AEROSOFT flightsimulator 2012

[Lionheart]

if they're starting from scratch, the undertaking is monumental. especially for an outfit their size. it's hugely complicated, and expensive. also, if it doesn't beat the pants off of fsx, or show the potential to, it's doomed to failure. especially if it costs more to the end user. that's just reality.
add to that that freeware may not be an option because they can code it out from the beginning, and maybe freeware all-stars we currently enjoy may not want to switch. it's a very ambitios thing for them to do. if they pull it off they may be giants. if not, they may become a by line. i wish them all the best.

Some very good points CF..

I hadnt thought of those aspects and variables...



Bill

 

[FengZ]

Two and a half years in the making.... that must be huge!!! :ernae:

Windows 7 might be Windows 11, who knows?


Let's hope everything materialize!

2.5 years is very short in game dev terms. So i think they are under estimating their dev cycle.

A typical "AAA" game these days take about 3-4 years to dev. Bigger MMOs can take up to 5+ years (such as WoW).

It also depends on if they are coding their own engine or licensing someone else's. The tooling for a new game engine can take 1.5-2 years just on its own....the sheer amount of code it takes to make a stable engine is insane these days (i remember working on Gears of War back in 2001!! And the game came out in 06?). And this is w/ Epic Games...who is famous for their engine tech.

However, it depends on what they are targeting. An "arcade" flying sim is not that difficult to do. But a realistic simulation is very very hard to pull off.

I hope they go through w/ this plan. All the flightsims out there need a facelift.

I've been playing games such a Need for Speed: Shift and Crisis Warhead...and man, these games make look FS9 (and even FSX), look so dated in terms of both graphics and technology.

-feng

 

[Lionheart]

I've been playing games such a Need for Speed: Shift and Crisis Warhead...and man, these games make look FS9 (and even FSX), look so dated in terms of both graphics and technology.

-feng

Roger that Feng.

Some of those games really run awesome on standard computers. It would be brilliant if a new sim with such huge improvements would also run smoothly.


Bill

 

[Cratermaker]

Anyone remember Flight Unlimited? That was an amazing flight sim in its day. Although the world was small, the feeling that you were in real airplane far surpassed what MS flight simulator had at the time.

“All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again.”

 

[Lionheart]

Anyone remember Flight Unlimited? That was an amazing flight sim in its day. Although the world was small, the feeling that you were in real airplane far surpassed what MS flight simulator had at the time.

“All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again.”

Yep! I loved that game.

Photo real terrain (though very little) and only 4 locations, but it was so darn realistic!

Another thing I loved about it was the first entry part, the FBO office, with the sounds of planes flying overhead. Reminded me of being in an actual small airport office, lol..

The little Russian stunt plane was pretty cool.

Such a simple, fast running sim.... I think one of the best parts was the ground looking so real.



Bill

 

[Bjoern]

I've been playing games such a Need for Speed: Shift and Crisis Warhead...and man, these games make look FS9 (and even FSX), look so dated in terms of both graphics and technology.

You can't compare them to a flight simulator. The game worlds of other games are way smaller and can thus be populated way more densely and accurately.

Making a flight simulator is about representing an awfully chunk of land pretty realistically and not putting 34934324^3425345 details in one little area.

The arcade machine was an awesome detail!

Here's a tribute video made by a friend of mine (and dedicated to me ):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43JF46F-yZs

 

[Cratermaker]

NICE! I forgot how great the scenery looked back then. It was light years ahead of anything else at the time, and all on a freaking Pentium 1!!! It was super smooth and I had (I believe) a 16MB graphics card!

It was much smoother in person than the video on you tube (I'm sure it is youtubes fault)

I have high hopes for Aerosoft, starting with a clean slate and all.

 

[Cratermaker]

Look at what they were doing 10 years ago. 10 years!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwJ8lGrQ6fg&feature=related

 

[Lionheart]

Thanks for the memories Bjoern. That was awesome.

Man, for some reason, I remembered the planes as being super real, lol.. Also you cant really tell that the terrain is photo real. From higher altitude, you can see it.

Those first shots were the Sedona airport.


