spiffy

Yep, as well as civilian and combat flight simulation, I make little animations to keep me busy. I thought I'd share the latest with you, it scratches an itch I've had for over 25 years, so please enjoy! Besides, you know you've always wanted to see a matchup of StarWars fighters (that use WW2 physics) and the 'real' thing

Hi guys, I hope this kind of post is ok in this forum... Just yesterday I received an email from AVSIM saying I hadn't been active for over a year, and that maybe I'd like to check in again! Well, I've been really busy working away on a personal project, a graphic novel, and it completely ate up the spare time I usually spend flight simming. But as coincidence would have it, it does involve flight simulation. I'm not sure it will be for everyone here, being combat oriented, but one chapter involves ww2 fighter engagements, and presents a story that is heavily based in my experiences flight simming in IL2, BoB2:WoV and War Thunder, but also draws on general knowledge picked up from many of the other sims I have played, like FSX of course. The other chapters vary in setting, from deep space to ancient times, but they all reflect an appreciation of tactics, technology, and detail, and are written in a thoughtful tone that I think this community would appreciate. It is digital only... a tablet is a fantastic comic reader, but any phone or PC screen will do! You can look up the book, "A Wary Distance", and where to get it at http://www.spiffy-comics.com/ I will leave you with a full page for you to look at; there are more at the site. I hope that some of you will find something to like in my project! And now that it's done, I'll follow AVSIM's advice and see you back in the virtual skies

Read up on it here. http://flightsimavia...x-or-9-how.html http://www.simforums.com/forums/enb-bloom-mod-nicks-cOnfig-settings_topic32482.html It used to work in Flight for me, although you had to 'refresh' the game by toggling some graphics options in-game before it would activate using shift-f12. But now I can't even get it to run on startup. But, if you are still using FSX, it is an amazing little graphics upgrade for no performance hit, as long as you are using a decent FSX profile and are turning off the unecessary fields. Works like a charm there.

Hi, I was using ENBseries to add HDR to the game. But ever since I've downloaded the latest Flight patches and Alaska, it doesn't seem to work? I don't even see the little green letters that usually pop up in the upper left corner on game startup when the files are present. Has anyone been using the ENBseries after the latest patches? I really like HDR, it really helps punch the whites to feel like sun glare, and the sky feels much more like real sunlight.

I have the same stick.. I think I got around the issue by mapping the keyboard key to my joystick using the Joy2Key utility so it works as well as the keyboard does.

HDR lighting effects/post process effects.. almost all modern games these days use it quite nicely. ENBseries mod kind of works in Flight, but it would be nice to have one that is properly dialed in to the engine to really make the sky look nice and bright, and make for better contrast with the ground colors.

I really don't think it's a big deal to get TrackIR working in-game. All the required elements are in the game already, and if little one-person developer games can integrate it without breaking a sweat, so can MS. Personally, I think it's a bit of Microsoft politics, and seeing what they can get away with, along the same line as cockpit-less planes... the market is driving their decision making. I think they've weighed the responses and determined they will retain a broader user base implementing TrackIR. A smart move, because I was already perusing Orbx's stuff and thinking of switching back to FSX, as the lack of TrackIR was bothering me that much. Now, I will be sure to keep buying Flight's updates. I'm sure there are quite a few like me out there.

Biggest lesson here is: vote with your dollars, people. It' s the *only* real way to steer the game development. I'd love to have a nimble and fast plane to play with, but a cockpit is a must for me.And if you haven't, buy the maule. I'm a little guilty here as I haven't yet, seeing as I prefer the challenges to cargo runs, but the more maule sales, the more it pushes them to develop the either way.

To be honest, with the extremely limited autogen assets within the vanilla game, Fsx wasn't exactly riveting either, until Tileproxy appeared. All of a sudden I did want to fly everywhere in the world when there were red world features to enjoy. To me, Flight will work as long as they keep releasing distinct regions to fly. It is normal that interest will wane between releases,but that's why I have Rise of Flight (and hopefully World of Planes soon) to alternate between.

Axel Pm'ed me the solution.. you just need to jog Flight's graphics settings, ie, set your settings to a medium or high preset, whatever is different from your current settings, and then pressing shift-f12 will activate the ENBseries. You can then switch back to your preferred settings and it will stick.Here's a comparison screenshot. Might be a bit hard to get the subtleties, but it does a good job making the sun and sky feel brighter to the eye, and plays the contrast of ground colors stronger. Meaning fields will have a higher contrast to forests, and the autogen will blend better into the forest ground texture to make for a more natural feeling scene, rather than a more obviously cut-out and flat computer image. Note that when you point away from the sun, the ground textures lighten up because the sun isn't in your face anymore, allowing the eyes to settle on more midrange values.http://www.flickr.co...N00/6867462980/I'm using a ENBseries profile someone posted for FSX, I'm sure you can find a couple if you look around. Mine barely touches my fps at all.I might take a better picture for ground detail color differences if there's interest.

It might impact your FPS very minimally, but I use it for many games and have never had an issue. Note that there are many parameters including reflection, ambient inclusion, motion blur, etc. that are much more impactfull than ONLY using the HDR and color adjustment, which I barely notice at all in performance loss. (1-2 fps, and my machine is old.)

Really, this worked for you? For some reason I can't get it to work. I dropped the files in the main folder, but prssing shift-f12 doesn't do anything, even though I do see the ENBseries signature when booting up. Maybe I missed something obvious...?I do agree, this little program adds an incredible bit of graphical punch to dx9 games like FSX, RBR, etc. I'm amazed MS didn't add an HDR graphical option to Flight, every game in the last 3 years uses it.

For me, it's lack of TrackIR.... and HDR lighting and color contrast effects. The game looks so 2008 right now, despite the higher autogen and nicer textures.

