Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) - We're really sorry about Microsoft Flight

[schurem]

Second chair, screen sits on a desk with the mouse, keyboard, an xbox’s controller and some trays for all the paperwork that comes from running a multinational landscaping empire. I could try flying the thing with that controller of course but… nah I’ll just fire DCS up and gun some fools with a MiG-15 :D

[Tim_N]

Another country to try when this comes out is Namibia: https://africageographic.com/stories/wings-over-namibias-desert/#agtravel-2

[Rock8man]

Reading these articles this morning is just getting me more and more revved up for this.

I played the new Microsoft Flight Simulator for a week and I can't believe...

Calling things ‘next-gen’ has become increasingly meaningless, but Microsoft Flight Simulator probably deserves it. It’s the first time in years a game’s technology has truly, properly wowed me. It feels like the future. And it’s exciting to think that this is just the first step in a ten year (at least) dev process. Microsoft and Asobo will be constantly updating the game, refining the algorithms, and making the world more realistic for months and years to come.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is a once-in-a-generation wow moment

Microsoft Flight Simulator isn’t the first game to pull in real-world map or weather data to make for a more authentic simulation, nor is it the first game to try and bring us the entire world. But there’s an alchemy here that goes beyond bullet point feature lists or plain numbers, blending together to create one of those rare wow moments that come along once a generation, or that maybe herald the next. This really is a phenomenal thing

[Ginger_Yellow]

On the other hand, this from The Verge doesn’t sound so great:

At this point, the detail of Flight Simulator ’s world isn’t quite evenly distributed. Microsoft’s highest-quality data doesn’t cover all of the regions of the world, which means that a lot has to be tweaked manually, and unique objects like landmarks and bridges need to be built by hand because they can’t be generated with AI. I noticed this most when flying around my current home of Tokyo and spotting lots of famous buildings, but heading over to my previous city of Osaka and recognizing almost nothing.

Osaka isn’t exactly some backwater. Still, I can live without landmarks in a lot of places as long as the made up stuff still looks good and area appropriate.

Edit: PC Gamer’s take on the same issue is a bit more positive:

Some parts of the world have been crafted by hand, including airports and recognisable landmarks like the Pyramids, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Tokyo Skytree. Bigger cities have been generated using photogrammetry data, meaning they look just like the real thing. Others, like the small city where I live in the north of England, aren’t quite right. In many cases the algorithm tries to guess what a building looks like and gets it totally wrong. But again, you’ll rarely be close enough to notice this during regular play. The important thing is that, from a height, the layout of any city you happen to be familiar with will be correct, and you’ll feel like you’re really flying over it.

[BiggerBoat]

Microsoft Flight Simulator will support VR this fall

Hopefully not too long before they are supporting other headsets.

[LeeAbe]

Also from the Verge article, which is disappointing:

Despite the Bing tie-in, for example, you’re essentially taking off at one airport and landing at another with little in the way of basic map navigation. I found myself flying with Google Maps open on an iPad whenever I wanted to look for a particular landmark.

How Microsoft Flight Simulator returned to the skies

[Rock8man]

I always figured I’d be using Google Maps to figure out where to fly next to find what I was looking for, since I figured airplanes themselves don’t have any kind of feature on how to look for famous landmarks or highways, etc., and therefore neither would a flight simulator.

[LeeAbe]

Planes don’t have GPS navigation? Maybe not a Cessna, but surely the jets must, don’t they?

[Rock8man]

So you can search for things like the Eiffel Tower or the Pyramids in a jet, you think? Why would that be a useful feature on a jet?

[paul_chambers]

Looking at this video it looks like it has landmark highlighting

MS Flight Sim 2020 - London City to Lewisham

[Ginger_Yellow]

Ooh, thanks for that video. I live in Lewisham. Well, not technically, but right on the border.

Edit: And for the first time, I’ve seen my apartment building in the game! It’s definitely not photogrammetised, but it’s recognisable in context anyway.

For reference, this is the Old Naval College/Maritime Museum/Greenwich Park in the sim:

And here’s more or less the same view in real life:

[LeeAbe]

No, I didn’t mean like that, but a GPS view of the land that might list landmarks, roads, etc. I wasn’t thinking of a Waze for a plane, but one designed for planes, where you enter the airport you are going to and gives you navigation.

Edit: After watching that video, it looks like the Bing stuff does tell you about a lot of the major landmarks.

[Rock8man]

I love that at the 2 minute mark he kind of leans upward to see over his instrument panel. I wonder if you do that with the right thumbstick?

Also, yes, the way they mark landmarks is nice. That really helps draw the eye to famous spots that would be otherwise hard to spot. Especially in a city like London.

[Ginger_Yellow]

Canary Wharf is a bit weird in that video. They’ve gone to the effort of getting the round residential tower the right shape, but apparently not the much more famous/iconic One Canada Square, which was the UK’s tallest building for a long time.

[Alistair]

Presumably landscape quality will climb with time and/or money?

[paul_chambers]

Yes Canary Wharf is rather underwhelming.

Found a list of cities with confirmed photogrammetry and London isn’t on it.

Photogrammetry vs AI generated scenery

[Ginger_Yellow]

There’s a quote in the Verge article that they wanted to do less familiar places (which certainly fits with the list of handcrafted airports) .

“I think we’re going to get there pretty much everywhere,” Neumann says. “Commercial planes don’t fly everywhere, and some areas of the world are considered a little bit more remote. But those are actually the areas I’m going to focus on because you know western Europe and the US is good, right? But we want to focus on other areas because we think people have not been there, aviation hasn’t really gone there. There’s lots of fascinating terrain. And I mean, I think we can really inspire.”

“I spend a lot of time in Africa right now. I like flying around because it’s cool. And I just think we’re taking the industry of flight simming forward if we bring those areas up in quality because it’s been neglected. There’s all these third-party companies for decades now, they’ve made tons and tons of things, like a thousand airports or so have been modeled and 1,500 planes. But when you look at the geographical distribution of it, it’s not equal. And I think it should be — like really, this is going to be on my bucket list: ‘Make South America awesome.’ It is going to be on my bucket list.”

[paul_chambers]

San Francisco to Las Vegas

Microsoft Flight Simulator - San Francisco to Las Vegas Full Flight Gameplay

and another gigantic preview Flight Simulator hands-on: Microsoft looks different 20,000 feet in the air | Ars Technica

[jpinard]

I got into the Beta!

[Ginger_Yellow]

Oh, no, it looks like they don’t have the Viaduc de Millau! I remember it was bastardised in ETS too, because of some rights issue. Wonder if that’s what happened here too.