Interesting recent developments...

[pracines]

As it relates to the upcoming NexGen Flight Simulator - www.nexgenflightsim.com

Unigine as recently released a new version 2.1 already - version 2 was released 10/10/2015
https://developer.unigine.com/en/devlog/20151120-unigine-2.1

Things are happening fast.

 

[WarpD]

Still no round-earth model. That's going to be a major necessity. I also question it's weather capabilities... right now I believe you can make it rain... but then it's raining everywhere and there's no multiple layer clouds, etc.

Lots of things still needing to happen.

 

[pracines]

Still no round-earth model. That's going to be a major necessity. I also question it's weather capabilities... right now I believe you can make it rain... but then it's raining everywhere and there's no multiple layer clouds, etc.

Lots of things still needing to happen.

I'm just communicating the latest news to anybody interested. Progress is happening, keeping in mind that Unigine is the engine that NGiS is building on and NGiS is using many other tools to develop the NGFS. Looks like January is when full development begins: http://nexgenflightsim.com/discussions/#/discussion/219/news-update-november-4th-2015

I hope to someday tell you of not just a round earth ( http://unigine.com/en/products/engine/unbounded-world ) and weather better than anything we have today, but performance increases with high details far exceeding any airport/scenery add on to date, and yet no OOM.

 

[jtanabodee]

It is looking good. Do you think it is too detail for flight simulator?
I think those who fly heavy never see those detail trees or people walking around a small village in their FSX.

 

[hairyspin]

Thanks to the advanced atmosphere model, a limited Earth curvature simulation is also available for high-altitude aircraft.

Let's hope they can soon simulate a full Earth curvature.

 

[pracines]

It is looking good. Do you think it is too detail for flight simulator?
I think those who fly heavy never see those detail trees or people walking around a small village in their FSX.

Too detailed? A flight sim can never be too detailed. The main thing is detail without performance loss. Simmers that fly the heavy's, have to come down sometime. And just think, P3D/MS Flight have swaying trees, but NGFS will have even swaying grass! We all enjoy the screenshots and vids of our current simulators with all the nice add-ons; well with NGFS hopefully its going to be a little more difficult to distinguish between simulator and reality....and no OOMs

News of new update from NGiS and possibly a new Unigine Demo available soon.

 

[Heretic]

Get the flight simulation aspect of a flight simulator right (and this includes a spherical world model) before you focus on entirely unimportant visual effect BS like swaying grass.

 

[Paul Domingue]

I think the developers of any flight simulator should put more effort into the environmental effects on the flight envelope rather than scenery after all it is a flight simulator not a travel log. Getting into the cockpit and piloting the aircraft is where ones concentration should be. Weather and atmospheric affects need more attention, I would love to fly a C-130 Hurricane Hunter into the eye in the Gulf of Mexico and have it as realistic as possible. Don't get me wrong, scenery is nice but leave that for the addon scenery developers so they can buy some groceries and shoes for their kids.

 

[jtanabodee]

Too detailed? A flight sim can never be too detailed. The main thing is detail without performance loss. Simmers that fly the heavy's, have to come down sometime. And just think, P3D/MS Flight have swaying trees, but NGFS will have even swaying grass! We all enjoy the screenshots and vids of our current simulators with all the nice add-ons; well with NGFS hopefully its going to be a little more difficult to distinguish between simulator and reality....and no OOMs

News of new update from NGiS and possibly a new Unigine Demo available soon.

I think personally, every detail has some degree of penalty to the performance. If everything is ready, the weather, round world model, all the nav data and all the airport file (43,000+), we will see the real performance there. I think that time I can tell which is too detail. It is too early to say that now.

 

[Deleted member 1281]

Looks like the proverbial bees knees. Swaying grass? Absolutely! 3D trees with shadows? Bring them on! Now, how does one go about compiling a model for that environment, and how long until we get a platform for testing?

 

[pracines]

Ever since Microsoft presented MS Flight, there seems to be submission to accept the fact that new flight simulator companies will never be able to create a whole earth/round world model/spherical world model/full earth curvature (what ever you want to call it). There is no doubt that creating a whole detailed earth, with correct magnetic/true poles (variation), time zones, elevations, seasons, etc. etc... will be a challenge. The NGiS team has experience, and I think its harmless to give NGiS some encouragement and wish them well.

