Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted

Since the other thread got locked thought I'd start another thread highlighting what's changed (can't find any other threads about the subject).  I hold out hope this $30+ USD product get's up to MSFS standards outpacing visually what we get with default aircraft (Avionics, etc. goes without saying). Let's see...🧐  

Pilot's you should start an MSFS thread in your forum here on Avsim exclusively for this release so nothing in confused with the P3D release.  I couldn't make heads or tails what's going on over there.  Nothing was listed that I could find concerning this update.

FS2020 

Alienware Aurora R11 10th Gen Intel Core i7 10700F - Windows 11 Home 32GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super OC 16GB - Pimax Crystal Light VR 

  • Commercial Member
Posted
5 minutes ago, Dillon said:

Since the other thread got locked thought I'd start another thread highlighting what's changed (can't find any other threads about the subject).  I hold out hope this $30+ USD product get's up to MSFS standards outpacing visually what we get with default aircraft (Avionics, etc. goes without saying). Let's see...🧐  

Pilot's you should start an MSFS thread in your forum here on Avsim exclusively for this release so nothing in confused with the P3D release.  I couldn't make heads or tails what's going on over there.  Nothing was listed that I could find concerning this update.

Dillon, I just posted the news here:

And yes thanks, that sounds like a great idea to create a separate MSFS B-314 forum thread. Looking forward to your feedback on the update.

Jerome

  • Like 1
Posted
1 hour ago, PILOT'S said:

Dillon, I just posted the news here:

And yes thanks, that sounds like a great idea to create a separate MSFS B-314 forum thread. Looking forward to your feedback on the update.

Jerome

Thank Jerome.  Took it for a spin but don't have much time to dive into it right now. I'll list what I've seen so far:

 -  Cockpit textures have been improved.  You guys did a good job in sharping them up.

 -  Cockpit gauges look to be improved as well

1. What I don't like off the bat is the window frames in the front cockpit which still look FS9ish.  This needs some work to look like the real world pictures you have in your documentation.  Look on page 53 in part one of your manuals.  This is how the cockpit window frames should look.  Whoever did the model needs to go back and fix the beams housing the glass in the forward cockpit windows.  If you could get the forward cockpit to look like those pictures that alone would bring this closer to how a MSFS detailed cockpit should look.  The rest of the cockpit looks fine especially if you're going to do a 'Study Level' version.  I thought more work needed to be done but your texture update made a difference.  Again the window frames is what's killing it 

2. The camera views in the cabin make no sense.  You guys need to reposition them so it's not like one is Casper the Friendly Ghost flying from the rafters.  Position them as a passenger sitting in the various seats, make sure there's a position for the various sections of the cabin.

3. Great job on the water rudder

4. If possible, you really need some splash down sounds and water sounds when on the water.  Something FSRealistic figured out how to do with their add-on (or what was present in older sims)

5. Fuel lever works now, great job

6. Engines still don't crack, their just on with the start button

I haven't tried the autopilot yet.  The Flight model was fine out the gate.  Again the cockpit is an eye sore only because of the dated window frames.  All in all with this being the first patch you're on your way to making this great. 

  • Like 3

FS2020 

Alienware Aurora R11 10th Gen Intel Core i7 10700F - Windows 11 Home 32GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super OC 16GB - Pimax Crystal Light VR 

Posted

Sounds like Pilot’s made a credible first effort at addressing raised concerns.
 

Jerome- have the queries about sounds, in particular the start up sequence, been charged for the work flow?

C

  • Like 2

Best-

Carl Avari-Cooper

Posted (edited)
4 hours ago, cavaricooper said:

Sounds like Pilot’s made a credible first effort at addressing raised concerns.

They have indeed!

I have checked a few things and can only agree. The addition of parking positions was a good idea, too
As you can see here, I started at Horta, clicked the mooring light switch and see this....
Note the addition of all flap positions at the lower right! 🙂

 

As to the water rudder issue, yes it works now, but there is no movement visible when using it in flight.
So it could well be that it is deactivated once out of the water, or it simply is a graphical glitch - not important at all, just nice to look at 🙂

 spacer.png

Edited by Scorpio47
  • Like 5

Juergen Vollmer

Flight sim enthusiast and real life pilot

  • Commercial Member
Posted
3 hours ago, cavaricooper said:

Sounds like Pilot’s made a credible first effort at addressing raised concerns.
 

Jerome- have the queries about sounds, in particular the start up sequence, been charged for the work flow?

