Posts by John Hargreaves

    I'm not sure that Delfin is expecting AFS2 to incorporate this technology in the short term, I think the discussion is more about the whole concept of using online scenery, as Jeff says more like 10 years in the future. Sims will need to develop innovative features going forward though, otherwise where is the incentive for people to buy the latest version.
    I think AFS2 is about as next gen as we can hope for in the present market, and I think it will be at the forefront for this generation of sims once all the features mature.
    I think what Delfin was asking is how the VR Google based scenery compares to traditional methods, so I'll try to answer that.

    Keeping in mind that Google scenarios have not been filmed to be seen in VR; you and those who have and uses Oculus or another equivalent, do you see correctly the scenarios of Google in VR ?

    I suppose IPACS programmers will add some special feature to their programming to see it correctly with Oculus, Live, ... in VR. Is there a lot of difference between what is seen in Google scenarios and what is seen in FS 2? .

    Logically, it will look better in VR, everything that has been programmed to be seen in VR.

    The Google Earth VR app is primarily a map and scenery viewer, so its functions are based around zooming in and out, and moving quickly to different parts of the Earth. It's just like normal Google Earth, but in VR it is much more striking. You kind of feel like some giant celestial being who can roam the Earth at will, more Silver Surfer than Beige Cessna.

    Because the details on buildings are based on real photos, there is a great diversity and natural feel to how the scenery looks, compared to hand placed generic buildings and autogen. That's why I do believe that the future of flight sims is in here. So, Google Earth works very well in VR and is naturally suited to it.

    However, in AFS2 in VR, because the scenery is designed to be flown over in a sim aircraft, the whole experience is more smooth and coherent. We clearly are nowhere near being able to consider live scenery at this time, and AFS2 scenery is/will be the pinnacle of what is possible in a current sim.

    Google VR breaks down at very close range as all the trees and buildings are mapped onto rough blocks, whereas traditional scenery is more believable close up.

    AFS2 has clearly been designed with VR in mind, and offers the best VR experience in a sim currently imo. Other titles may be ahead on choice of aircraft, but the basic experience of moving through VR space is unmatched I think.

    I'd say in a couple of years, when we have 2nd generation VR headsets and AFS2 has added all its features, we will have the best sim experience we've ever had. We'll never need to leave the house again :rolleyes:

    From what I've read on these forums, the ambition is there to make a proper full simulation, but IPACS is a small team and they are making an enormous piece of work, so it will be ready in stages. Where it is now and where it might be in three years time are probably very different.
    If JV at OrbX can see the potential then that's enough to capture my attention. AFS2 is just a baby right now, let's wait and see.

    IMHO, take DCS as tge reference... and even so, only the Belsimtek models... The rest is... not even by far comparable, IMO...

    I love the DCS Huey, have you tried the XP11 Bell 412 and 407 from the X-Plane shop? Every bit as good I think, if you like your rotorcraft I'm sure you would love those. I can't see any reason that AFS2 shouldn't match that quality eventually, either with 3rd party partnerships or in-house.

    When you are flying along one time, try standing up and looking around. By sticking your head up through the canopy you can get a bug's eye view stuck on the outside of the wings, and even do a bit of wing walking if you have the space. Resolution is the rift's main weakness; it's ok but could be better, but we will have to wait for CV2 to get that fixed.

    Mmm, interesting.

    I guess if it comes from FTX central, there might be discounts down the line if you have a previous version of an airport say for FSX, but it seems like the new regions are different products to what has been available before. I'd guess the individual airports would be more direct ports from previous work.

    OrbX would probably get a better cut of the money.

    There were more FSX addons available at OrbX than OrbX dlc on steam - I wonder if that might be similar in the future.

    OrbX are pretty good at tech support and updates

    Steam however, has good sales and discounts quite often, and you can't fault the updates and ease of use. I wonder if IPACS gets a better cut of the money from Steam or the same from each.

    I can't think of any significant reason to choose one over the other at this time.

    Looking forward to seeing what you guys have been working on, it will be nice to have some of these new OrbX sceneries to explore, and the new scenery and livery tools will open up some exciting possibilities. There is quite a lot of anticipation around for the next stage of development.


