100 replies to this topic

[Daube]

CaptainG37, on Jan 24 2011, 08:57 AM, said:

You obviously know how to program (going by your statement).  But have you made add ons that use Ambient occlusion, ray tracing, normal mapping, a simulator SDK, a flight model, 3D mesh, converted png files to dds files?
I have also programmed in Microsoft Basic (when I was 15.  I'm 38 now), have made my own games before I turned 18 and now I'm working with LUA for my current projects and just starting C++.
I'm not here to argue with you.  
I'm saying I have worked in this particular field for 2 years and have made a living out of it.  I have completed 2 projects with a 3rd about to be released and 2 more rather large projects on the way sometime this year.
Please, let's keep it a friendly discussion without all the dick measuring.

It's not dick measuring. I was explaining that I had some experience with that kind of technology.
The project I was working on was containing several features such as automatic terrain building out of a picture, basic terrain shadowing, basic physics modelling, plane+helicopter basic flight model (more feasability than real fidelity, I didn't have enough time), and even a small weapon capacity (just a balistic missile digging holes in the terrain and killing the tanks aroud   ). During that time, I had to study everything about 3D modelling and I self-studied the principles of Direct3D. Just to tell that I know what is made out of textures and what is made out of programming and API calls.

[CaptainG37]

Luke Bateson, on Jan 25 2011, 02:14 AM, said:

May we see these 2 products that have already been released?

I don't really want to post x plane products in a Flight forum, so I sent you a PM.

[CaptainG37]

Daube, on Jan 25 2011, 03:07 AM, said:

It's not dick measuring. I was explaining that I had some experience with that kind of technology.
The project I was working on was containing several features such as automatic terrain building out of a picture, basic terrain shadowing, basic physics modelling, plane+helicopter basic flight model (more feasability than real fidelity, I didn't have enough time), and even a small weapon capacity (just a balistic missile digging holes in the terrain and killing the tanks aroud   ). During that time, I had to study everything about 3D modelling and I self-studied the principles of Direct3D. Just to tell that I know what is made out of textures and what is made out of programming and API calls.

And I have no doubt that you are telling the truth.  But your "video game" statement rubbed me the wrong way.

[BrandonF]

If you know game programming/development well enough, like Daube does, then you can rip into the technical part of the screenshots and make a few conclusions/educated guesses even if you don't have much info to go by. Being the type to study how FSX works and dig into the installation folder, I can agree with Daube's technical thoughts on Flight. In fact, I can't even fly FSX anymore without thinking about how it all "works."  

[CaptainG37]

BrandonF, on Jan 25 2011, 11:27 AM, said:

If you know game programming/development well enough, like Daube does, then you can rip into the technical part of the screenshots and make a few conclusions/educated guesses even if you don't have much info to go by. Being the type to study how FSX works and dig into the installation folder, I can agree with Daube's technical thoughts on Flight. In fact, I can't even fly FSX anymore without thinking about how it all "works."  

Unless you have the facts, it is impossible to accurately determine how something works or has been rendered.  You can make educated guesses at BEST.  ESPECIALLY in Flights case since it is so early in development.
Like I said, I'm not here to argue semantics over something that hasn't been released and has an FAQ about half a page long and no tech specs.

[CaptainG37]

Ghost993, on Jan 25 2011, 12:17 AM, said:

so it is XP10 that is 60+gb?`hah biggest game/sim in the history? call guinness,

No
The actual sim minus the scenery is about 4GB.  It does contain default LOWI scenery and surrounding area.
All the scenery, which is actually very accurate LOD terrain, is about 70GB compressed to fit onto 4 DVD's.

[BrandonF]

January 28, 2011 FSX and Flight Comparison Screenshots


Screenshot 1





Screenshot 2





Screenshot 3





Screenshot 4

[-SE-]

CaptainG37, on Jan 26 2011, 02:10 AM, said:

No
The actual sim minus the scenery is about 4GB.  It does contain default LOWI scenery and surrounding area.
All the scenery, which is actually very accurate LOD terrain, is about 70GB compressed to fit onto 4 DVD's.

wow, and i thought FSX was big installed FSX is 25+gb, but 70gb? OMG.
haha at those people that is going to download it illegally, maybe the 7 day download will make them stop download flight simulators.