I dont think I flew that glider one time!!!! lol...



Bill

 

[Bjoern]

I dont think I flew that glider one time!!!! lol...

I think I tried to fly it...but just once...

The Decathlon was my favourite. Sooo well to fly!

 

[Lionheart]

Roger that.

You can't compare them to a flight simulator. The game worlds of other games are way smaller and can thus be populated way more densely and accurately.

Bjoern

I had some idea's and thoughts on this when we were doing input for FS11 months ago.

I think that we could actually do high detail terrain that only appears when we are 10 feet off the ground or less. See, you can have tons of LOD's. In FS, you have houses in AutoGen that could be seen from far away. That with shadows costs huge amounts of memory. If you have mini ground details (like say rocks and grass, more realistic trees, etc) that come to life when you touch down, then you have some unique terrain that is high detail. But once you take off, they go poof! You could do those neat little runway lights that way, having them show up only when you are say 30 feet away from them. (Sort of like the old days of scenery when you had a basic shape or nothing until you were right on it).

Thats my thoughts on 'super' scenery for a new FS.


Imagine the cool things you could do with things like houses and cars and tree's and things. People at a terminal. Gone until you get 'right there' and then bing, they show up... (Think of the game as transitioning into far distance view mode, performance mode, and going into a high detail scenery mode with extreme LOD detail autogen. Two different modes activated by an adjustable distance slider).

To keep it constant for most all people, you could have it wired to where you cannot set the distance huge (for those rare 1% people that have liquid nitrogen cooled computers) so everyone doesnt get mad that they cannot go to high slider settings.. But! Have it editable in a config somewhere that you could raise it, so when the sim is 5 years old, you could up the distance when chips and GC's can handle more input.



With close proximity mode, you could make the ground terrain like those new games. Then when you are in the air, the small things and high detail ground objects go poof, and then apply distance fog (slight amount, just like in reality), and have Autogen only show when you are close to it. It is never clear enough to see 150 miles with perfect clarity.... Never.. That eats tons of memory..



If I were going to make a sim, I would develope a Lamborghini FS engine and make it to only run fast 'first' and then squeak in the details parts. If they cannot be made to run fast, then axe them.

Thats my humble thoughts..



Bill

 

[Gzr Green Bean]

Of any company out there now , making add-ons for FS, I would put Aerosoft number 1 in the potential for doing this. PMDG would be a strong number 2, but the manual would be 560 pages long, and it would not be ready until 2039.

GB

 

[FengZ]

Roger that.




I had some idea's and thoughts on this when we were doing input for FS11 months ago.

I think that we could actually do high detail terrain that only appears when we are 10 feet off the ground or less. See, you can have tons of LOD's. In FS, you have houses in AutoGen that could be seen from far away. That with shadows costs huge amounts of memory. If you have mini ground details (like say rocks and grass, more realistic trees, etc) that come to life when you touch down, then you have some unique terrain that is high detail. But once you take off, they go poof! You could do those neat little runway lights that way, having them show up only when you are say 30 feet away from them. (Sort of like the old days of scenery when you had a basic shape or nothing until you were right on it).

Thats my thoughts on 'super' scenery for a new FS.


Imagine the cool things you could do with things like houses and cars and tree's and things. People at a terminal. Gone until you get 'right there' and then bing, they show up... (Think of the game as transitioning into far distance view mode, performance mode, and going into a high detail scenery mode with extreme LOD detail autogen. Two different modes activated by an adjustable distance slider).

To keep it constant for most all people, you could have it wired to where you cannot set the distance huge (for those rare 1% people that have liquid nitrogen cooled computers) so everyone doesnt get mad that they cannot go to high slider settings.. But! Have it editable in a config somewhere that you could raise it, so when the sim is 5 years old, you could up the distance when chips and GC's can handle more input.



With close proximity mode, you could make the ground terrain like those new games. Then when you are in the air, the small things and high detail ground objects go poof, and then apply distance fog (slight amount, just like in reality), and have Autogen only show when you are close to it. It is never clear enough to see 150 miles with perfect clarity.... Never.. That eats tons of memory..



