I am super excited for this release, as this release allows some unique simulation products to be created on this platform.

Obviously P3Dv6 is testing ground to P3Dv7 Unreal version.

See here Prepar3D V6 To Release This July - FSNews

Straight quote from the link

"However, there is hope. Lockheed Martin has partnered with Unreal for all of its simulation tools. This partnership has not played any part in the development of Prepar3D V6. However, there is the possibility of a whole new P3Dv7 running on Unreal Engine. This could rocket the Prepar3D product back into the limelight. Time will tell."

Edited June 30, 20232 yr by Bob Scott
//admin edit to thread title

Interesting. Is it Unity or Unreal? Or are they the same thing?

5 minutes ago, anden145 said:

Interesting. Is it Unity or Unreal? Or are they the same thing?

Unity is the company, Unreal is the engine.  But it is so used interchangeable all the time

 

The most powerful real-time 3D creation tool - Unreal Engine

 

Edited June 30, 20232 yr by Skywolf

6 minutes ago, Skywolf said:

Unreal is the company, Unity is the engine.

 

Really?? Now as far as I can find out.

Unity is owned and developed by Unity Technologies, which is based in San Francisco (originally started in Denmark).

Unreal Engine is owned by Epic Games, which is based in Cary, North Carolina. 

Am I missing something?!

EDIT: Unless it's not the Unity Engine, OP is talking about (in relation to P3D v7) ?

Edited June 30, 20232 yr by anden145

5 minutes ago, anden145 said:

Really?? Now as far as I can find out.

Unity is owned and developed by Unity Technologies, which is based in San Francisco (originally started in Denmark).

Unreal Engine is owned by Epic Games, which is based in Cary, North Carolina. 

Am I missing something?!

this is why it is confusing

 

Unreal Engine for Unity Developers | Unreal Engine 5.0 Documentation

 

 

Edited June 30, 20232 yr by Skywolf

You realize that this is just some guy making a prediction and not based on any statement from LM, right? No one except LM knows what V7 will bring. Maybe we can hold off on the breathless speculation for a few months.

1 minute ago, chapstick said:

You realize that this is just some guy making a prediction and not based on any statement from LM, right? No one except LM knows what V7 will bring. Maybe we can hold off on the breathless speculation for a few months.

This. It's just rehashing the same rumors that were said for v6 when LM first announced their work.

Cheers

Let me clarify what LM said at the FS Expo since I was able to attend their announcement.  Indeed, I asked about the Unreal engine option during the Q&A.  The response was that LM is considering using Unreal for P3D v7, but they have not made any decision.  In particular, the presenter (whose name I forget, but he is the P3D product manager for LM) said that changing to Unreal would essentially be a new P3D that would effectively break with all prior versions (including breaking compatibility with existing products). The problem LM has with moving P3D over to Unreal is that it could, and likely would, cause havoc with their big P3D contract users, and that would be a major issue to overcome.

This is speculation, but more of an "educated speculation" in that LM has actually mentioned the Unreal engine.

I'd love to see a revolutionary new flight simulator, but if LM does use this Unreal engine then it will likely involve a total redesign of the entire simulator - no more bgl files, for example.  There will be no backwards compatibility with any previous versions.

Moreover, just changing the engine might not be enough.  What will they do for the ground scenery for example?  Will it be based on satellite imagery like MSFS, or some GIS data land designation/class system like what we have now?  If they're going to make this big change, then I would hope that it would vastly improve the overall flight simulation, making it even more accurate and realistic. 

Dave

 

Well, they focus on the professional market where they almost have a monopoly and where the scenery representation is not quite important. So why would they drop the backward compatibility? They says that t would be a major issue to overcome and they are right.

It would mainly please the leisure / entertainment market (aka US!) but even for this (actually shrinking) market, losing the backward compatibility is a big gamble. they have no guarantees that the developpers would be back. They would have to start from scratch so a lot of people (and not only the future P3D 6.0 users) would have to jump into the boat right away, with a default sim and for a long time, before developpers focus their eyes on this market again and show any interrest. On the leisure market, LM is not Sony or Nintendo or even Microsoft/Asobo, they don't have the shoulders enough large to enroll developpers to jump right away into the boat just like Nintendo and Sony do when they launch a new console, with a lot of initial release to build a market for the new console.

 

Edited June 30, 20232 yr by sdirand

2 hours ago, Skywolf said:

Unity is the company, Unreal is the engine.  But it is so used interchangeable all the time

 

The most powerful real-time 3D creation tool - Unreal Engine

 

 

2 hours ago, anden145 said:

Interesting. Is it Unity or Unreal? Or are they the same thing?

Unity Technologies makes Unity Engine. Epic Games makes Unreal Engine. The two engines are absolutely not related.

2 hours ago, Skywolf said:

this is why it is confusing

Unreal Engine for Unity Developers | Unreal Engine 5.0 Documentation

 

49 minutes ago, Sethos said:

Unity Technologies makes Unity Engine. Epic Games makes Unreal Engine. The two engines are absolutely not related.

Just to add: the mentioned website says "Unreal Engine for Unity Developers" and states in the first sentences:
"Learn how to get started with Unreal Engine 5 if you previously used Unity.This page provides an overview of Unreal Engine (UE) for users who are familiar with Unity. If you have some Unity knowledge and want to learn how to apply what you learned to working in Unreal Engine, the sections below will help you get started."

So reading websites before posting them avoids confusion 😁

Curious:  would the Unreal Engine bring some version of ortho scenery to P3D, or just super efficient, pretty, but not necessarily photoreal in terms of matching the real world on a planetary scale?

Sorry, but idk the fixation for the unreal in a flight sim. It will break all addons to zero and also the people that begging all the time for Unrel maybe never played any game or sim in unreal or if do not picky or have. detailed view in many visual aspects. MSFS, DCS, Il2 BoX, P3D, XP12, Aerofly FS4 all very beautiful with the correct addons, all without the Unreal, so i not see any amazing advantage to jump to an Engine that have strong problems with performance. Infact of almost all of gaming engines it is the one that have worst performance for the same visual quality, also it tends to ugly do many popups in close distance shadows and many unreal games have problems with over lighting.

So changing to an overhyped engine thats only good for shooters and even for that exist better engines.

Unreal its only good to take some screenshots, if you see it in action, its slow, ugly popups, many times unrealistic lights and a hog to do updates because the games tend to be all in a single huge data files.

So let Unreal alone for the people that want to do close range view games and not want to deal with Unity neither have possibilities to have a proprietary or better engines. For some reason all the best flight sims are not in unreal engine....

Some times i feel that begging for unreal engine is like a religion where some guys want everything to be in unreal without any reasonable and rational explanation of the advantages over the cons.

Oh, we are talking about P3D V7 already! That bodes well for the reception of V6.