3 hours ago, Tuskin38 said:

2024 has newer LA photogrammetry 

After I saw your shots, I checked the Maps app, and the trailer shots look different indeed. I can see differences on some buildings missing, asphalt colors and crosswalk colors (the old ones were red, the new ones are just white), and also some of the parks and plazas are different.

It's really great, because the Maps/Bing PG is old.

4 hours ago, Shack95 said:

Hmm, your LA screenshot looks better than the one from the trailer. I guess (hope) that's because of the zoom.

depth of field is the culprit. But the old LA still looks more like the zombie apocalypse happened.

Put the 2020 trailer up against the 2024 version. That is the true comparison lol. 

One thing that is being overlooked is the huge improvement in the sense of scale. Especially noticeable in the yosemite valley comparison shot.

13 hours ago, Shack95 said:

Pisagua, Chile:

I do hope that’s representative of the lighting more generally, as I think it’s maybe the best lighting I’ve seen in any software. And I play Cyberpunk with path tracing.

Edit: and you guys are amazing identifying all these places from short extracts. How do you do that…?

Edited June 11, 20241 yr by scotchegg

21 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

I do hope that’s representative of the lighting more generally, as I think it’s maybe the best lighting I’ve seen in any software. And I play Cyberpunk with path tracing.

Edit: and you guys are amazing identifying all these places from short extracts. How do you do that…?

I strongly suspect that ray traced global illumination is at play here. Thee way light is interacting with the aircraft body and bouncing off of it and also creating soft shadows is a strong indicator. 

9 minutes ago, Baber20 said:

I strongly suspect that ray traced global illumination is at play here. Thee way light is interacting with the aircraft body and bouncing off of it and also creating soft shadows is a strong indicator. 

I do hope so, because if they’ve got that working on Xbox to this level, I might be able to hold off on a PC upgrade a while longer. Very welcome considering the yen has taken a massive dump.

Just now, scotchegg said:

I do hope that’s representative of the lighting more generally, as I think it’s maybe the best lighting I’ve seen in any software.

like so?

both x-plane 12.

"as I think it’s maybe the best lighting I’ve seen in any software."

I think the lighting is still superior and more natural in x-plane. but that's about it.

Edited June 11, 20241 yr by turbomax

1 hour ago, scotchegg said:

I do hope that’s representative of the lighting more generally, as I think it’s maybe the best lighting I’ve seen in any software. And I play Cyberpunk with path tracing.

Edit: and you guys are amazing identifying all these places from short extracts. How do you do that…?

Yeah, I also liked it. I think that's the new lighting they've ported partially to 2020. But because of the differencies between engines, it didn't make a huge difference. 

1 hour ago, turbomax said:

I think the lighting is still superior and more natural in x-plane. but that's about it.

XPs lighting is great in many cases. Haven’t seen anything that looks as good as the A400 scene, but then again that could be a fluke.

1 hour ago, ca_metal said:

Yeah, I also liked it. I think that's the new lighting they've ported partially to 2020. But because of the differencies between engines, it didn't make a huge difference. 

Yup true, waiting to hear/see more about the re-written new atmospheric engine in MSFS 2024 which will properly fix the colors, and also the horizon line problem. The real-time computation of integrals off-loaded to the GPU sounds interesting, and also a clue about how they plan to increase precision while doing it efficiently with the available hardware resources. This won't be like v2020 which is based on pre-computations adjusted by scalars (so stuff like the 3 constants which Biology fixed for the v2020 atmospheric colors don't even apply in v2024)

Per a recent Q&A https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/september-2023-live-developer-stream-transcription/610612

Seb: “I can answer that. I think some people might have even noticed this in the trailer that Jorg talked about back in June. This issue required a complete overhaul of the atmospheric engine. For those who are mathematically inclined, there are two integrals involved. In Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, these integrals were pre-computed, which led to precision errors. In the rework of the atmospheric engine, everything is sampled in real-time, with the graphics card handling the computations, eliminating virtually all precision errors. This was a significant architectural change. The only way to address it in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 was to attempt to find a way to remove the horizon line, but this issue has been resolved since then. However, it didn’t make it into the trailer. So, I would say it’s a positive change.”
 

Edited June 12, 20241 yr by lwt1971

Do not compare actual game VS trailers, you may have a huge disappointment when FS2024 is released. 

Even with improved AI generated terrain, I doubt for example that all the mountains will look like this:

5 minutes ago, MrFuzzy said:

Do not compare actual game VS trailers, you may have a huge disappointment when FS2024 is released. 

Even with improved AI generated terrain, I doubt for example that all the mountains will look like this:

They've messed with the LODs so much in the current Sim that you'd think they've finally "got it right" in the next, but yes best to keep expectations in check after all this is just a marketing video, but it did look good there's no denying that!

1 hour ago, MrFuzzy said:

Even with improved AI generated terrain, I doubt for example that all the mountains will look like this:

Yes, most places won‘t look like this. This mountain is photogrammetry and most places won‘t have that (like most other mountains shown in the trailer).

LOD popping and terrain morphing is another concern. You never really see that in trailers because the camera usually stays in the same spot and just pans or the scenes are too fast to see it. There is actually some tree popping in the trailer. In this mountain scene for instance there’s a bunch of trees suddenly disappearing in the distance. In another scene there‘s a cactus popping in pretty conspicuously.  

I haven‘t seen any terrain morphing yet. I hope that‘s a good sign. But then again I remember when they updated Switzerland with high-def imagery and DEM the trailer looked flawless as well (apart from one small morphing cliff) and in reality it was a morphing disaster, at least without maxed out settings and in VR.

As far as I can tell they don‘t „cheat“ in these trailers. In most of them you could see places that looked far from perfect, some even with generic textures. Also in this one. They just edit them cleverly.

 

Edited June 12, 20241 yr by Shack95

@Shack95 It's hard to compare some of these photos because the time of day and lighting are different. Best is to match the time of day, so that the sun direction will be similar.

For some of the comparison photos, it looks like even the time of year was different (ie. the MSFS 2024 photo showing winter and snow, the MSFS 2020 photo showing it's spring):

If the time of day, height and camera angle, and season can be matched, it would make it easier to compare.

Edited June 12, 20241 yr by abrams_tank