If I were going to make a sim, I would develope a Lamborghini FS engine and make it to only run fast 'first' and then squeak in the details parts. If they cannot be made to run fast, then axe them.

Thats my humble thoughts..



Bill

yup, using smart LOD (each object has it's own fade-out radius) is exactly the way to do it. The Engine will do a lot of the work; even intelligently placing the right objects.

FS9/X already has land-class definition. All it takes is for the engine to do some "thinking" and fade the objects in and out.

- For example, at 3000 feet, you see buildings and trees and some cars
- At 1000 feet, you see driveways, parked cars, telephone poles
- At 100 feet, you can see grass, rocks, etc.

The engine can randomly place these objects based on a set of rules.

About the above post regarding FS rendering a large space instead of a tiny area. This is somewhat true, but today's technology totally allows "seamless" worlds with high detail but without load times. Take a look at FUEL, which renderings a HUGE and EXTREMELY detailed world...all seamlessly.

Anyways, developing a flightsim is a lot work. I've often thought about putting a studio together to do it...but business wise, it's just way too risky. It's a niche market; i bet the sell-through numbers for even FSX is somewhere between 500,000 to 1 million units world wide.

Using that number, as a developer, you usually get about 30% profit from the sales. Whole sale for a 50$ game to retailers is about 10$ (if you are big like MS or EA). Thus, you get about 3$ per copy sold.

3 x 1,000,000 units sold = 3,000,000 USD. Umm... it takes a lot more than 3m to develope a flight sim.

Since Microsoft is also a publisher, they'll keep the entire 10%. Thus about 30m+ in profit. However, i'm sure it took that amount to make and market FSX. So in the end...it's just not worth it.....and thus, the closing of the studio.

-feng

 

[Lionheart]

yup, using smart LOD (each object has it's own fade-out radius) is exactly the way to do it. The Engine will do a lot of the work; even intelligently placing the right objects.

FS9/X already has land-class definition. All it takes is for the engine to do some "thinking" and fade the objects in and out.

- For example, at 3000 feet, you see buildings and trees and some cars
- At 1000 feet, you see driveways, parked cars, telephone poles
- At 100 feet, you can see grass, rocks, etc.

The engine can randomly place these objects based on a set of rules.

About the above post regarding FS rendering a large space instead of a tiny area. This is somewhat true, but today's technology totally allows "seamless" worlds with high detail but without load times. Take a look at FUEL, which renderings a HUGE and EXTREMELY detailed world...all seamlessly.

Anyways, developing a flightsim is a lot work. I've often thought about putting a studio together to do it...but business wise, it's just way too risky. It's a niche market; i bet the sell-through numbers for even FSX is somewhere between 500,000 to 1 million units world wide.

Using that number, as a developer, you usually get about 30% profit from the sales. Whole sale for a 50$ game to retailers is about 10$ (if you are big like MS or EA). Thus, you get about 3$ per copy sold.

3 x 1,000,000 units sold = 3,000,000 USD. Umm... it takes a lot more than 3m to develope a flight sim.

Since Microsoft is also a publisher, they'll keep the entire 10%. Thus about 30m+ in profit. However, i'm sure it took that amount to make and market FSX. So in the end...it's just not worth it.....and thus, the closing of the studio.

-feng

Yikes...

Double yikes...

Thats depressing.


Man... There must be a way..

 

[Bjoern]

I think that we could actually do high detail terrain that only appears when we are 10 feet off the ground or less. See, you can have tons of LOD's. In FS, you have houses in AutoGen that could be seen from far away. That with shadows costs huge amounts of memory. If you have mini ground details (like say rocks and grass, more realistic trees, etc) that come to life when you touch down, then you have some unique terrain that is high detail. But once you take off, they go poof! You could do those neat little runway lights that way, having them show up only when you are say 30 feet away from them. (Sort of like the old days of scenery when you had a basic shape or nothing until you were right on it).

Sounds good and up-to-date, however without telling the video card's shaders to dynamically LOD down all those objects, it's more than useless.

