Jörg Neumann regarding the 40th anniversary

[SubtotalGuide 133]

Nothing about live weather in the interviews?

 

14 hours ago, Noel said:

My take on all of this, MSFS, it's rate of progression, etc:  I think all of this is way harder than it appears to be to get right.  We pontificate on what we think MS/A should be doing but we really don't have the entire picture like they do.  IOW, I don't see any 'hot air'.  I see our expectations are based on limited information.

Too hard to fix regressions? I think that is what most complaints are about, when they break something and let it slide for years.

Edited June 19, 2022 by Moana Lisa

[Fielder 3,644]

17 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

New interview with Jorg up at FSElite: https://fselite.net/content/interview-jorg-neumann-on-the-40th-anniversary-of-microsoft-flight-simulator/

Some excerpts, with my own bolding:
We also have Flights Sim Studios; the new offshoot from Aerosoft. They’re helping us with gliders. And then one of the helicopters is basically Asobo’s test bed, which is the Guimbal Cabri G2. The reason why we picked that out is that they’re in southern France. It is super important to have support from manufacturers. Seb [from Asobo] is actually there today sitting with their test pilots getting feedback if everything is working as expected. And I think that’s so valuable. So we said, yeah, it’s maybe not the most super well-known helicopter is pretty new, but they’re right local and they’re collaborative and that’s super important. 

 

Wikipedia image of Guimbal Cabri G2

[jcomm 5,890]

Helicopters will somehow dictate the true ability of MFS 2020 in terms of Flight Dynamics.

At the same time they're enhancing weather and the sailplanes aerodynamics ( this is a guess based on the mention to Flight Sim Studios, which I believe were probably behind that Aerosoft World of Aircraft Gliders Simulator  released in 2021 ).

These two items will push me further into MFS, although the present offer and my beloved 3 airliners ( FBW A32N, PMDG 737-700 and Fenix A320 ) are already a success in making MFS persist for so long in my disk :-)))

[DD_Arthur 1,048]

21 hours ago, Moana Lisa said:

I can fire up the release version right now and it's depressing seeing and experiencing exactly what this sim looked and performed like before while people keep making jokes and trying their best to make us believe otherwise. 

 

13 hours ago, filou said:

The balance of clouds, water, light is not the same as it was two years ago. that's all for me.

I live on the English channel coast, I like kayaking and sailing. In the past I've been all over the world and taken to the water in boats or flown over it in choppers. The colour of the sea is a constant variable according to time of day, time of year, tides, depth, cloud cover, biological factors.  From my favourite cliff top walk the sea can vary from gun metal grey to brown to a deep, inviting turquise - even in winter.  I don't beat myself up over the colour of the ocean in sims.

However, I do agree with the above; the overall lighting and colouring scheme has changed since the initial release and not for the better in my opinion. Live weather has got much, much better but the overall, washed-out picture we have now is the one that can be shoe-horned into the world of XBox.  I'm really hoping that one day in the not too distant future this can be revisited.

 

   

 

[NZ255 309]

It was a little worried when Nemeth Brothers were announced as the heli partners. But I’m hoping any shortcomings I thought there were can be down to the FSX flight model. Their models have always been pretty good.

It’s great Jorg’s taking to helisimmer.com for advice on third parties, I wonder if they tried approaching dodo of the bell 206 fame. 

Edited June 19, 2022 by NZ255

[Cpt_Piett 4,529]

I found what he said on gliders and thermals very interesting. I've never tried gliders in any sim, but if they manage to properly simulate thermals, it think it'd be fun. 

---

Calum [FSElite]: A few days ago, you announced the 40th anniversary of Microsoft Flight Simulator. And as part of that announcement, we saw a trailer with a bunch of new aircraft, historic aircraft, helicopters, at long last, because I know every time I think we talk, always asking about helicopters and gliders. So lots of cool, exciting new airplanes. Are you finally glad you’re able to bring these types of aircraft, helicopters and gliders, to the sim after all of this time?

Jorg: It’s been two years since launch and helicopters were pretty much at the top of the list for two years. And we’re listening so carefully to the community, helicopters were at the top. It dropped off because third parties did such a good job. Then a lot of people said, “we want a study-level, or thereabouts airliner.” So those are the three things we said we need to nail in 2022.

Are we glad? Yeah! It actually is interesting because it’s a bunch of different work. Sebastian from Asobo has been rewriting the Fluid Dynamic system quite a bit to evolve the simulator for helicopters since lift is different in helicopters. He can go on and on about all the details, but he and his team are brilliant and it took this long to actually get it that good. It is the same with gliders. You need thermals, which are completely different. Some people think that we have thermals, but we actually don’t have thermals in the sim. For it, you need to know what the terrain is, where the sun is, how much moisture there is, what the wind conditions are, etc. Then you can get thermals and we actually needed a bunch more data that we didn’t have before.

[Noel 4,486]

5 hours ago, Moana Lisa said:

Nothing about live weather in the interviews?

 Too hard to fix regressions? I think that is what most complaints are about, when they break something and let it slide for years.

Go ahead and itemize the broken things that have not been fixed 'for years' now here at 1.8y since launch.

