X-Plane 12 Rendering Engine Plan (Mesh shaders coming?)

[Inu 60]

Hey Guys,

New at Avsim, used to read a bit here and there but mostly been following X-Plane in Discord.

Unfortunately lots of the discord news for X-Plane are not being communicated in here so hopefully this thread will add some content around.

Anyway, for those who don't know, there have been some recent multiple Q&As in Laminar Research's discord with some VERY interesting news.

First, this is the transcript of the previous one, with Ben & Sidney: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13JkolLoebjceCGurDspg3ioijLhUuX-V9gKVDvcJGb0/mobilebasic#heading=h.lb4ymtifd380

 

This chart is kind of self-explanatory I believe, note that this is NOT everything planned, this is just their plan for the internal engine in general, also, not everything here is coming in the short-term.

The collector is coming in 12.1.0, while next stages are already under heavy WIP.

But here is one of the most interesting quotes from the transcript, by Ben Supnik:

Quote

So graphics was this embarrassingly parallelizable task that jump-started this very different form of computing that's now being used, for example, AI, network evaluation, right? That turns out to work out really well there. But it's people finding more good apps for this very different form of computing. When we look at this I think we mostly look at things adjacent to rendering as logical things to also look to move over.

 

So scene graph culling someday will be more on the GPU when we have mesh shaders everywhere. A bunch

 

As one can understand, Laminar are planning to implement Mesh Shaders.

Mesh Shaders are available in Vulkan & Metal, which may make them a perfect fit for X-Plane.

This piece of information really caught my eyes.

For those who don't know what they are:

https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/introduction-turing-mesh-shaders/

So it appears Laminar are planning to be the most modern engine out there by the end of this process, as I'm yet to see any other competition going THIS modern, not including the recently announced 2024.

[GoranM 3,772]

Thank you for sharing this.

Good things are coming, indeed.

[Inu 60]

2 hours ago, GoranM said:

Thank you for sharing this.

Good things are coming, indeed.

Yes many awesome stuff.

Also every "block" in this road map opens some new possibilities i.e. actor OBJs might open up FMOD & Particles for DSF objects.

I also wonder what are those "???" features? If I had to guess for one of them, possibly a new OBJ format? They did mention they were working on that for new animations and other features.

[turbomax 3,287]

4 hours ago, Inu said:

it appears Laminar are planning to be the most modern engine out there by the end of this process

I would prefer if "the most modern engine out there" would also fix some of the most old fashioned bugs out there, while they are at it.

 

" any other competition going THIS modern, not including the recently announced 2024."

🤣

Edited December 30, 2023 by turbomax

[jymp 168]

If it gets rid of bad AA and bad shimmering I'm all for it.

[turbomax 3,287]

4 minutes ago, jymp said:

If it gets rid of bad AA and bad shimmering

first things first: "turing-mesh-shaders" 🤣

[Murmur 3,944]

20 minutes ago, turbomax said:

I would prefer if "the most modern engine out there" would also fix some of the most old fashioned bugs out there, while they are at it.

Better anti aliasing has been announced and is in the roadmap. 😁

[DeltaWho 67]

I'm Dellanie from those Discord Q&As. Some points here
 

- The video for the second Q&A will be out soon. It's currently sat unlisted on a you tube channel waiting for us to come back from break.

- Better aliasing is on our roadmap... both very near term and future. 12.1.0, will introduce improvements to MSAA, but as you can see from the slide, TAA is our endgame.

[turbomax 3,287]

8 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Better anti aliasing has been announced

again?

[Inu 60]

 

5 minutes ago, jymp said:

If it gets rid of bad AA and bad shimmering I'm all for it.

Indeed rendering quality should be improved.

But when talking about this topic one needs to be a bit more specific, generally, there are multiple shimmering sources in X-Plane:

1) Any texture with an alpha Transparency/Translucency i.e. fence, trees and many other texture effects. 12.1.0 should bring MSAA for that as well, this should help a lot.