[niteye]

Wow nice work BrandonF! Seems they've gone for a complete texture overhaul.
How do you find out so quick what the location of the screenshots are?

Ghost993, on Jan 30 2011, 03:40 PM, said:

wow, and i thought FSX was big installed FSX is 25+gb, but 70gb? OMG.
haha at those people that is going to download it illegally, maybe the 7 day download will make them stop download flight simulators.

It's compressed onto 4 DVD's so I'd take a wild guess and say it would be 20Gb or so, making it downloadable in 1 day.

[Spam]

Major difference in the second comparison i have to say...the trees seem to actually have lighting and shadows. Im still not too sure about all them rivers...are they random?

[-SE-]

niteye, on Jan 30 2011, 09:49 PM, said:

Wow nice work BrandonF! Seems they've gone for a complete texture overhaul.
How do you find out so quick what the location of the screenshots are?
It's compressed onto 4 DVD's so I'd take a wild guess and say it would be 20Gb or so, making it downloadable in 1 day.

i just remembered that FS2004 was 4 DVD's too.

[BrandonF]

niteye, on Jan 30 2011, 12:49 PM, said:

Wow nice work BrandonF! Seems they've gone for a complete texture overhaul.
How do you find out so quick what the location of the screenshots are?

Thanks!

I recognized location 1 and 4 and someone on another forum told me where location 3 was. I took shot 4 second to last. After that, I decided to slew around the island just to see if maybe #2 was taken on the same island...and I got lucky, because it was! That was actually the hardest shot to set up, as when I saw the road while slewing around, I aligned myself to try and get a basic idea of the angle the shot was taken at, and it looked so different, I almost didn't think I had the right place!

Edited by BrandonF, 30 January 2011 - 06:00 PM.

[wynthorpe]

You know what! I like fsx more in shot 2. Looks more natural, the flight shot looks very CGI.

[CaptainG37]

Ghost993, on Jan 31 2011, 08:49 AM, said:

i just remembered that FS2004 was 4 DVD's too.

No.  FS2004 was 4 CD's.  Not DVD's.  
CD's hold about 700MB.  
DVD's can hold up to 8GB (Dual layered)

[162db]

Big thanks to BrandonF for the screenshots. I can't even begin to imagine the difficulty of such a task. From what I'm seeing, it looks like no more shader 2.0 which is definitely a step in the right direction. Given this, it looks like ATI cards won't be at a disadvantage anymore. But I'm not seeing anything impressive given current technology either. IMO FSX was a massive mistake and should have never been released the way it was. Sure, it's amazing what the add-on community did with it. However, you can increase the LOD all you want, but you can still clearly see the limitations of the shader 2.0 model in FSX if you know what to look for. I really hope they don't intend to keep the same method of ground lighting (lighting entire tiles) which is what it looks like in the last shot. From what I'm seeing so far, Flight is more like what FSX should have been in the first place. It's too early to tell for sure, but X-Plane just might be ahead of MS this time around.

[-SE-]

CaptainG37, on Jan 31 2011, 12:23 AM, said:

No.  FS2004 was 4 CD's.  Not DVD's.  
CD's hold about 700MB.  
DVD's can hold up to 8GB (Dual layered)

never really understood the difference but now i do, thanks

[Fate01_VUSAFS]

I'm convinced 100%. I am definitely getting Flight.

[CaptainG37]

Fate01_VUSAFS, on Feb 3 2011, 10:13 AM, said:

I'm convinced 100%. I am definitely getting Flight.

That's what most of us said when we saw FSX previews.

[Fate01_VUSAFS]

Which is how I ended up with FSX

[ChaoticBeauty]

Those look development shots to me, and not promotional shots. So I guess that's what Flight really looks now, and it will look even better on release because they haven't replaced enough textures yet.

At least they're using a new engine; the Flight Simulator X engine was so bloated over the years.