IPACS, scenery question.

  • I seriously doubt you are going to get your answer anytime soon. I personally think the sim is moving foward at a much faster rate and a much higher level than most expected. If you look at the progress this year alone, most would agree we are well on the way.

    Regards,

    Ray

  • We also can't really judge how it runs right now because there is so much missing that will effect the FPS when it comes. ATC, Traffic, Real Weather etc. It runs silky smooth right now because in a lot of ways, Aerofly is simply a 'simple' flightsim and graphics engine.

  • Thank you friends, I respect these things, especially the high framerates. Love the high framerates! Second to none, even though I agree that yes, this is due to the sim being stripped of those named add-on described above. But a wonderful start with the supreme graphics and strong framerates alright.

    In response to JetJocky's point of how far AF2 has proceeded this year I cannot fully share that point on some respects. With all due respect.
    With the exception of some overly pricey dlc scenery, but being very grateful for the -free- Colorado scenery, I have not seen a massive number of promising things actually implemented this year. The geoconvert tool is simply nothing anyone I have talked to was hoping for. Saying it is difficult, rough, unpolished and buggy is above and beyond a polite kindness. The small amount of flyable terrain added after an entire year's wait is still barely noticeable, even if you only fly occasionally.

    Yes, some planes and a little terrain has been added this year. Many patches too. Very grateful for these. Very nice additions, very sharp and polished. But this year is nearly past already. We investors know this is early access, but with talk of going release soon why cannot the basic outline be made known yet? Why the info black out and uncertainty?

    As has been repeatedly asked here and in many other posts better than I could ask; just where is AF2 going?
    What are the release scenery limitations and goals?
    Will the geoconvert tool remain usable only to dev-level geniuses or be released user friendly enough to bother with for the average gamer?
    What steps are being done to solve this almost year old dilemma of not knowing if and how or where customers can fileshare new scenery and planes?
    Will this sim-crippling dark-cloudy vagueness of not knowing these basics still be something we are all suffering with yet another 6 months down the road?

    Surely none of this is too pushy to ask, and I am asking just as kindly with as much sincerity as i can word things. I appreciate the friends helping me to understand these issues today. Your time invested has helped my a lot, thank you.

  • Before the speculations get out of hand, I might throw in a few comments, I'm sure Jeff can answer more of these questions.

    - The area of scenery added is quite significant. I think we more than doubled the area and pretty much also doubled the number of airports in one year. And the entire west coast, now reaching as far inland as colorado, all free! So on average the price per DLC isn't actually that high, Switzerland is also not really expensive given it's quality and size. There are external add-on companies for other sims that would charge double the price.

    - As far as I know Geoconvert isn't totally finished yet, give it some time and you'll probably see a lot of changes.

    - Sharing scenery: I can imagine we could share a converter "preset" that can be shared: You download the instructions and let them run automatically, that includes a link to where to get the satellite images, coordinates, etc. and the user effectively downloads and converts the tiles on his/her machine. If we add options for masking some areas like fading into the ocean, etc. then this would totally avoid sharing any textures what so ever.

    - As I said multiple times in the past: just because the current sim doesn't implement everything a deep study level add on aircraft can offer - the performance will probably still be very good. Firstly, the frame rate and the complexity of an aircraft aren't directly linked in Aerofly: there is the physics core (CPU) which will see increased load but there is still a lot of headroom for it, and there is the graphics engine which runs on the GPU. If we increase complexity that doesn't affect the frame rate primarily, cause the complexity is run on the CPU and not the graphics card. And to get around the performance hit on the CPU we have built a very good foundation for the physics core. I've already implemented a lot of aircraft systems in the last two years and I didn't experience any performance issues. Dont underestimate the aerofly engine, or rather your CPU power, when used efficiently.

  • Much as I would also be interested to know the roadmap for sceneries (and more aircraft would be nice), I wonder how important it really is to know this. FS2 Is continuing to impress everyone and Orbx have reaffirmed their commitment (wowing us and probably themselves with the capability of the autogen). I don't see IPACS as having the resources to map the world in the way they are working through the US, due to the variable price of imagery for one, but that isn't necessary as long as momentum builds and 3rd parties get on board as surely they will. In many ways the roadmap is not under IPACS control. All they can do is build the best sim and core elements they can and seek to attract and support 3rd parties like Orbx and the guy currently doing New Zealand. They aren't going to facilitate a Kim.com megadownload of content with questionable copyright status, but i'm sure they'll improve geoconvert and welcome any ideas we have to simplify the workflow. Once the autogen tools are more robust i imagine sharing that data will be feasible.