This method uses Glovepie.. seems like their site was hacked? You can also setup trackIR with Joy2Key as well, I've outlined it here. Works for me!http://forum.avsim.net/topic/364256-i-can-use-trackir/

I think for me it's more a matter of voting with my dollars... while I'm not militant about having no-cockpit planes, I'd prefer it not to become a trend, therefore the best way to influence that design decision is to abstain from purchase, regardless of the fact I know I'd like to have it.

Well, being adept at photoshop, I have to say adding cloud shadows to an image is as easy as adding a semitransparent layer over your image, tailoring it to size and then blurring the edge. Also, remember HDR is a post-process, meaning the same kind of filter you add/tweak a photograph with. I think they might have started with an in-game screenshot, but then tweaked it with embellishments. As I said before, the buildings look very much like photoshop brush strokes to me. It's possible they have all the graphical features disabled for now, but I do doubt the splash image being a reflection of them.

Oh yeah, and by the way, the opening splash screen looks like a mish-mash of photoshopped in-game elements (the sky and clouds are tweaked for contrast, Saturation, and shadow, and the buildings look painted (with a flat brush). In short, it's a title screen and not necessary representative of future graphics options (in my opinion).

I totally agree. I have no problem with MS making the initial release "restrained" in terms of options... allowing people to throw on all the bells and whistles would simply result in scores of people complaining about performance. But now that we all know what it can run like... no harm in giving us more goodies, eh?The things that come to mind are HDR, cloud shadows, traffic and boats. I know a lot of you guys hate HDR and think it's gamey or whatever, but what I do know is that the real world certainly has higher contrast, glare and light overlap on everything I see, especially on a sunny day, and HDR, when not overblown, does a much better job of making an in-game scene look real. Right now Flight looks a little flat.. and unfortunately the ENB series mod doesn't seem to work. RoF has great HDR settings.Cloud shadows further helps break up the flatness of the lighting by providing random areas of dark... again, RoF has them and they look great.

Well, for a thunderstorm to truly look like one, you'll need cloud shadows blocking out the sunlight. RoF is one of the only flght sims I know that offers cloud shadows, and even then, they're only noticeable on partly sunny scenarios and not on ones with driving rain...

I have an Intel Core2Duo 3.0 with 3GB ram and a GTX260. I can play with most sliders on Medium, with shadows and sharpness set to High. Considering how your specs match mine in cpu and Ram, I'd suggest your video card is not as good as it could be... my GTX260 (and my entire system) is already around 3 years old and way past what anyone would consider 'recent'.I think MS did well considering how shoddy stock FSX looks on my same box. That said, ROF runs just as well and looks much prettier with everything on or near high and smooth enough to dogfight in split seconds, so it's not THAT big an achievement :)

Hiya,I've figured out how to use TrackIR in Microsoft Flight. It's not perfect, but it does a reasonably good job.Essentially, it's simply using the TrackIR mouse emulation. But to do this, you have to assign a button on your joystick to emulate holding down the right mouse button as well. So, download Joy2Key, a free joystick keyboard emulation program. Choose your preferred joystick button and assign either/both mouse buttons. Then, open up the trackIR mouse emulation utility found in your TrackIR folder.Then, once in the game, holding down the joystick button and moving your head will move your mouse cursor, essentially giving you sorta-normal trackIR movements. It's not smooth and depending on your profile, might throw the center out of whack and you'll need to ce-center once in a while, but with normal acceleration curves it's not too bad.Enjoy.

Downloaded the game and played it for only an hour before bed (it only showed up in the UK at around 11pm..!). Really nice to have it play well on medium settings on my aging system. I like the mission structure, the presentation, and the scenery is very nice. I already know I'll be playing out the base-game for sure.However, there's a giant, glaring problem to me, and that's the lack of TrackIR. I'm on the verge of building a new system almost exclusively for flight sims, of which I play for immersion. Without head tracking, it just feels like a game and not an experience. I've put tons of hours into sims I don;t even like much (IL2:WingsofPrey) just because it felt amazing to gaze around at nice scenery. If Flight can just get trackIR in there, it'll be a permanent fixture on my hard drive, and I'll probably buy every scenery add on for it's lifetime, like my favorite using this purchase model, RoF.. If not, then it might just be a desktop icon I think about before I click on something else.That said though... great effort, I truly hope it brings in new blood into the community.last little suggestion: it'd be great to get some birds, car traffic, some animated waves breaking on shore to add to the feeling of a living world.. right now it's a bit static and google-earth-like. :)Mike

Hm, the Pacific NorthWest seems like a good choice, but that terrain is already covered by several 3rd party FSX producers, as well as Take On Helicopters. I wonder if they'd prefer something that hasn't been covered so many times.. but then again, they did start with Hawaii. I think Scotland/Edinborough, or some Italian, French, or Italian coast options would be neat. But if the majority of their expected audience is in NA they might stay closer to home.

Obviously, MS is engaged in wanting to market their game. Having a group of heavily opinionated people who are have not played the game yet but voice negative opinions, and keep repeating they will not buy the game, are not their target demographic.. why should they keep their comments up? If you were angling to sell something and people kept putting up snide or pointed comments on your site, would you be ok with it? There are channels to let MS know your opinions that do not intrude on their campaigns to sell their game, use them. You should all realize the more people who play Flight, the greater number of people who will search out better and more complex flight sim games in the future. You should all be rooting for Flight, regardless of whether it is your cup of tea, because ultimately it opens the way for more of what you want.

Ugh, committed the cardinal sin of not paging back to see if my question came up ... it did, it was answered, a moderator said TIR was supported. Good stuff, sorry for the tedious retread of an old topic. Where do I delete this thread, no button? :(