I've fought with LODs in FSX before and well, it was nothing short of an extremely huge PITA and I've only had partial successes in getting them to work right. Too bad that FSX is not capable of scaling down a 16000 poly hangar on its own, once you get farther away from it.

Yet the idea sounds nice, however I'd prefer an overall more accurate look for the world's airports instead of rocks, flowers and insects.

 

[Lionheart]

I've fought with LODs in FSX before and well, it was nothing short of an extremely huge PITA and I've only had partial successes in getting them to work right. Too bad that FSX is not capable of scaling down a 16000 poly hangar on its own, once you get farther away from it.

They shouldnt be that difficult to do. If they were difficult in FSX and not in FS9 and under, then it might be the complexity of FSX. I havent worked with LOD's myself but know a bit about them. You need to create a sub model for each LOD, or just tell the item to disappear at a certain distance, which is easy enough as then you dont even have to deal with it and it vacates memory RAM.

Yet the idea sounds nice, however I'd prefer an overall more accurate look for the world's airports instead of rocks, flowers and insects.

Expand your mind for a moment and think outside of the box. Imagine the future. Imagine LODs that could bring up (fade in) such things as portable fire extinguishers (on wheels, big ones) leaning against building sides, news paper dispenser boxes, coke machines, people standing about, a worker doing something. These would be, again, super close 'special effects' objects that would need for you to be very close to them.



Another thing you could do is have a few airports that are like 'flagship' airports (like the sea plane location in FSX). But in the new big one, you could have a terminal you could go in and see people in lines waiting for tickets, etc. I am not talking HUGE amazing amounts of mesh, but basic things, like architectural 'simple' models of interiors. And it all goes 'poof' when you leave the zone....



Bill

 

[Bjoern]

memory RAM.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiRxkFWb_3o :d

Expand your mind for a moment and think outside of the box. Imagine the future. Imagine LODs that could bring up (fade in) such things as portable fire extinguishers (on wheels, big ones) leaning against building sides, news paper dispenser boxes, coke machines, people standing about, a worker doing something. These would be, again, super close 'special effects' objects that would need for you to be very close to them.

In uni, I was taught that there's no such thing as a bad idea. And you can always dream, however all ideas have to face reality at one point and reality is that this amount of details is well...not really necessary in a modern flightsim.

Yet, I'd say once you got the basics done and working well, why not going into the details?

Another thing you could do is have a few airports that are like 'flagship' airports (like the sea plane location in FSX). But in the new big one, you could have a terminal you could go in and see people in lines waiting for tickets, etc. I am not talking HUGE amazing amounts of mesh, but basic things, like architectural 'simple' models of interiors. And it all goes 'poof' when you leave the zone....

Once again, no.

I'd really prefer generally more accurate airports instead of those "flagship" ones.


I really appreciate your creativity and imagination though!
In my world, the next flight simulator would be a GTP (Grand Theft Plane) mixed with Armed Assault. But as I said...reality check - failed. :d

 

[Cratermaker]

Looking Glass did make money on Flight Unlimited, even while MS was active in the FS business. They did publish it themselves though. The financial trouble happened later.

Who is to say they can't buy a nice world rendering system that is already complete, or base it on one that is complete?

 

[Lionheart]

Looking Glass did make money on Flight Unlimited, even while MS was active in the FS business. They did publish it themselves though. The financial trouble happened later.

Who is to say they can't buy a nice world rendering system that is already complete, or base it on one that is complete?

I wonder if they still have their gaming engine!?


:faint:

 

[Bjoern]

Who is to say they can't buy a nice world rendering system that is already complete, or base it on one that is complete?

X-Plane has a fairly good looking engine...

Other than that: No, there's no licenseable engine out there capable enough for a flight simulator....except maaaaaaaaaybe, ID's newest engine (ID Tech 5) that also powers their upcoming shooter "Rage". It's quite capable in terms of wide, open exterior maps, however I still think it would need extrensive rework to work as a base for a flight simulator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech_5

An engine specifically written and tailored for a new flight simulator would be the best option though as it would eliminate many compatibility issues.

I wonder if they still have their gaming engine!?


:faint:

Flight Unlimited's?

No, thanks. No autogen = bad engine.