MS FS2020 - Airports update

[cowpatz]

Wow. It is going to make things hard for 3rd party scenery developers.

Watch on youtube.com

[FlyingKiwi]

I can't believe how amazing this looks like it's going to be. Basically everything I've ever dreamed of in a sim.

[Charl]

Wow. It is going to make things hard for 3rd party scenery developers.

My understanding is that the SDK is user friendly.
Sky's the limit

[Naki]

Check out NZQN! Appears to be one of the 80 more detailed airports in the world

[cowpatz]

Was NZQN in the footage or is there another link to that?

[toprob]

It's at 1:28 in the video.

[cowpatz]

Thanks.
Blink and you miss it.

[Radar88]

Thanks.
Blink and you miss it.

Here it is if you missed it.




Room for improvement on the Glass Window Panel frontage of the International Terminal Building Extension as seen here under construction in 2015.

[Riddlez]

Wow. It is going to make things hard for 3rd party scenery developers.

Watch on youtube.com

I was thinking about that when I saw it too. Though a lot more so with the photo scenery developers than airports.

As you saw in the video they are putting more detail into taxiways and painted ground lines than they did with FSX. With FSX I'm not entirely sure where they got their sources for the airport layouts. I'm pretty sure most of them were from airport charts. The airport map they used to create the default New Plymouth in FSX didn't distinguish between sealed taxiways and grass taxiways. So the person who drew up New Plymouth in FSX just assumed that it was all sealed taxiways...which it wasn't!

It's great now that the team have satellite imagery to draw up all the airports in FS2020. So its obvious what is asphalt, concrete or grass as well as taxi lines etc compared to just a black and white airport map. I'm not sure to what extent they will add detail to the surrounds of the airport, like the car parks, trees etc. But since they are creating 37,000+ airports by hand, they will use default buildings to fill in where the buildings are, as well as other default models (other than the custom airports they will add). Plus I would imagine since there are so many to get through they wouldn't spend so much time on each one. So really there is still A LOT of room for detailing airports with custom buildings, detailed layouts, vegetation and other 3D models. Probably more so now that the bar is so high in terms of detail compared to previous sims.

[toprob]

It's great now that the team have satellite imagery to draw up all the airports in FS2020. So its obvious what is asphalt, concrete or grass as well as taxi lines etc compared to just a black and white airport map. I'm not sure to what extent they will add detail to the surrounds of the airport, like the car parks, trees etc. But since they are creating 37,000+ airports by hand, they will use default buildings to fill in where the buildings are, as well as other default models (other than the custom airports they will add). Plus I would imagine since there are so many to get through they wouldn't spend so much time on each one. So really there is still A LOT of room for detailing airports with custom buildings, detailed layouts, vegetation and other 3D models. Probably more so now that the bar is so high in terms of detail compared to previous sims.

Yes, I've been thinking about this, it is interesting to compare what we have with FSX and what we could have with MFS. With FSX the smallest airports were a simple flattened background poly, which never blended or matched the surroundings, with a simple runway polygon on top. With MFS in most cases we'll see the actual photo of the airport, with some detail on top. I suspect that the airports which aren't included in the 37,000 hand-built ones will simple rely on the aerial photo, with no extra polys or models. They may just show up on a chart or map, but should be a lot more realistic compared to a different coloured poly.

One thing which surprised me is that Microsoft have adopted a similar method for airport ground textures to what I used experimentally with NZCH -- the aerial image is tidied up and retained, with detail placed on top, rather than hiding the aerial with asphalt or whatever the surface is. I am hoping that the new sim will offer a bit more definition and improvements in how the detail layers blend etc, as it was sometimes a bit rough in Prepar3d.

Possibly NZQN is one of the 80 'iconic' airports, but not one of the fewer fully customised, so there may still be a lot of value in an Orbx NZQN, for instance. However it is the rest of the 37,000 where there will still be a lot of work to do to make them work best for those who want to see something real, starting with locals. Yes, they will look better than FSX out of the box, but there's a lot more value to add, including local features and character. I've mentioned that before -- defining the character of an airport is not always easy, but once you've done that, it makes the rest of the work a lot easier. In the past I've chosen airports based on some local character, such as the aviation museum at Ashburton, and I can't see amy real change in this process. In fact, I can't wait to revisit these projects for the new sim. I don't think that Ashburton or Omaka out the box will feature the museums.

I will do a more in-depth post on what we can expect in NZ with the new sim, but I can certainly see an ongoing need for airport developers, even though the market will change significantly. I've seen some thoughtful discussions on this, (amongst the not-so-thoughtful:) such as regional packs of improved airports. Personally I can't wait to get started.