[lwt1971 7,347]

1 hour ago, Cpt_Piett said:

I found what he said on gliders and thermals very interesting. I've never tried gliders in any sim, but if they manage to properly simulate thermals, it think it'd be fun.

....

"Are we glad? Yeah! It actually is interesting because it’s a bunch of different work. Sebastian from Asobo has been rewriting the Fluid Dynamic system quite a bit to evolve the simulator for helicopters since lift is different in helicopters. He can go on and on about all the details, but he and his team are brilliant and it took this long to actually get it that good. It is the same with gliders. You need thermals, which are completely different. Some people think that we have thermals, but we actually don’t have thermals in the sim. For it, you need to know what the terrain is, where the sun is, how much moisture there is, what the wind conditions are, etc. Then you can get thermals and we actually needed a bunch more data that we didn’t have before."

Ya the further advancements of their fluid dynamics (CFD) tech is very interesting (i.e. beyond SU9), and also definitely looks like considerable enhancements to thermals and atmospheric airflow are coming probably in SU11 or whatever SU that the 40th anniversary edition ends up being. 

Note from the last Q&A where Seb goes into more detail about the coming atmospheric airflow improvements from this timestamp onwards (which is what Jorg alludes to above): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1308771411?t=01h19m03s

"Currently it is local thermals, that don't combine with the other air, no vortices, etc. There is research work going on that took the CFD of the airplanes and extended it to 20km around the aircraft, really very very very big CFD running that goes pretty high as well, to simulate airflows in the atmosphere, better updrafts and winds, you get vortices with air going back down.  Improvements of airflow arround mountains and terrain"

Btw, I never thought I'd actually see Navier-Stokes equations solving coming into a flight sim, but here we are with MSFS where CFD is also being expanded to atmospheric airflow simulation (see their ref https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/storage/attachments/2425-debug-aircraft-cfd.pdf if you're interested in the technical details, hopefully they'll update this doc after SU11 for above improvements)

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by lwt1971

[btacon 1,772]

1 hour ago, lwt1971 said:

Btw, I never thought I'd actually see Navier-Stokes equations solving coming into a flight sim, but here we are with MSFS where CFD is also being expanded to atmospheric airflow simulation (see their ref

May this be a reminder to all just how far this simulation (yes simulation, not game) has evolved in the past two years since release on PC. Amazing times!

-B

Edited June 19, 2022 by btacon

[Tuskin38 6,451]

21 hours ago, filou said:

my god.Toothpaste color for children

It's realistic. Go visit the tropics sometime.

[Lord Farringdon 477]

Asobo, their partners and 3PD's have pushed out so much in these past 12 months or so, I simply cant keep up. From Reno to Maverick , from Flying Irons Spitfire to Maddog, Fenix and PMDG, from WU's from Australia, to Spain, Italy and the USA revisited. To the discoveries, to the bush trips, the challenges and the points' of interest, .not to mention all the market place goodies.   I can't keep up with the pace of delivery, my sim workload is just way too high.  I am way behind the aeroplane!  And, it seems Jorg and his team are just going to keep pumping out more incredible products and capabilities over the next 12 months. Let me just say, I am feeling their fatigue more than they are!!!

Unfortunately, I still work for a living so a few hours a week is about all I can spend on this sim but it is the 2-3 hours a week I most look forward to!!.  I have a bunch of hangar queens including the B737-700 which apart from running up the APU and stuffing up the flight plan a hundred times, I haven't even had a chance to fly yet. But just to let you know, it's on my priority list and when I finally do get her airborne,  I wont give a flying word not allowed what colour the water is!!! 

    

Edited June 20, 2022 by Lord Farringdon

[Ricardo41 5,935]

16 hours ago, Tuskin38 said:

It's realistic. Go visit the tropics sometime.

This is always funny, folks claiming "this is not how it looks in real life! - this from people who obviously have no idea how "it" looks in real life.

[RichUK 474]

1 hour ago, Ricardo41 said:

This is always funny, folks claiming "this is not how it looks in real life! - this from people who obviously have no idea how "it" looks in real life.

Yep. I live in South Florida and can attest that the sea often has that color in real life.  

[SubtotalGuide 133]

All this quoting of interviews and Q&As, people still believe? How many times have we gone through this now? New features being hyped only to turn out half-baked and abandoned soon thereafter. Months of voting and reports being swept under the zendesk trying to get it fixed and improved. What will be different this time?

 

7 hours ago, Lord Farringdon said:

I can't keep up with the pace of delivery, my sim workload is just way too high.

Neither can the sim I heard.

Edited June 20, 2022 by Moana Lisa

[ca_metal 2,015]

1 hour ago, Moana Lisa said:

All this quoting of interviews and Q&As, people still believe? How many times have we gone through this now? New features being hyped only to turn out half-baked and abandoned soon thereafter. Months of voting and reports being swept under the zendesk trying to get it fixed and improved. What will be different this time?

 

Neither can the sim I heard.

Some people are happy with the progress so far. Maybe different points of view?

People underwhelmed by the progress so far have a reason to disbelieve them, but a portion of the community is happy and waiting for the future updates.