Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

Beebo Brink

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You can crash. But, when you do, there's no damage or explosions, the sim just immediately ends with a popup box and tells you you crashed. It's Microsoft Flight Simulator, not Microsoft Crash Simulator. :D
Pffft. Takes all the fun out of it if there aren't bad consequences for making mistakes. I see a market for a new 3rd party feature....
 
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Stora

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It looks beautiful, just wish I had the spare time to commit to something like this.
 

Dakota Tebaldi

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Cody, I'm interested in how you're controlling things -- keyboard? Joystick?
I have a Thrustmaster T-flight joystick. The game recognizes it and already has a default button map for it - there's even a picture of it on the control settings page with labels showing the button numbers, lol. But I use the keyboard alongside it of course. Interestingly the game also recognized my Xbox controller and has a map for it too, although I haven't tried using that.

What I really wish I had was a left-handed joystick, that let me use the mouse with my right hand at the same time, as the mouse controls your free cam and lets you manipulate controls by clicking and dragging them or whatever on the instrument panel, which I prefer to using keyboard shortcuts for things.
 

Ashiri

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The scary part of MSFS is that this program requires 150 GB (!) to install.
That's really the only thing holding me back from getting it. My game SSD is getting rather full as it is.
 

Dakota Tebaldi

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Taking a peek down Market Street, in Frisco.

 
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Cristiano

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Pffft. Takes all the fun out of it if there aren't bad consequences for making mistakes. I see a market for a new 3rd party feature....
I was very disappointed when I derailed at 400 mph in Train Simulator and it just popped up a message saying I had derailed. I wanted explosions and misery.
 
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Dakota Tebaldi

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Pffft. Takes all the fun out of it if there aren't bad consequences for making mistakes. I see a market for a new 3rd party feature....
I was very disappointed when I derailed at 400 mph in Train Simulator and it just popped up a message saying I had derailed. I wanted explosions and misery.
Philosophically speaking, if you WANT the explosions and mayhem, they're not really a bad consequence for making a mistake, they're a reward for your gameplay... ^^
 

Dakota Tebaldi

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Memphis:





You can tell MS is using somewhat outdated satellite imagery here. Nowadays the parking lots are finished and the side of the pyramid has a gigantic neon Bass Pro Shops sign all over it; both are missing here. The good thing about how MS has designed this system though is, whenever Bing maps updates its satellite imagery of this area, it will automatically be updated Flight Simulator as well.



Beale Street, between my plane's nose and the stadium:


One thing I have noticed. The AI is not brilliant at generating bridges. They are in the right place and generally the correct shape, but most have "sides" that extend all the way down to the water. Of course, if the bridge is a particularly famous landmark, like say the Golden Gate and Bay bridges, those are hand-modeled so there's no problem. For the rest, correcting bridges is probably one area where I'm betting third-party addon creators will be able to shine.
 

Dakota Tebaldi

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Looks like you can simulate walking too.
Note that's one of the totally hand-made airports, MOST of the airports in MSFS are not going to be that detailed... :D
 

Ghost Pepper

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Memphis:
One thing I have noticed. The AI is not brilliant at generating bridges. They are in the right place and generally the correct shape, but most have "sides" that extend all the way down to the water. Of course, if the bridge is a particularly famous landmark, like say the Golden Gate and Bay bridges, those are hand-modeled so there's no problem. For the rest, correcting bridges is probably one area where I'm betting third-party addon creators will be able to shine.
I heard that there will be a MSFS Software Development Kit coming later this year.
 
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Dakota Tebaldi

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This article contains a list of all 341 cities in Flight Simulator that have been photogrammetrically 3D-rendered, meaning that the buildings look more or less true-to-life, like Memphis up there, organized by country and state. As you can see the list includes most major and a number of minor cities.

The rest of the cities and towns in the world are procedurally generated, NOT randomly generated from stock assets. The whole world uses satellite mapping and has an accurate road grid; AI then analyzes the satellite imagery and identifies buildings, generating 3D models with the correct footprint and roof color and placing them on the ground. This process isn't perfect, and the AI-created buildings certainly aren't as photoreal as the ones in the above-linked list of cities; however, even the AI assets are at least accurately placed. You WILL be able to find your "house" where it's supposed to be, even if it doesn't look super-photo-accurate.

ETA: Very interestingly, a major city that is very noticeably NOT photogrammetrically rendered is Washington, DC. It has a handful of hand-made monuments like the Lincoln Memorial and the Pentagon across the river, but most of the city is AI-generated. This means that yer Capitol Building is an office building. The Washington Monument is a very tall, very skinny office building.

The understanding is that the LIDAR sensing used to create the 3D photogrammetry was not permitted in Washington, DC for security reasons. Not even Google Maps has 3D buildings in downtown Washington.
 
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Ghost Pepper

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This article contains a list of all 341 cities in Flight Simulator that have been photogrammetrically 3D-rendered, meaning that the buildings look more or less true-to-life, like Memphis up there, organized by country and state. As you can see the list includes most major and a number of minor cities.
Odd seeing Spanish Fort, Alabama in that list. It's a good bit smaller than the other cities listed in Alabama. Quite possibly someone from there works on the simulator. Same could be said for some of the other smaller cities.
 
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Noodles

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This article contains a list of all 341 cities in Flight Simulator that have been photogrammetrically 3D-rendered, meaning that the buildings look more or less true-to-life, like Memphis up there, o
In Illinois.

Springfield and Champaign but not Decatur. Oh well, Bloomington and Peoria got skipped too.

I don't know why they did both Carbondale and Marion though, both are fairly small and like 15 minutes apart. I suppose together they sort of male a city and Carbondale has the university.
 
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CronoCloud Creeggan

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In Illinois.

Springfield and Champaign but not Decatur. Oh well, Bloomington and Peoria got skipped too.
Whut? Those are fairly good sized cities.
Champaign's probably in because U of I and the fact that Sublogic was founded in the Champaign/Urbana area.

But the important thing in Illinois is.... Meigs Field in Chicago. I know it doesn't exist anymore but they HAVE the option for it, tradition.