2) MSAA bug, it was not in the right "photometric values", will be fixed in 12.1.0.

3) Shadows, smoother shadows are coming in 12.1.0.

4) Specular/Reflection aliasing, the real solution for this will be TAA, planned after motion vectors as the chart says.

5) Ground texture tiling bug: There is a bug with the tiling shader that X-Plane uses for some of the ground textures, it is already fixed according to the bug tracker, not known when it ships though. IIRC it happens mostly using Nvidia GPUs when using anisotropic filtering. 

6) OBJ tint attribute: X-Plane can tint objects to create some art variations however there is a bug in that particular attribute as it randomizes every frame; look at the street cars especially, they change brightness every frame/when they OR the camera moves. LR are aware, not sure where it stands.

All together create the shimmering look, are completely different issues, all known by LR, I have no doubt they will be solved.

[Inu 60]

22 minutes ago, turbomax said:

first things first: "turing-mesh-shaders" 🤣

Not sure I get the sarcasm.

Both items will be worked on, AA improvements are coming in 12.1.0, TAA for specular artifacts will be worked on as well once they have motion vectors, all clear according to the charts.

Mesh shaders are a revolution for the geometry pipelines in rendering engines in general, much more exciting that Ray tracing or any other RTX feature imo, don't you want better scenery as well?

[Murmur 3,944]

11 minutes ago, turbomax said:

again?

Can you read?

[GoranM 3,772]

12 minutes ago, turbomax said:

again?

What do you mean “again”?  It’s been announced.  Where does “again” fit in the context?
 

 

2 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Can you read?

Sometimes, I ask that same question of people like him. 

[turbomax 3,287]

once upon a time, looong ago, it was the year of 2012  ...

Posted November 1, 2012

"I have two new tricks for HDR FSAA that I’m hoping to roll into 10.20.  (They’re new to X-plane)"

Ben Supnik

https://developer.x-plane.com/2012/11/a-flicker-of-hope-for-flicker/

[Inu 60]

54 minutes ago, turbomax said:

once upon a time, looong ago, it was the year of 2012  ...

Posted November 1, 2012

"I have two new tricks for HDR FSAA that I’m hoping to roll into 10.20.  (They’re new to X-plane)"

Ben Supnik

https://developer.x-plane.com/2012/11/a-flicker-of-hope-for-flicker/

What are you implying here? Because X-Plane 10 & 11 did have 2/4/8XSSAA, as promised in this almost 12 years blog post. 

Back then, X-Plane moved from forward rendering to deferred, you can read more about problems in AA as a result in google, as it is a big problem and a source for lots of research in the entire rendering industry, not just X-Plane.

Now in X-Plane 12, those are the big culprits in shimmering, a fair amount of them will be fixed in 12.1.0.

1 hour ago, Inu said:

 

Indeed rendering quality should be improved.

But when talking about this topic one needs to be a bit more specific, generally, there are multiple shimmering sources in X-Plane:

1) Any texture with an alpha Transparency/Translucency i.e. fence, trees and many other texture effects. 12.1.0 should bring MSAA for that as well, this should help a lot.

2) MSAA bug, it was not in the right "photometric values", will be fixed in 12.1.0.

3) Shadows, smoother shadows are coming in 12.1.0.

4) Specular/Reflection aliasing, the real solution for this will be TAA, planned after motion vectors as the chart says.

5) Ground texture tiling bug: There is a bug with the tiling shader that X-Plane uses for some of the ground textures, it is already fixed according to the bug tracker, not known when it ships though. IIRC it happens mostly using Nvidia GPUs when using anisotropic filtering. 

6) OBJ tint attribute: X-Plane can tint objects to create some art variations however there is a bug in that particular attribute as it randomizes every frame; look at the street cars especially, they change brightness every frame/when they OR the camera moves. LR are aware, not sure where it stands.

All together create the shimmering look, are completely different issues, all known by LR, I have no doubt they will be solved.