C

Carl, ArezOne produced the sounds and this was already being discussed prior to release. Unfortunately ArezOne at some point started becoming difficult to reach, we have now been waiting for over 2 weeks for a reply to our most recent email to them, phone calls are not being answered, we have no idea why.

We are looking for alternative solutions to address such sound issues, which ideally should be done by ArezOne.

Jerome

  • Like 3
  • Commercial Member
Posted (edited)

There are two problems with the way that the forward view is displayed by the sim: one is perspective and the other is colour.

1. Colour. Quote from Boeing: "All exposed metal parts from sta. 153 to 244 are finished with dull black lacquer". (You can find the extract from the Model 314 Maintenance Manual on p109 of the Aircraft Manual). Zoom right in on the windscreen and you will see that the window bars are 3D but because they are flat (matt) paint they give the appearance of being 2D as there are no PBR reflections from the paintwork.

2. Perspective. Bring up an outside view of the aircraft and look at the flight crew. See how close they are to the glass? Rotate round to the nose of the aircraft. The windscreen bars are parallel. To achieve that inside the cockpit in the simulator would mean that you would not be able to see any of the instrumentation unless (and I'm guessing) you are using something like an Oculus headset. See the picture on p.55 of the Aircraft Manual.

The flight crew view is a trade-off between what it should be and what can be achieved within the limitations of a 2D monitor.

-Dai

[Edit]. There is a further problem with many of the photographs, not just the forward views. They are taken with a lens of greater than approximately 50mm focal length which will tend to distort the perspective. This is most obvious with many of the pictures attributed to LIFE magazine. I only have one photograph of the flight crew that was taken with what I'm guessing was a Box Brownie or similar because the windscreen bars in that picture are parallel. It was taken by a member of the flight crew and I chose not to use it in the manual. Too many photographs vying for too little space.

Edited by dragonflightdesign
  • Like 1
Posted (edited)
22 hours ago, dragonflightdesign said:

There are two problems with the way that the forward view is displayed by the sim: one is perspective and the other is colour.

1. Colour. Quote from Boeing: "All exposed metal parts from sta. 153 to 244 are finished with dull black lacquer". (You can find the extract from the Model 314 Maintenance Manual on p109 of the Aircraft Manual). Zoom right in on the windscreen and you will see that the window bars are 3D but because they are flat (matt) paint they give the appearance of being 2D as there are no PBR reflections from the paintwork.

2. Perspective. Bring up an outside view of the aircraft and look at the flight crew. See how close they are to the glass? Rotate round to the nose of the aircraft. The windscreen bars are parallel. To achieve that inside the cockpit in the simulator would mean that you would not be able to see any of the instrumentation unless (and I'm guessing) you are using something like an Oculus headset. See the picture on p.55 of the Aircraft Manual.

The flight crew view is a trade-off between what it should be and what can be achieved within the limitations of a 2D monitor.

-Dai

[Edit]. There is a further problem with many of the photographs, not just the forward views. They are taken with a lens of greater than approximately 50mm focal length which will tend to distort the perspective. This is most obvious with many of the pictures attributed to LIFE magazine. I only have one photograph of the flight crew that was taken with what I'm guessing was a Box Brownie or similar because the windscreen bars in that picture are parallel. It was taken by a member of the flight crew and I chose not to use it in the manual. Too many photographs vying for too little space.

I have an HP Reverb G2.  And I can tell you with confidence that the window frames need to be redone. There's no amount of textures that can fix that.  That look was acceptable back in the FS9/FSX days but now they need to redo those window frames.  It looks worse in VR.  Like I said above this alone would improve the look of the cockpit 100% as that's the only legacy sore spot in the VC.  Everything else is period level meaning pre-WWII styling.  There's not much to improve upon that.  I will say this, I hope they consider fully realizing the cabin area.  It would be nice to open the lower stairwell door from the cockpit, walk down the stairs, and into a fully realized cabin.  In MSFS this kind of detail is now possible without the performance hit of previous sims.  Today we have a virtual museum at our fingertips and nowhere is that more of an opportunity than with the B314.🍺

Edit: For your own reference, look at the cockpit windows frames from the only replica in existence (the B314 museum in Ireland).  There's no debate about the issue in the Pilot's version as most pictures from the replica's cockpit have been taken today's updated cameras... 

