3 hours ago, Sethos said:

For me, flight simulation is about immersion and sometimes immersion can come from just knowing things are correct, in order and if I wanted to inspect it closer, it wouldn't break my immersion. If that's how my plane looks, that there's passengers on board, boats sailing the globe despite me not being near, that I could land down at that airport and it would look amazing, even though I can't see it from up here, it all givers a greater sense of immersion as you know you won't get presented with something that potentially breaks your suspension of disbelief.

Absolutely spot on. Low resolution textures are one example of an immersion smasher for me. There is nothing worse than flying an approach over beautiful scenery, landing at a highly detailed airport, and then being confronted with pixellated rubbish when I park at the gate

Edited July 14, 20232 yr by Christopher Low

18 hours ago, nobleord said:

Short answer to the title of your post... it is only you.

 

 

Nope.  There's a few of us.  I don't think in 20 years of flight simming I've ever gone to find a livery.  Maybe an aircraft will come with something different, but I never go to external camera so wouldn't be able to see it anyway. 

On 7/13/2023 at 2:40 PM, Los said:

what if aircraft in a sim were only concerned with a virtual cockpit (and maybe a wing view as required) and less with a 3D model of the aircraft - and all resources, both during in development and later use, were devoted to the flight model and/or systems?

Nice thought, but capitalism doesn't work that way. If most people didn't care about the external view, then most companies would just not bother to make it. That would not translate into putting extra resources into making the flight model better as a result. In many if not most cases, the people working on the 3d model aren't the same people who are working on the flight model or avionics anyway. Different skillset. 

 

The liveries are essential for me. I love watching the ground ops, and even cruising at points, from outside the aircraft.

Cheers, Pete

Airline pilots rarely leave the aircraft mid-flight to see how the plane's livery looks from the outside, at least not intentionally. To do so in FS is not realistic.

40 minutes ago, rjquick said:

Airline pilots rarely leave the aircraft mid-flight to see how the plane's livery looks from the outside, at least not intentionally. To do so in FS is not realistic.

 So is not doing a walk around, where interestingly enough, you get to see the livery...

Not to mention flying without a co-pilot and many other unrealistic things we commonly do in this hobby... 🤷‍♂️

My main whinge about liveries is that in some repositories the liveries and complete aircraft are in the same place in the web site. Makes finding stuff harder.

4 hours ago, rjquick said:

Airline pilots rarely leave the aircraft mid-flight to see how the plane's livery looks from the outside, at least not intentionally. To do so in FS is not realistic.

We’re all flying a desk, so why must it be realistic? Even when I do real world flying, I love looking at the outside of the plane before doing my pre-flight. Most of us became obsessed with aviation by looking at plane exteriors at the airport. 
 

Cheers, Pete

I do like my registrations , which come with the livery so I suppose relevant, to match the country I am flying in.

Dave

13 hours ago, rjquick said:

Airline pilots rarely leave the aircraft mid-flight to see how the plane's livery looks from the outside, at least not intentionally. To do so in FS is not realistic.

Using the "but in real life" argument is always a slippery slope, because it takes 2 second to rip it apart and makes you look a bit silly, as we're all playing a game with hundreds of immersion and realism breaking moments. As mentioned, real life pilots do walk-arounds of their plane, they also have to actually walk to said plane at some point. They aren't magically teleported into the plane, so they will see the outside of the plane multiple times.

14 hours ago, rjquick said:

Airline pilots rarely leave the aircraft mid-flight to see how the plane's livery looks from the outside, at least not intentionally. To do so in FS is not realistic.

But playing an airline pilot is "realistic"?

6 hours ago, Sethos said:

Using the "but in real life" argument is always a slippery slope, because it takes 2 second to rip it apart and makes you look a bit silly, as we're all playing a game with hundreds of immersion and realism breaking moments. As mentioned, real life pilots do walk-arounds of their plane, they also have to actually walk to said plane at some point. They aren't magically teleported into the plane, so they will see the outside of the plane multiple times.

I thought I was making my sarcasm apparent enough by adding the 'at least not intentionally' part. FS threads are loaded with comments about the lack of this or that feature ruining 'immersion' and causing aircraft to be 'parked in the hanger'. I find it amusing since 99% of FS not like real life. So, to cherry pick some particular item while ignoring the rest is interesting mental gymnastics IMHO.

As far liveries go, they are part of advertising to catch the travelers eye in photos at the airport. "Oh I like that one! I want to fly on that" kind of thing. The purpose of the walkaround has never been for the pilots to check out the livery, that is only in the FS world. The idea of an aircraft's livery design having any effect on a pilot's performance or willingness to operate the aircraft would be the lowest level professionalism that could be achieved. Such a person should not be flying a plane, perhaps even in FS. I have no problem with liveries in general though. The only issue I see is that the Pan Am livery of the 60s and 70s was the pinnacle of livery design and it's really pointless that any other attempts were made as they all pale in comparison.

On 7/13/2023 at 9:40 PM, Los said:

Would it be something closer to real Level-D simulators - where only the cockpit and systems matter?

look for Aerowinx B747-400, it's recently certified by FAA as system simulator and you can use it with MSFS as scenery sim with a bridge. Only con for me is the external hardware-panel conectivity, needs programming skills since there is a restricted USB handling for controllers only. But PSX/MSFS in conjunction is working fine, Im happy to have it. Best regards

Each to their own i say...

Liveries are definitely important to me, probably to the point of being a bit ridiculous if I’m being honest haha.  I’ve actually not flown a flight I otherwise want to do because the right livery isn’t available…I shake my head at myself sometimes 😀

I do spend lots of time outside the aircraft, both during boarding, taxi etc but also just looking around during cruise so an incorrect livery would definitely bug me.

To each their own though.