    Hi Delphin, yes this was a quick recording I did of using Google Earth VR in my rift. The movement controls, using the touch handsets, are more suited to zooming in and out of the map very quickly, but you can get more fine control if you concentrate. I tried to reproduce a flight from Newark to La Guardia over Manhattan, just trying to make it more like the movement of an aircraft (or space craft due to the speed you can fly!). The level of detail is far greater than anything I've seen in a proper flight sim, but it does break down a little when you get really close. However, flying at 500ft and up, the detail is stunning.
    All I was trying to do there was to get a feel for the concept of what might lay ahead in the future for this kind of scenery.

    So in Google Earth VR, there are no planes, but you can move around and have some control about how you move. I could even bank in the turns by tilting my head, which was natural to do.

    Here's a quick test I did just to see the potential of this idea. Google Earth VR is more of a map sim than a flight sim, and the movement can go from zero-to-warp speed with about 3mm of throttle travel, so the control is 'unoptimised' for my big thumbs to say the least, but for me, the potential is there for some time in the future. Obviously as it stands right now it's not a flight sim and isn't meant to be, but the level of detail I think is quite impressive, and this is a piece of software that can take you anywhere whilst taking up only 2.2GB on the hard drive.

    At the moment in the rift, the world scale makes Manhattan look like some exquisitely detailed model diorama rather than a real city, but that often happens in VR titles if the stereo image is only slightly too far apart.

    I'll put a tenner on a flight sim based on this tech within the next five years.

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    What there is should be available on Steam in the DLC section for FS2. Not all the regions are covered yet, so some parts of the world are still quite low res, but that's set to change. I would also recommend the paid DLC for New York and Switzerland, it's more than worth it.

    To be fair, Ortho4XP is online, free and anything but crappy, it gives amazing results IMO. I agree that consistency could be an issue compared to professionally sourced material, but we have desktop access to satellite photo data these days that NASA and the CIA would have died for a few decades ago.

    I think the issue is in commercial use, they have to pay for the rights to use the source material, which is fair enough. It seems OrbX will be using in house much more powerful tools to create their work, but these guys must be among the best in the business for scenery, and with all their pre existing libraries, they are a step ahead of anyone else, so it will be worth paying for.

    I've thought for a while that a Google Earth based solution will be the way to go in the future. We may not be quite there yet, but we are getting closer. The detail on buildings on Google, and how they turn them 3D is impressive, but still wonky at close distances, but if you think how much this has improved in the last five years, it is bound to improve further.

    So what I imagine is a sim that has FS2/FSX/P3d/Xp11 level physics, but instead of having a gazillion GB of scenery on your hard drive, it loads up on the fly (literally) online from Google. I know there are rudimentary flight sim-ish things with FSX and Google maps, but is it pretty shonky at this stage, and a long way from a proper flight sim. There are also implications with an always online scenery supply service, but Google Maps VR is here, so hook that up to a good physics/graphics/weather engine and you are one step closer.

    If there is money to be made, someone will try it. Like the birth of the Oculus Rift, we just need to wait for that combination of all the available tech to match up and come together at the same time.

    john,
    Sorry, but the FSET .inf is simply about lon-lat corners and pixel scaling. What would be great is to develop a connection to OpenStreet mapping for buildings and possibly a tool that finds where trees( or buildings?) should be placed by pattern recognition of the aerial image.

    Ah, thanks for the clarification, I was thinking along the lines of what Ortho4XP does, as it creates a mesh from the OSM data I think. I only partly understand all this stuff, but I'm enthusiastic to learn more, so apologies for the slightly clumsy questions.

    As mentioned above, the ability to customise some terrain that might be dear to ones heart, but otherwise of little interest to anyone else and have little commercial clout, would be a great feature.

    Every sim has a crack at Manhattan or London, but to get convincing versions of some of the small towns near where I live would be great (but obviously of zero interest to anyone else). XP11+Ortho4XP does a pretty good job of replicating my home town area, and I can recognise all the roads, rivers and railway lines clearly at 1000ft and the autogen does a good job of inserting roughly the right type of buildings in the right places. If there is a chance to go beyond that it would be very attractive to many people to have their own little high detail mini regions.

    BTW, I really wish we had a like button on this forum, there is some great stuff in here, but you can only show your appreciation by posting a reply, which tends to clog the thread a bit IMO.

    Really exciting news chaps, this is why early access is so much fun, you see the project grow and mature before your eyes, and the constant feedback for the devs has to make the final product better too. Gone are the days when devs slave away for three years hoping that their vision will be a hit, then release a title and hope that they were right. You have an endless army of potential testers whose time and effort are freely given, which has to benefit everyone in the end.