3 hours ago, bobcat999 said:

They should get rid of those black lines before giving us tracks in the mud and pebbles in the water

I am so glad you're not in charge

Grumpy Simmers

7 hours ago, urthgental said:

Grumpy Simmers

No, not at all. I am lucky to be very happy in my life, but would just like this already superb sim to improve in certain areas.  Anything wrong with that?

It seems like certain Asobo fanatics can't understand this though and try to defend them to the hilt at every turn by trying to belittle people who have any criticisms at all.  Sad.

They are great customers to have though. I bet someone could sell them sand for sugar and they wouldn't mind. 

 

8 hours ago, Krakin said:

I am so glad you're not in charge

Well I am glad you are glad! 

So let's get this straight.  If I was in charge, I would try to fix the black lines first (which we have had for four years), before giving you pebbles in the water and tracks in the mud (which of course could easily come after), but you wouldn't want that? 

Hmmm... oh well.  A perspective I really don't understand, but we are all different, and have different ideas on priorities.

I have never actually seen those thin black lines in the water (or on land for that matter). It is the thick black "land bars" that annoy the hell out of me. I cannot fly the runway 02 approach into EGHI Southampton without cringing at the two examples of this that stretch across Southampton Water

On 10/10/2024 at 4:36 AM, MrFuzzy said:

Asobo said in an early interview that the release of a new sim instead of a sim update for MSFS was necessary because many things were not possible with the current graphics engine. They explicitly mentioned "new engine" on many occasions.

 

This isn't how graphics engines work.  Even UE5 still uses some bones probably going all the way back to UE1 - it's why there are certain quirks of Unreal Engine going back years and years.  Something not being possible with the current engine doesn't mean they throw out the entire thing and start from zero.  It means they want to overhaul and make some deeper changes to at least some of how their engine and toolset works, which is difficult to then transplant into an existing product.

A lot of people fundamentally misunderstand what graphics or game engines even are.

Edited October 12, 20241 yr by Scottoest

3 hours ago, bobcat999 said:

Well I am glad you are glad! 

So let's get this straight.  If I was in charge, I would try to fix the black lines first (which we have had for four years), before giving you pebbles in the water and tracks in the mud (which of course could easily come after), but you wouldn't want that? 

Hmmm... oh well.  A perspective I really don't understand, but we are all different, and have different ideas on priorities.

But even this assumes it's an either/or choice of marginally equal effort, completed by the same team of people in the same department.

A lot of the graphical quirks of MSFS from day one have probably had more to do with imperfections in their satellite data, how it's imperfectly processed by the algorithms that ultimately take all of that data and turn it into 3D flight simulator terrain, and how it's impossible to QA the entire planet to make sure it looks right.

1 hour ago, Scottoest said:

But even this assumes it's an either/or choice of marginally equal effort, completed by the same team of people in the same department.

A lot of the graphical quirks of MSFS from day one have probably had more to do with imperfections in their satellite data, how it's imperfectly processed by the algorithms that ultimately take all of that data and turn it into 3D flight simulator terrain, and how it's impossible to QA the entire planet to make sure it looks right.

Yes.  It's likely due to technical limitations as well.  Maybe it's 'GIGO' too (garbage in, garbage out).  Bad satellite data resulting in a bad simulation. And that's where the competition can score points. Like Google and X-Plane partnering so as to light a fire under Microsoft/Asobo's b_tt to keep them motivated, going, and exploring new places or areas in tech too. 

Edited October 12, 20241 yr by bofhlusr

3 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I have never actually seen those thin black lines in the water (or on land for that matter).

This is good news.  But I'm wondering if you'd see them in other places where a LOT of other people have seen them too. 
Black lines in the water - Bug Reporting Hub / Scenery and Airports - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

One place you can try is to take-off from the San Francisco International airport (KSFO), head north over the bay waters to Treasure Island and Alcatraz (San Francisco would be to your left) and then go straight westerly to the Golden Gate Bridge (total distance is probably less than 10 miles from KSFO to the Golden Gate Bridge).

 

🪧 BLACK LINES MATTER 

1 hour ago, bofhlusr said:

Yes.  It's likely due to technical limitations as well.  Maybe it's 'GIGO' too (garbage in, garbage out).  Bad satellite data resulting in a bad simulation. And that's where the competition can score points. Like Google and X-Plane partnering so as to light a fire under Microsoft/Asobo's b_tt to keep them motivated, going, and exploring new places or areas in tech too. 

Google are never going to give a company that level of direct access to their data, and it would make no business sense for LR to pay for it - in particular at X-Plane's scale.

Microsoft are only doing it because they own and have complete control over both ends - Bing's data on one end, Flight Sim at the other, AND the Azure delivery mechanism between them to stream the petabytes of data required.  And even they've had to make additional third-party contracts for supplemental data to fill out the global picture, like weather and now live updates of ships around the world.  They're also in a position to look at a larger business picture and absorb some of these costs.

Stuff like terrain morphing is because of imperfect LOD transitions, which is fairly simple to iron out when you're hand-tweaking and QAing a stretch of terrain.  At 1:1 planetary scale, you have to trust your automated processes to handle 95% of it, while your team can try and iron stuff out around places you know will be heavily traffic like major cities and airports, or major landmarks. Same with stuff like water masks  - they're literally doing that stuff by hand as much as they feasibly can, but the planet is massive.

I don't think it has anything to do with "garbage" data, and more because what they're doing here is completely unprecedented and they're refining things as they go along.  I think people have kinda become accustomed to and taken for granted how bonkers what they're doing here is, because we've now had it for four years.

Edited October 12, 20241 yr by Scottoest

5 hours ago, Scottoest said:

But even this assumes it's an either/or choice of marginally equal effort, completed by the same team of people in the same department.

I am willing to accept that.  It is most likely the case, but still, they could have diverted some effort into this area. 

It is fixable as they have fixed it before. 
We had the black lines really bad at times after some early updates, with Sarasota Bradenton airport and Flagstaff airport runways so bad you could flip over the lines and end up on your roof in a C182 , but they are both fine now.

Orbx have also done work to get rid of them in the water around London City airport. So there must be a system, and maybe Asobo just need more reports of where they are.

6 hours ago, Scottoest said:

Google are never going to give a company that level of direct access to their data, and it would make no business sense for LR to pay for it - in particular at X-Plane's scale.

It'll be a moot point if Google owned LR.  Google maps vs. Bing maps.

11 hours ago, bofhlusr said:

It'll be a moot point if Google owned LR.  Google maps vs. Bing maps.

And... is there any indication Google are interested in buying LR? lol.

22 minutes ago, Scottoest said:

And... is there any indication Google are interested in buying LR? lol.

They should let get rid of their M&A (merger and acquisitions) team if it became publicly known, wouldn't they?