If they fail we lose nothing....if they succeed at making a flight sim that is better (in all aspects) than anything we have today (that is the intention- NGiS is not going for 2nd best here) then we all win. We could debate whether this new flight sim should have swaying grass, but then we need to debate if Orbx ever needed to make static grass for their airports. Then we would have to debate if we really need the 737NGX HUD and whether Navigraph,ASN,GEX, REX, and countless other addons are really necessary, but there is no question of the success of such things. Make a flight sim more like reality without causing much performance loss and it will be successful.

While we give NGiS the time they need to develop NGFS, we wait using very old technology and most other genres leave us in the dust. Maybe DTG FS will turn out to be a full detailed earth and most of what we would expect FS2016 to be. I have been encouraging DTG in their endeavor as well. AeroFly II (PC) will not be a whole detailed earth upon release- only a limited area. Who knows what X-Plane 11 will be like or if that even happens.

 

[TurboCompound]

I don't care how dynamically the grass moves in the wind, what I want to know is how realistic the systems depth is. I'm spending more time looking and interacting inside the cockpit then appreciating the outside, so I want to be sure that my "interacting" is actually doing something.

 

[GHD]

Don't forget that this thread was created eight years ago

 

[TurboCompound]

Nope. First post was 23rd November, 2015.

 

[GHD]

Oops, sorry

 

[pracines]

I don't care how dynamically the grass moves in the wind, what I want to know is how realistic the systems depth is. I'm spending more time looking and interacting inside the cockpit then appreciating the outside, so I want to be sure that my "interacting" is actually doing something.

I totally agree that the program must first be a totally correct flight simulator. With default airplanes that hand fly like their real counterparts, and all systems including fuses (in my book) all matter. I have been on the NGiS forums submitting ideas as to how to implement new possibilities, like equipment cooling fans having to work harder when direct summer sunlight is beaming down on the instruments. I want it all; I want the fuses to pop, I want the electronic AIs to have extreme fidelity and I want gust fronts that blow the grass and windsocks correctly. I want jet blast to matter when I'm in a C172 taxiing behind a 747 or a King Air. I want that magnetic variation to actually continue to be updated according to real world data, and I want the option to have all NOTAMS reflected in the sim real time.

The great thing about NGiS is they agree, and we can have it all eventually, and we need not be concerned about a 4GB limit. On top of all that, NGiS wants to work with 3rd parties so they can more easily transition to the new platform. They are even trying to make it such that current add-ons have an easy upgrade path to the new NGFS.

Again, I know this is all "talk" currently, but there is action as well; none of us should dismiss NGiS too quickly, is really not necessary.

 

[mgh]

Again, I know this is all "talk" currently, but there is action as well; none of us should dismiss NGiS too quickly, is really not necessary.

What real action is there -all I can see only talk.

 

[pracines]

What real action is there -all I can see only talk.

The updates Stephen posts I consider to be truth until I have reason to believe otherwise, and there is real action going on according to Stephens updates.

I cant see nor ever have I seen the sand in the Sahara Desert but I know its there (from talk alone) until anybody can prove to me otherwise....similar principal and very simple to understand.

 

[hairyspin]

Just a thought. The nearer reality a virtual object looks, the more the brain works to tell you it's not the real thing. I suggest the nearer any sim gets to real-world fidelity, the less achievable the complete suspension of disbelief will be. This is no comment on any sim, just the surprising finding of VR researchers: our brains are much smarter than we think.

 

[pracines]

Just a thought. The nearer reality a virtual object looks, the more the brain works to tell you it's not the real thing. I suggest the nearer any sim gets to real-world fidelity, the less achievable the complete suspension of disbelief will be. This is no comment on any sim, just the surprising finding of VR researchers: our brains are much smarter than we think.

How should we communicate this to PMDG?...."PMDG, stop making realistic renditions of airplanes, its makes our sim less realistic". That would be *the* cardinal sin, so-to-speak, in the flight simming community.

Just watch a crowded movie theatre during a scary movie, see if brains aren't easily fooled. What would VR researchers say about that I wonder. But its the choice to pay attention to the movie whether we are immersed.

I think its how one approaches the sim as a whole. I can stay totally objective and know I'm sitting in front of a PC or I can dive in deep turn the lights off and soon enough I will be immersed. Its up to us. Now when a simulator attempts to get us closer to reality, it will still be up to us how fooled (immersed) we allow ourselves to be. When comparing old and new technology , FS4 would not do this as well as FSX because FSX is better, and NGiS is working to take it to the next step.