B314 musuem irland - Bing images

Edited by Dillon

FS2020 

Alienware Aurora R11 10th Gen Intel Core i7 10700F - Windows 11 Home 32GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super OC 16GB - Pimax Crystal Light VR 

  • Commercial Member
Posted (edited)

To quote me from the PILOT'S support forum on Avsim:

"Unfortunately the interior in the Foynes replica is just wrong from nose to tail. At the time it was built, it was built with the best information available (hence the Pan Am colour scheme)  but much more has come to light since."

You just need to search "Boeing 314" in Google. Be careful though; much that is marked as Boeing B-314 is Sikorsky S-40/S-42, Martin M-130 and Boeing B-307/B-377.

Also a full passenger cabin willl never be done for one good reason: there isn't enough publically available information out there to model it. What is there in MSFS is representational only because it can be seen through the windows. Trust me - I've looked and looked when I was doing the Prepar3D version. I know where there is information (and colour photographs at that, taken by Bay Area photographer Clyde H. Sunderland) but

a) Visual China can't be bothered to look for them (the Pan American Heritage Foundation has tried to persuade them to do so). Visual China bought Getty who bought Clyde's photographs from Pacific Aerial Surveys

b) if they actually knew which archives they were in (which according to PAHF, Visual China's responses indicated that they most likely don't know), the cost per photograph for commercial use would be too high.

I also know from talking to the Boeing archivists (not emailing) that Boeing do not have any additional information on the Model 314 over and above what is shown on their Archives website. The Smithsonian Museum were the recipients of the last remaining Model 314 archives from Boeing which consists of one Flight Operations Manual, one Maintenance Manual and the Rigging Manual (again, a phone call). The British Airways BOAC archives are non-searchable (except manually) and their archivists are volunteers who simply don't have the time to deal with small requests like mine (two phone calls).

That, to my regret, is a complete dead end.

 

Edited by dragonflightdesign
  • Like 1
Posted
On 3/18/2023 at 4:02 PM, cavaricooper said:

Sounds like Pilot’s made a credible first effort at addressing raised concerns.

They have indeed!

I have checked a few things and can only agree. The addition of parking positions was a good idea, too
As you can see here, I started at Horta, clicked the mooring light switch and see this....
Note the addition of all flap positions at the lower right! 🙂spacer.png

Juergen Vollmer

Flight sim enthusiast and real life pilot

Posted

Just a more general remark here:
I think it is pretty useless to discuss the interior of the Clipper, be it colours, textures, seat and table heights or anything, because as Dai already pointed out, (and he did a lot of research himself including phone interviews) there is very probably nobody alive today who would be able to tell us how that interior looked like then.

So let us better look at other issues or glitches that might need attention and not lose more time and energy with an issue that in the end boils down to a question of personal taste - and there are many as we know 😉

The present version flies very well, it coasts along nicely and can be steered with the water rudder (it works for sure, but does not move visibly at this time 😞 ), it can be moored and enjoyed in the air and on the water surface...

Thank you Pilot´s for such a nice product which deserves your and our love and attention for further improvements!

-Jürgen

Juergen Vollmer

Flight sim enthusiast and real life pilot

Posted (edited)
21 hours ago, dragonflightdesign said:

To quote me from the PILOT'S support forum on Avsim:

"Unfortunately the interior in the Foynes replica is just wrong from nose to tail. At the time it was built, it was built with the best information available (hence the Pan Am colour scheme)  but much more has come to light since."

You just need to search "Boeing 314" in Google. Be careful though; much that is marked as Boeing B-314 is Sikorsky S-40/S-42, Martin M-130 and Boeing B-307/B-377.

Also a full passenger cabin willl never be done for one good reason: there isn't enough publically available information out there to model it. What is there in MSFS is representational only because it can be seen through the windows. Trust me - I've looked and looked when I was doing the Prepar3D version. I know where there is information (and colour photographs at that, taken by Bay Area photographer Clyde H. Sunderland) but

a) Visual China can't be bothered to look for them (the Pan American Heritage Foundation has tried to persuade them to do so). Visual China bought Getty who bought Clyde's photographs from Pacific Aerial Surveys

b) if they actually knew which archives they were in (which according to PAHF, Visual China's responses indicated that they most likely don't know), the cost per photograph for commercial use would be too high.

I also know from talking to the Boeing archivists (not emailing) that Boeing do not have any additional information on the Model 314 over and above what is shown on their Archives website. The Smithsonian Museum were the recipients of the last remaining Model 314 archives from Boeing which consists of one Flight Operations Manual, one Maintenance Manual and the Rigging Manual (again, a phone call). The British Airways BOAC archives are non-searchable (except manually) and their archivists are volunteers who simply don't have the time to deal with small requests like mine (two phone calls).