  • Well, I don't want to be taken wrong. I appreciate the answers and opinions provided above.

    I am just a curious investor in the sim. These are often asked, never answered and common questions posted and discussed, and are valid and non-threatening. And I certainly have not meant any critique and hope none is perceived.

    I have to disagree to the scenery growth for the year in all honesty. All we initially had was some of the west coast. That was neat for proof of concept, but a drop in the bucket compared to what FSX has provided all decade. Unless of course you dropped another $100 into the DLC.

    I understand scenery has been added this year to the point of doubling what was previously provided. But doubling that very small fraction of this one nations scenery, let alone the entire worlds, is still pretty small for an entire years long wait. Doubling a small number is still a small number.

    The only thing that gets old faster than only having a tiny amount of choice in scenery to fly is the unanswered nagging notion that many people have already expressed so often all year, which is;
    is this going to be an issue of a hundred different $29 micro scenery transactions like Train Sim, or is this going to be a valid flight sim that provides at least the U.S.A.?


    This is a good question. There is nothing wrong in asking it, especially having invested so much cash into it thus far. My spending is a sign of good faith in the developers. If there is offense in this, none is meant in any way. And honestly this should not even still be a question. We investors should already know openly what the roadmap is. I for one cannot in all good conscience even consider further dlc, even on sale, until I know where this sim is going and how far.

    Thanks in part to many kind answers here in this thread I have been looking into what others have posted. Geoconvert was supposed to be the answer to these things according to posts from like a year ago. Geoconvert looks to not be any kind of answer due to its difficulty level and due to the legal problems explained so well above.

    So where does this leave those of us already so deeply invested onto this venture?

    And as important to have answered as that above, is AF2 going to be abandoned just like AF1 was right out of the blue, because these scenery limitations cannot be solved to bring the sim up to the level of what even decade old FSX software has provided so well?

    That's where I am at. It looks like I am a year late to the party asking these questions considering all the posts I have surfed through the last 24 hours. Will we still not know and be asking these same questions this time next year?

  • Well when comparing different sims you are comparing different methods. FSX and X-Plane have world wide airports but they are not hand made or at least for the majority of airports not much time was invested. They aim for quantity and world coverage, we have a different strategy: We spend more time on each airport so that each airport is representative of it the real world airport. They do have taxi lines, parked aircraft and cars, some even have animated people, all terminals are hand made and look quite realistic, we have cities that look like the real ones - so we aim for quality for large areas but not the entire world. We might get there at some point, we may also generate the remaining airports in the future... Mathematically I think you sort of have to multiply quantity and quality to compare the sims.

    So the difference, really, comes down to: accuracy and realism in large areas (you can fly for hours in a straight line in the current region, even with the F18) or all airports around the globe and land class or autogen in not so good quality (not looking realistic or lacking detail). We currently can't give you every airport around the world because so far we hand crafted every airport and that takes at least a couple of hours for even tiny airports... Large airports like Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Zurich take months to make! But that is the only way to get to such high quality that you only get from the other sims when you purchase expensive add ons. (I know X-Plane now also has custom made airports, lots of them made by the user fan base, which is a good idea to cover ground)

    So far in the USA only New York did cost any money at all, so why are you assuming that you're going to need hundreds of micro transactions to complete the entire USA? (Firstly there are only 50 states, secondly we already have 5 states for free and NYC for a quite small price compared to other add-ons for other sims in that region and we have Chicago Meigs field by OrbX)

    - Where does that leave us?

    We're going to continue making more scenery and will look into ways to even generate parts of it to add more buildings and other things like street lights, etc. We could just generate every airport around the globe but then you wouldn't have any ground textures around it and that just looks odd. Plus we'd have to add a way to remove them if any add-on company develops that airport.

    Add-On developers like Orbx now have the tools they need to create their own scenery in Aerofly and I think we will see many new scenery created externally.

    Aerofly FS 1 wasn't abandoned, the developers just went quiet to bring you Aerofly FS 2. The Aerofly engine was subject to some serious re-design to offer support for world wide scenery, we added navigation databases for the entire world and did a lot of other things under the hood - not to mention new aircraft, a new starting area which is much much larger and had to be made.

  • Regarding ORBX having the tools to develop sceneries. Will those tools be released to the general public OR did Orbx develop those tools in house.