Claviateur

Yes PPL is not as easy as we might think... Here in Canada it is not actually. I think my cousin had to go through Spins recovery training that is not fun at all.

I hope MS contributed to this valuable investment. After all, it's for sake of research and development of its own project 😛

I could be mistaken but the concept as I understood it in this initial post remind me of the concept of "Second Life". But here we can call it "Second World" 🙂

For the first time a PC simulator will be what it should be (i.e: not an airline operation flight sim) simply because it will feature the virtual world as it should be. We call it a VFR world but it is basically a "must have world" in any PC Simulator. Hopefully MSFS will make the PC flight sim what it was always trying to be: Simulate aviation with its many types and styles... This virtual planet will be all set (and again for the first time) to offer an immersion at any altitude and speed... So any other existing PC simulator with only freeware or commercial VFR limited areas (aka "VFR theaters") should basically (on paper) become useless for the fans of GA, bush flying or helicopters if the flight models in MSFS are, again, convincing enough... Yet all those who still like airline operations will continue with their old habits with some additional benefits (weather realism, airports services etc)... All this should be in my opinion MSFS (sales) value and I doubt any existing title will be able to compete easily in the near future. Therefore they will have to continue on their own path and values. I have the feeling all what the (existing) competition(s) could hope for, is that the flight model in MSFS will not be up to the expectation of many and thus they will keep using (and investing in) their old simulators... This is their only hope to avoid an initial exodus to MSFS.

For the first time we have a VFR world to explore. If the default GA aircraft fly in a fairly convincing way (i.e: not like paper planes or kites), one will have so many hours of fun before even thinking about addons.

Yes the parameters in this city at least are set on the bright side, the clouds can tell 🙂 Also it could be some settings related to the global brightness/contrast/saturation in the simulator. There is a variety of saturation and vividness in the screenshots we've seen so perhaps, not sure, users can tweak the look and feel of the sim as they wish.

Yes I think dynamic light appears and becomes functional at a specific (draw) distance like any other element based on the graphic settings. I suppose dynamic street lights as well. Again, I could be wrong of course, but I would be very surprised if MSFS engine uses by default night textures for the ground no matter how many types we will have (generic, aerial or Photogrammetry). However, there are possibilities the engine supports multiple texture types based on time or date or other factors. We could ourself create these duplicates with baked light (as we can do in the other sim) but with modern engines it's obsolete. The SDK will tell us for sure. In fact, dynamic lights could somehow affect performance on one side, yet loading the VRAM with a huge set of night textures could be a bigger performance issue.

I am not sure I understand what you mean by two types of textures. In the other simulator, the street lights, parking lights, airport lights etc are dynamic. A light source from a light pole produces the light based on parameters. For the buildings, however, there is a night texture with only the windows painted as if they are lit... The light source(s) near the buildings will project the light on the infrastructure walls.. The snow is dynamic too. A plugin for the other simulator does it so Asobo's engine will certainly handle it. The snow video I saw seems to me dynamic snow coverage. Here is an example of a tweaked (dynamic) light configuration in the other sim showing the spill, intensity, tones and bloom from the street light poles. As for the buildings they have a night texture with the windows painted as if they are lit (à la FSX)...

I think there is nothing wrong with a thread trying to analyze anything related to the product... It is not labeled as official news (otherwise it would be labeled fake news). So why not? Analyzing is something even professional reporters do in economy, politics and world matters. They have no real info but they can have a clue. Using some common sense, known similar situations and sometimes the past, we can predicts the future in similar cases right? So there is nothing wrong about analyzing anything related to this project as long as it is labeled as such and here I think it is.

I believe all this is customized in the graphic settings. But I was referring to the ground textures being dynamic not the building lights 🙂 or maybe they are too. I need to watch again maybe 😉

I am not sure it's an illuminated ground texture, this is the dynamic lighting intensity that probably changed. I suppose this happened after the previous Alpha versions? I would be very very surprised if MSFS has baked lights in the ground textures. This process is obsolete in the engine feeding the actual sims, let alone an advanced engine like Asobos's. When I mentioned the other sim, it was precisely because it has this dynamic street lights producing similar effects. There is a light (text) file people can tweak by adjusting the parameters. We can download so many configs with results radically different in terms of intensity, bloom etc. All this with few tweaks in the config file. I presume Asobo handle the dynamic lights in a similar way.

Yes I think the way it was done, it was straight forward and seemed as if it was an Early Access. And yes, absolutely, the old ways of recruiting testers was different. More traditional... With social media today, the indie game studios (startups) and the trends of video games with Early Accesses, incremental software development and all this trend in the dev processes involving the fans, was not there when the previous FS versions were developed and tested... I suppose the whole scene changed radically from the days when FSX was developed and tested. When was that by the way, 2005/2006? It's a very long time ago, tech wise. Again, not only the trends I mentioned but social media back then were in their early days and were nothing of what they are now when it comes to how corporate and companies leverage their use... It was a brilliant new, interactive and live way to advertise your product and companies. The presence of these companies on the social media, the fresh and continuous updates about an upcoming product and the contact with customers, users, fans etc... That was not there during the birth FSX... If we put advertisement and Marketing factors on the side for a moment, I think the Open Alpha of MSFS was a clever idea. Asobo will hopefully get valuable (early) data and info about performance and issues to avoid a big traffic jam in R1/RC. I am not part of the Alpha and I don't believe I will. Maybe not even the Beta who knows... My actual setup, although strong enough for all the simulators in town, seems logically not part of the hardware pool of what MSFS requires... Yet we tend to forget and I think it's part of the illusion, that over the shoulders of Asobo there is a company called Microsoft. And it's a big corporate with all the traditional methods we know about corporates. So no matter how the trends drive companies to change their methods of dealing with dev processes and users interaction, we must expect Microsoft to remain in its traditional zone of comfort when it comes to decisions... Hence it's not Asobo's final word, this brilliant small indie game dev group, but rather Microsoft... But then again, maybe the mix between Asobo's indie spirit and Microsoft traditional approach to dev processes, made the whole recruiting process seemed a bit confusing... Yet, in its deep reality, the process was in my opinion meant to be controlled based on hardware etc. And maybe, (and I say maybe), MS and Asobo felt the wave of disappointment lately and tried to compensate for this confusion when they opened again the Alpha to an additional audience... However, I have no idea if Alpha testers will get free access to the RC copy or any other advantage when MSFS is released.

