I guess they didn’t have enough time to fix and test the changes by the SU9 release deadline.   Looks like the value of the public opt-in beta goes beyond the beta testing period, and even has value after the beta period ends.

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

6 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Looks like the value of the public opt-in beta goes beyond the beta testing period, and even has value after the beta period ends.

That's completely true. Even in the earlier post-release betas, before they became public, the developers said that our feedback would be logged for future patches.

[Hyperfocal 186]

12 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

It’s interesting that the bug fixes in this hotfix were found in the public opt-in beta. I guess they didn’t have enough time to fix and test the changes by the SU9 release deadline.   Looks like the value of the public opt-in beta goes beyond the beta testing period, and even has value after the beta period ends.

I’m a developer for a large company and often support software supplied by vendors. You would not believe the performance and functionality regressions that get shipped in updates. There are too many factors that go into why this happens to address in this post, but it is unfortunately very common. Resist the urge to be too critical of the developers; there are enormous pressures and unreasonable demands placed on them. 

[jcomm 5,939]

They're ACTIVE !  That's for sure...

[cmpbellsjc 2,961]

Another  🌲🌲 for May.

[filou 2,744]

I still remember the clouds and ambient lighting of August 2020. The rest is fine.

[Mark1616 47]

52 minutes ago, filou said:

I still remember the clouds and ambient lighting of August 2020. The rest is fine.

Yes, from those “above the clouds” screenshots it is painfully obvious that there only is one type of clouds painted in MSFS and looks nothing like the real sky.

[honanhal 1,420]

1 hour ago, Mark1616 said:

Yes, from those “above the clouds” screenshots it is painfully obvious that there only is one type of clouds painted in MSFS and looks nothing like the real sky.

And for a while this wasn't the case -- clouds at release and for some time after looked absolutely stunning. To have had that for a time, and then lose it, is what really breaks my heart.

(And what really leads to madness is that so few others seem to see a problem here at all, let alone want it to get fixed. They had a screenshot contest to showcase the clouds! They're obviously not embarrassed by them...)

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

1 hour ago, honanhal said:

And for a while this wasn't the case -- clouds at release and for some time after looked absolutely stunning. To have had that for a time, and then lose it, is what really breaks my heart.

(And what really leads to madness is that so few others seem to see a problem here at all, let alone want it to get fixed. They had a screenshot contest to showcase the clouds! They're obviously not embarrassed by them...)

What’s wrong with them? 

[turbomax 3,286]

1 hour ago, honanhal said:

the clouds! ... is what really breaks my heart.

it didn't break mine. but now that you mention it, I think it better broke mine too.

[honanhal 1,420]

3 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

What’s wrong with them? 

At some point (I think maybe post-SU5?) they significantly changed the way the weather engine worked. To put it in the simplest possible terms, instead of what appeared to me to be a fairly sophisticated system that built very convincing looking cloudscapes, including thick, opaque, overcast layers and a huge variety of depicted cloud types, it got replaced by a system apparently similar in basic operation to how ActiveSky worked in FSX or P3D: to build a big cloud or a cloud layer, stick a bunch of cumulous clouds together in the shape you want (of course, this being MSFS, the component clouds are at least fully volumetric, not sprites).

That's not the worst possible way to do a weather engine -- sometimes it looks pretty convincing and I imagine there are performance benefits -- but there are two big drawbacks I see:

1) Sometimes it looks way off, creating clouds that just don't resemble anything you'd ever see in the real world. (For example, I'd include the shots by Matt_Photomode and Parorng in this category.)
2) Even when the clouds it generates look plausibly like real clouds, you lose all the variety. It's all cumulonimbus all the time, rather than stretched out overcast or numerous other subtle cloudscapes.

Someday I'll have time to go back to my screenshots folder and post some before/after shots to showcase the subtlety and elegance of the before weather that's been totally lost.

James

[Tom_L 533]

21 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

What’s wrong with them? 

That they don't look like this anymore (in short: SU5 killed lighting and rendering, since SU7 the devs struggle with the METAR integration. If you're really interested: follow the link)

[jrw4 624]

How can MSFS create realistic  multilayer cloudscapes while simultaneously depicting clouds that comport with local METARs? Where do the data come from that permit the depiction of cloud layers above an overcast? Wasn't the original intent in MSFS to provide a cloudscape that was based on METEOBLUE global models of clouds? My memory's not that good anymore, but I can recall many forum postings to the effect of, "I live 5 km from the airport and looking out my window I see X, while MSFS is displaying Y." In the end, we got what the community asked for, weather depiction that compares relatively accurately with ground based observation of the sky reported in METARs.