That, to my regret, is a complete dead end.

Thanks for the detailed explanation.  Since you've basically stated, liberties have been taken over the years with this model and other real world displays like the Foynes museum, etc, why not do the same with this MSFS incarnation?   Leaving this model (on purpose) looking like a dated FS9 representation in MSFS is wrong to say the least.  Also it doesn't look like what the old real world pictures of the real bird portray. For older sims compromises had to be made in the VC, we don't have much of that concern now (this is why it comes across as a port over from the P3D model which seemed like a port from the FSX model and so forth😕).  These days yout can't find one marketed high to decent quality add-ons in MSFS with cockpit window frames like your model (if it does it's not selling).  That style went out of date around the year 2012.  I get it it's hard to tell what was really there.  Just the same how can you get the rear side windows in the VC perfect as to what's pictured in those old shots and reason away the forward cockpit windows?:wacko:  This makes no sense to me.  You nailed the rest of the VC.  If I took what your saying here for face value the whole VC should look off and it doesn't.  Common sense tells me those forward window frames could be much better represented and on par with the side windows in the VC.  Like you did with everything else, just go with what makes sense from the photos and build from there.  If this is a full rebuild like you all have stated this shouldn't be a big deal.  If this is indeed a port using older modeling methods from the original FS9 build, I understand the reasoning to push back on improvements in this area.😣😌  I'm going to take your word for it this is a new MSFS build. So if it takes some liberty to make the cockpit look more like an MSFS release versus an FS9 add-on release, make the improvement.  That's the real point overall.  So there's two fronts that have to be accommodated here, match the pictures you have in your documentation and alleviate the dated look.  

I can give things a pass concerning the cabin (although I hope you do more work to make it look as nice as possible to the real world pics).  It's a shame your take on the Foynes museum.  The cabin they produced actually looks like the photos of the real aircraft and if nothing else it makes since.  It's suspiciously convenient to dismiss it outright.  If that's the only real world representation we have you would think that's the option to go with especially if it matches the old pictures. You can't be a purist with nothing to go on and then turn around and dismiss what little we do have.😐

I'll say sorry before hand but as I said before I'm publicly holding you all to a high standard on this one.  The B314 is too Iconic in real world aviation only to have a half baked attempt in MSFS. You guys have brought this bird to us consistently in decent detail for over 15 years.  With each new technical improvement in FS versions you've responded in kind with your model.  If you stop now and ride on the look of a model for sims long gone, it's very noticeable.🧐   

Edited by Dillon

FS2020 

Alienware Aurora R11 10th Gen Intel Core i7 10700F - Windows 11 Home 32GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super OC 16GB - Pimax Crystal Light VR 

Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Scorpio47 said:

Just a more general remark here:
I think it is pretty useless to discuss the interior of the Clipper, be it colours, textures, seat and table heights or anything, because as Dai already pointed out, (and he did a lot of research himself including phone interviews) there is very probably nobody alive today who would be able to tell us how that interior looked like then.

-Jürgen

I would agree if it weren't for what Asobo/Micosoft have brought us with their early aviation renditions long gone.  Pilot's has produced the B314 for years plus we have pictures and a museum model to go on.  No more than what Asobo has had as reference for their birds.  Adding to that, Pilots has had a 10+ year head start with B314 they've produced in various versions of FS (I know, I've bought most of them).  A higher standard is in order.  It would be like PMDG producing the 737 series not that much different than the FSX version they produced many years ago.  PMDG pressed forward with what they could do with the new technologies afforded them in MSFS.  The same can be said for developers like FlyingIron and Milviz. Long standing developers like Pilots should be no different especially for something so small as cockpit window frames and a more realized cabin? 🙃  

Edited by Dillon
  • Like 1

FS2020 

Alienware Aurora R11 10th Gen Intel Core i7 10700F - Windows 11 Home 32GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super OC 16GB - Pimax Crystal Light VR 

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Tom Allensworth,
    Founder of AVSIM Online


  • Flight Simulation's Premier Resource!

    AVSIM is a free service to the flight simulation community. AVSIM is staffed completely by volunteers and all funds donated to AVSIM go directly back to supporting the community. Your donation here helps to pay our bandwidth costs, emergency funding, and other general costs that crop up from time to time. Thank you for your support!

    Click here for more information and to see all donations year to date.
×
×
  • Create New...