It is not Early Access although it seems like it.. But I understand the frustration...

I do not know and I do not worry either. They are the ideal specs maybe? Those who can afford them will get the all dressed version of MSFS. Maybe I will not be able to afford a PC that gives me this ultra details 4K software but it's fine, I know the capability of the engine behind it.

These videos show how the simulator look and feel and behave with its maximum graphic capacity on the optimum peace of hardware. It is a normal demonstration that is relevant and logical for a company to display to promote and showcase its talent and skills vs the technology of today. And to publicize the product in it's max value... What Asobo are showing us is what MSFS should look like if it's well served by the proper hardware... A mother company will never ever reduce the settings of its software and promote 3/4 or 1/2 of its capability...

The open Alpha idea altogether is not something that happens too frequently in this manner. An Open Alpha is not the equivalent of an Early Access. It does not have the same purpose or democracy. And the company can be selective of its pool of testers and this is normal. Initially, I thought myself that the SDK was an early access, when they mentioned it would be available before new year (2020) and I expressed my frustration when they mentioned the partners thing... But soon after, I understood (or noticed what others noticed before me) that it's an Alpha as well aka not complete and only meant for a closed group of commercial developers for obvious reasons... What we are witnessing in this elegant Marketing process is something we can call "the road to MSFS release". The way this "road" (aka Alpha) is publicized, makes it sound like an early access or a Beta... But unfortunately it is not... It's an incomplete and incremental software meant to be tested early enough for the purpose of having enough bench results on the relevant pool of hardware and with unpredictable and different use cases. This gives, hopefully, enough margin of manoeuvres for Asobo to start optimizing as early as possible... All in all, I think the Open Beta should be the relevant moment to be frustrated if we are not selected 🙂

Yes indeed, this is something to expect either at this distance or further away depending on the graphic settings. But I did not mention anything about the quality... What I meant is that I just felt for one moment the night scene look a lot like the other simulator with dynamic light freeware configs one can download + some custom clouds + a commercial 747 addon ... And there too the autogen appears gradually from a distance if we set the graphics accordingly...

Well yes and no. I don't think buying a 747 is relevant here as a scenario but a "pilot career" mode as you described (minus buying a jumbo) where you upgrade or make your way through different possible scenarios and try to make it through a specific flying career of your choice (airline, bush, helicopter for rescue etc) would be a great idea in a flight simulator as it's something that would give it a new dimension for many people. I see it very valuable to introduce MSFS to those who think flight sim is boring... XBox users could be interested by this side of MSFS... I think for example about the soccer/football games with career modes. These modes add a very nice dimension to the game while leaving the straight forward matches and competitions for those who want to live instant actions...

For one moment I thought it was the other simulator with some mods and addons if it wasn't for the gauges in external view. This illusion was reinforced by the limited drawing distance and the "autogen" that appeared gradually. Most probably this is from the user graphic settings.

Yes but Asobo have a lot to do already. As a global rule of thumb in companies, if it is there and well done why spending time and money on developing you own, you open the purse and negotiate a price and make it yours... It could be a 3D model or a whole software or even a software development studio, many companies buy any solution to add to their portfolio instead of the higher cost of doing theirs... MS did this so many times, other too and a company were I was did it as well. In fact, I thought initially that maybe MS would find somewhere out there a fancy ATC simulation solution and acquire it or license it to plug it in MSFS... It does not seem the case but it is one example that could reduce radically the headache of redoing internally what is well done elswhere and can be bought... Asobo (had) have a lot to develop, finetune and fix in this software. I see all the features and the list of fixes in every update and I wonder how many work on the project in reality because I see a few dense backlogs for many teams there...

Yeah maybe they are and I thought this dot is one of those helpers to tell beginners where to go maybe, who knows. Maybe an ATC cue. Just guessing of course...

Well I thought it was an overlay (sci-fi) cue just like the blue threshold markings I spotted (unless my eyes were showing me things) to tell you were to touch down. You know maybe just like the legendary red rectangles that used to teach users to follow the slope on final...

A sequence from a flight as long as these could reveal bugs, glitches, performance drops etc and of course although all this is very normal for an Alpha, immagine how people would react... I mean with screenshots and super short sequences, we get a big wave of worries about this and that... Many would declare an emergency thinking it's the R1 version. This is an Alpha being publicized yet the Marketing style sounds as if it's a beta instead... It's fine to do so, I like it but it gives what we witness in terms of reactions... So even if these videos make it seem like a finished software, bugs remain as usual in the details... always...

When I see the emotions about the Alpha invites here, one song and only one comes to my mind. Now I need to share it 😁

I flew in the right seat of C172 and I also flew in the right seat of twin engines like the Piper PA-34 Seneca