NZFF

Like anyone who signed up to receive updates, I got the email announcing the new screenshots on the 'Flight' website, and like last time I'm a bit confused - I just don't see any new screenshots. Maybe this is just a Silverlight bug. Anyway, they'll eventually show up, they always do, but in the meantime, you are welcome to head over to the MS flight site for a look...

EDIT: Maybe my problem is a cache issue with my ISP -- if anyone else has trouble seeing the new images, let me know your ISP.

They are there now- 4 new images...nothing groundbreaking in them...perhaps some refinement of the terrain shadowing?; there is widespread use of true 3D trees on the terrain which is good to see (i.e. goodbye/riddence to 2 plane autogen!)

There is one ground level shot of an airport but I'm unsure if it's a custom modelled one or made from a set of new library objects; no bump mapping apparent on the roof (?)....
I still think they need to tweak the stream lighting at larger distances- They suffer from the common mip-mapping issue and appear too thick in the distance; it also appears that the streams are lit from the shadowed side of the hill (Image 4)

Nice to see progress though

Cheers, Tim. I couldn't wait for them any longer, so I fired up my mobile broadband on the laptop and had a look at them courtesy of Telecom Mobile, rather than Telstra's obviously misbehaving cache...
The laptop isn't the greatest, so I'll reserve judgement until I can get them full-screen on my nice monitor, but my first impression was a bit disappointing.

Ok, while I was trying to organise the logistics of plugging the laptop into my monitor, the images showed up on my PC.
Second impression:
Image 1 -- I think that this one set the tone for my initial disappointment, it looks to me like a badly colourised set of textures. Orbx have shown that textures can be a lot better, so MS can't just ignore that. I've never seen that particular green in the landscape...
Image 2 -- that's more like it, as this is a good idea of what to expect from default clouds/weather/atmospherics. I'd be really happy to fly around in that. However the overall theme of these images is somewhat gloomy and barren, which is not the way I perceive New Zealand -- ok, at the moment there's a bit of storm happening over the harbour here, but I'd like to see how Flight reproduces a nice day!
Image 3 -- default library objects with much better textures, cool. Ground textures close-up no better than FS2004 so far, but I'm confident that these will improve a lot during development.
Image 4 -- no comment at the moment.

Image one -- If thats a Cumulonimbus there then I'm mildly impressed. I think it makes a good job of looking like a stormy day. I can see they have done a bit of work on making lighting realistic. Lighting is one of the most important details in any computer generated image/video/game so good to see some progress

Image two -- They are probably just showing some of their best scenery but the mesh looks pretty good to me, for a default mesh that covers the entire world! We cant realistically expect VLC quality scenery worldwide out of the box. Once again the clouds and lighting are vastly improved on FSX, and thats what we should be comparing to instead of REX or any other add-on because that would be like expecting the Flight 747 to be better than the PMDG one.

Image three -- They are definitely showing their best here. I don't believe for a second that all airports will have this level of detail in them, It would need to be researched and created on an individual basis which is beyond what MS manpower will be capable of. If its just autogen scenery which is appropriately placed then its an improvement definitely but if that image shows the tower exactly as it is at the real airport wherever that is then don't expect that detail worldwide. Textures are better, can see cracks in the road etc and you can see shadows on the buildings which is another good sign that lighting is to be much improved.

Image four -- Not much to say about this but the ground lighting for the town looks a bit more real than in FSX.


I cant help but get the feeling they are putting a lot of work into this promotion island (where is it actually??) and that the final product will only look this detailed in no more than 5% of the world. I like the lighting improvements definitely, hopefully what they have done with that will allow more realistic cockpit lighting too (please allow dim-able lighting!!!)

Any guesses on release? I think in about a year at the earliest.

I haven't seen any - it says you need to install Silverlight or something. I really don't want more bloatware, what is Silverlight?

ZK-MAT wrote:

QUOTE (ZK-MAT @ Jan 29 2011, 05:02 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

what is Silverlight?

The ideal question to ask Google.

(I think you probably want the fourth result returned, what is Silverlight, really?)

Looks interesting!

That's definitely the control tower on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii!

Also, that final image (night with runway lights) looks like it's taken at Lihue airport on the island of Kauai, Hawaii.

Cliffs are the only change ive seen and the trees of course which from 1000ft still probably look the same ,windows live and having to pay for MP is one hell of a bad move its hard enough to get MP now with people you know let alone paying again and again for it ,the whole concept of flight doesnt look anything different to what we have now ,the planes well how about some new ones instead of FSX port overs ,

Well if you are happy with what you get for your money with recycled FSX objects with Flight you wont mind paying again for my ported over scenerys will ya ? oh hold on ill have to by a license to make addons for you is something ive heard could happen ..ill be out im not getting sux in to the Crap_