1 hour ago, peroni said:

Agree with the other about being a bit too dark, my current biggest gripe are the super harsh shadows and the total lack of vibrations (I know about cinema veritè but it does not do it for me)

For me right now the major flaw graphics / scenery / weather rendering wise is the night. Clouds aren't depicted during night, and even less do your aircraft lights illuninate the clouds at night.  Other than that I am fine with the overall graphics & performance and even default scenery specially after the recent "recut", because I use XP12 only for tests on a few prop aircraft and then to use with the Toliss A319 (awaiting compatibility upgrade with RC5/6).

3 hours ago, mSparks said:

Seeing the runway was too easy in XPlane, you can see that really obviously in my screenshot of the dashboard lighting, IRL the runway is pretty much camouflaged with the rest on the scenery, In XP it almost "jumps" out of the scenery.

 

3 hours ago, mSparks said:

The biggest flaw in XP scenery is still the bleeping road textures.... when we finally get new tarmac, the generational leap that is XP12 will have been fully achieved.

Don't fancy using ortho and getting rid of the roads with x-roads? All you'll then see are the roads in the ortho.

13 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

Don't fancy using ortho and getting rid of the roads with x-roads? All you'll then see are the roads in the ortho.

I have xroads, I actually just used it to turn my roads much darker so they don't cut into the scenery quite as hard - maybe better, but this is what I mean by "I don't know what the solution is".

The solution is not plain ortho either, Its not as simple as just "making lighter" or fixing the colours of what is there already.

My thought after watching the video a few times is maybe its that the sim scenery ends up to sharp at a distance, that what is likely missing is some kind of blur effect tied to the fog/haze.

like, when visibility is low, even close things get their light "blurred" by the mist and you lose the sharp edges

But I don't know, and I'm not convinced it's either that - or even if it's possible.

Edited December 20, 20223 yr by mSparks

 

9 hours ago, Baber20 said:

My only gripe is that the ground looks very dark in Xplane 12. I believe the sun light is not being absorbed and bounced around which makes it comparatively darker ? Other than that everything looks pretty spot on.

Same. But on the other hand, the real flight is recorded by a camera and not Austin's eyes, so I doubt that exposure is comparable.

 

7 hours ago, jcomm said:

So, Austin recorded this, I believe, to show how close the "plausible World" in XP12 is to RW, not really the aerodynamics, although I am sure he can easily record another video showing how nice XP can do aerodynamics too...

Correct. He even stressed the "looks" in the introduction.

 

4 hours ago, Sims Smith said:

Another proof that handcrafted airports is superior!  Bias gateway scenery designer here 😜

Thanks to the Gateway, I haven't installed a third party airport in years. It's one of the best things about X-Plane.

Edited December 20, 20223 yr by Bjoern

Looks like the video was taken with a release older than 12rc6. In 12.00, with the built-in auto-exposure, the outside world is much brighter.

 

I like the auto-exposure effect. It's notable, but quick enough not to be distracting.

Initially I bet on the “plausible” world approach because it is a full 3D model (from the ground up) and looked more convincing than the flatlands in P3D despite all of Orbx’s help (Global Base, OpenLC, Vector etc.).

But this vid shows that a change needs to be made for the better going forward. The “plausible” world is barely convincing now and looks totally out of place when shown side by side the real world, especially around the airport at low levels.

2 minutes ago, OverTheEDJ said:

But this vid shows that a change needs to be made for the better going forward

And FYI.

That video - in terms of scenery - is still 97% XP11.

So no one (except maybe some cretin mods on the .org), not Laminar, not the people who still enjoy XP11, not those of us who already transitioned to XP12 disagrees with you.

Its just - as the video also shows - most of that "for the better" that is left - and coming soon - are marginal improvements to an otherwise rock solid scenery system.

I'm reminded of a video I watched ages ago on an upgrade to an old game, something like silent hill or similar. Part of the performance optimisations they did in the original which ended up making it great was to wrap everything in fog and use very low polys in the fog - and it looked and "felt" great. The team that did the upgrade reduced the fog and went to high polys at greater distance - and it looked terrible.

Similarly in Xplane, what really stands out as wrong are things that are there but should actually not be clearly visible, there are numerous reasons for that, one of the biggest for me years ago was rivers - the lack of river banking in default xplane made them far to visible. Whole reason I did:

2 or 3 years ago.

And please don't start on how there is any kind of remotely better alternative, at one point I could have believed it, but having had several conversations about those alternatives now it is more than clear that there are a lot bigger issues with any of the alternatives than how sharp the runway edges are viewed from 5 miles away and whether they are properly antialiased.

 

Why slew the flight from takeoff to landing? Because the in between scenery is the weakest link in the presentation. We do not have a problem with Xplane airports or planes, just what is in between.

43 minutes ago, skipph said:

just what is in between.

grab yourself lvl16 otho, takes about $70 for a dedicated SDD and a couple of days downloading, and you'll have higher res scenery "in between" than you can get anywhere else.

Not that you'll ever actually see it if you are flying above the clouds. 🤷‍♂️

43 minutes ago, skipph said:

Why slew the flight from takeoff to landing?

Cos otherwise the video would have been several times longer for exactly the same content maybe?

Edited December 21, 20223 yr by mSparks

22 hours ago, mSparks said:

grab yourself lvl16 otho, takes about $70 for a dedicated SDD and a couple of days downloading, and you'll have higher res scenery "in between" than you can get anywhere else.

Not that you'll ever actually see it if you are flying above the clouds. 🤷‍♂️

Cos otherwise the video would have been several times longer for exactly the same content maybe?

I think my answer is more accurate. And I have all the ortho I need.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i

40 minutes ago, skipph said:

I think my answer is more accurate

I think for your answer to be accurate it would require at the very least time stamps of something you are actually referring to.

timelapsing the video of the flight did not make that impossible for you, if anything it made it easier.

Edited December 22, 20223 yr by mSparks

It's pretty amazing how XP12 is when adding a little ortho. I'm sure it will only get better and better from here. Congrats to LR for the excellent lighting system 👍

 

Edited December 23, 20223 yr by UKflyer

Sunset sequence at FL420.

It would be nice if the sun, when viewed directly, actually blinded you when viewed directly without sunglasses (Shift+S) on.

 

Nothing going on here, but I really liked how the ouside is completely drowned out in light while the cockpit instrumentation stands out against the shadow from the glareshield.

 

I think the sun glare when low over the horizon was also fixed over time. Now if the clouds actually also cast shadows...

 

...as demonstrated by this screenshot. Look at the huge cloud bank on the right. Draw it in front of the horizon, ditch the transparency, add some shadows on one side and a sun colored hue on the other and the scene would be perfect!

 

If you haven't done so already, give the Citation X a try. It's really good and a well rounded package.

 

 

 

- Edit:

 

For comparison, here is a screenshot from an early XP12 beta in September. Atmospherics have come a suprisingly long way.

Edited December 24, 20223 yr by Bjoern

Here is the real departure airport in the video, KCUB, home base for Austin’s plane, taken from around 8000’ msl today. 



And thanks to the “bomb cyclone” that moved across the US, check out that crosswind! I was flying sideways, but I’ll take that as crosswind all day rather than a headwind!

Edited December 24, 20223 yr by snglecoil