5 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

It is far from ugly.

MS2024 looks great of course, but 2020 can still look spectacular if you don't limit yourself to default textures, weather and lighting. Four years is a long time these days considering the speed increase in technology, so 2020 is 'showing its age', but I can still look out of the simulated cockpit and be amazed at the scene before me.

Same for the other sims.  Out of the box they can look poor, but with a few addons they too can look very good indeed.

Why would I assess the sims based on add-ons? 2024 can get add-ons that will make it look even better too. These things scale based on the foundation they have to work with.

On 6/29/2024 at 9:46 AM, Tuskin38 said:

They've added cirrus clouds.

There's cirrus clouds like the real ones seen below, but when I see what HiFi did to produce 'cirrus clouds' it's really weak, and that I'm pretty sure has to do w/ limitations coming out of the current rendering engine:  they all look the same, like the flat plates they're made with.  Here's what real ones look like and if MSFS 2024 has anything in the ball park of these they will be welcomed for sure:

1 hour ago, Noel said:

Here's what real ones look like and if MSFS 2024 has anything in the ball park of these they will be welcomed for sure:

You can see cirrus clouds in the latest trailer as pointed out in the FSExpo presentation.

1 hour ago, Noel said:

There's cirrus clouds like the real ones seen below, but when I see what HiFi did to produce 'cirrus clouds' it's really weak, and that I'm pretty sure has to do w/ limitations coming out of the current rendering engine:  they all look the same, like the flat plates they're made with.  Here's what real ones look like and if MSFS 2024 has anything in the ball park of these they will be welcomed for sure:

It's not really a limitation of the engine, I think what's hard is to translate the raw data into rendered clouds, with all their possible forms. The default clouds don't look repetitive, but the issue is the weather engine isn't renderings all kinds of clouds (like the cirrus that were missing). 

It's also interesting to see your pictures show repetitive patterns. LOL 

Here’s a another comparison. Please note that my intention is mainly to compare imagery, DEM and the new 3D ground tech and not to replicate the exact same weather and lighting conditions.

If you want to check out the scenery for yourself, the farm is near San Giorgio in the Marche region in Italy (lat: 42.9242192206894 / long: 13.7720513942039).

Edited July 8, 20241 yr by Shack95

From the FSExpo presentation:

An this is what it looks like in real life (Google Street View, from a different perspective).

Three things stand out:

• IRL the fields are actually vineyards, so vines are apparently not part of the new plant range
• IRL there are no Mediterrenaen cypresses lining the road. Either the AI mistook them for cypress trees or they were placed by hand for the mission
• MSFS doesn't seem to have procedurally generated solar farms (see second comparison on the right)

This is not a criticism, of course. The scenery looks absolutely phenomenal!

Edited July 8, 20241 yr by Shack95

13 minutes ago, Shack95 said:

• IRL there are no Mediterrenaen cypresses lining the road. Either the AI mistook them for cypress trees or they were placed by hand for the mission

I've been curious about how the system will decide on placing tree types. My assumption with the many new tree species is that AI won't actually be able to use satellite imagery to place specific tree species accurately, but more that it will simply place certain types of trees in certain regions somewhat randomly based on broad rules the devs put in. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like it would be too granular for the AI to try to pick out the location of exact species. 

35 minutes ago, Shack95 said:

so vines are apparently not part of the new plant range

I don't think we should make that assumption just yet.

What a night and day difference in those shots! The colors really pop in 2024.

5 minutes ago, Krakin said:

I don't think we should make that assumption just yet.

What a night and day difference in those shots! The colors really pop in 2024.

I just checked the most grown crops in the world. Grapes are the 30th in the ranking. If they used that to pick the types, probably grapes will be there. BUT we don't know if the AI will always be spot on while picking the types of crops. 

Most grown crops in the world 2021 | Statista

You can still see the dark stripes from the actual crops in the 2024 crops.

 

  

1 hour ago, Shack95 said:

MSFS doesn't seem to have procedurally generated solar farms (see second comparison on the right)

At least not yet. They might be part of the VFR objects which haven't been implemented yet.

  

2 hours ago, Shack95 said:

Here’s a another comparison. Please note that my intention is mainly to compare imagery, DEM and the new 3D ground tech and not to replicate the exact same weather and lighting conditions.

If you want to check out the scenery for yourself, the farm is near San Giorgio in the Marche region in Italy (lat: 42.9242192206894 / long: 13.7720513942039).

How the heck did you even find this? Wow.

Edited July 8, 20241 yr by Tuskin38

1 hour ago, Krakin said:

I don't think we should make that assumption just yet.

 

1 hour ago, ca_metal said:

If they used that to pick the types, probably grapes will be there. BUT we don't know if the AI will always be spot on while picking the types of crops. 

Yeah, maybe. Information about how this works was somewhat unclear. I kind of doubt that AI is capable of determining tree species based purely on satellite imagery. @Dermot McClusky’s suggestion that the AI just picks crops/trees based on biome sounds more realistic to me. So the AI would determine whether it’s grass, crops, trees or whatnot, and the types of crops/trees would be based on biome. We‘ll see.

1 hour ago, Shack95 said:

 

Yeah, maybe. Information about how this works was somewhat unclear. I kind of doubt that AI is capable of determining tree species based purely on satellite imagery. @Dermot McClusky’s suggestion that the AI just picks crops/trees based on biome sounds more realistic to me. So the AI would determine whether it’s grass, crops, trees or whatnot, and the types of crops/trees would be based on biome. We‘ll see.

Someone posted this video in the official forums, It's interesting to see how the from 2D to 3D kinda works:

I mean, I know people would complain about melted buildings. But I would be happy if they covered the whole world with that tech (but letting people turn PG off).

E.G.:

Edited July 8, 20241 yr by ca_metal

1 hour ago, Tuskin38 said:

At least not yet. They might be part of the VFR objects which haven't been implemented yet.

Yes, true. 

1 hour ago, Tuskin38 said:

How the heck did you even find this?

With Windows Map app. The scenery looked very Italian to me, so I searched for a place in Italy with smaller hills and a mountain range in the background. There were actually only 2-3 likely places. Then I tried to narrow it down by finding the exact same perspective. The key here was to focus solely on the mountains in the background and not on the ground. Once I had that, it was easy. The spot was within just a few miles.  

I think Shack95 is secretly a competitive Geoguessr pro.