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A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Discuss anything here...nothing political or controversial please.
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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by Victory103 »

I never knew how much the ships add to the immersion when flying overwater or coastal approaches. As a former rotorhead, glad to have a step forward with helos in MSFS. Running AIG and FSLTL, but still frustrated by the AI engine most flights.
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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by Kulbit »

Hello, this question has been buzzing in my head for some time
Have you considered that MAIW Traffic will could support injection via FSHud since there is public SDK API (which is also used by FSLTL) that any of traffic add-ons makers can use ?
I'm simply thinking that it could be a temporary way to insert MAIW traffic, avoiding part of the problems deriving from MSFS traffic management. In this way we would start to populate our sim with military traffic with a decent level of functionality, and keeping up the countless hours of dedication of the developers, perhaps encouraged to continue the hard work, without waiting for Asobo's decisions regarding AI traffic Indeed better than nothing at the moment.
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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by Firebird »

I admit that I had not heard of it, so I went to find out info on it.

The first thing I saw is that it is payware. Therefore the answer is that we would not be using it, or any other system, if it means that anybody has to pay out for it.
Now the public SDK API that you mentioned. I am assuming that this part of the MSFS SDK, as I couldn't see any mention of it on the FSHud website. If this is the case then we still hit the same problem. That Asobo still have not nailed down the AI system. Which means that the SDK and any Documentation can't be considered as the final answer.

Having been involved in some of the testing aspects of cutting over FSX aircraft to MSFS I can testify to the fact that the skills involved and time required for each aircraft is more than it would be for an FS9/FSX/P3D model.
It is just not feasible to ask people to spend time on projects that may not work as they thought when they started.
Also take into consideration that the few that have been getting their hands dirty are also the ones that will have to pass on the knowledge/procedures/experience to new creators.

We had two packs ready for release and then SU11 happened and the packages did not work as intended. SU12 is released in March. We don't know whether the problems from SU11 will have been fixed, whether there will be more breakages or whether they have actually cast the final structure.
I haven't touched the fact that the last two SDKs have altered the way that objects have to be compiled.

We badly want to move into the MSFS ballgame. It is frustrating but we have to wait until the concrete is poured and set.
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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by Kulbit »

Firebird thanks for the answer.
My question was born after i saw this video maybe you'll find some interest on it
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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by Firebird »

Appreciate the video.
The bottom line is that we will investigate anything that looks like it would enhance the users enjoyment of AI.
The one golden rule that we stand by is that we won't look into is anything that involves cost for our users.
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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by Kulbit »

Hi mates,

any good news after the latest MSFS update ?
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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by gavinc »

Kulbit wrote: 24 Mar 2023, 18:28 Hi mates,

any good news after the latest MSFS update ?
Give them a bit of time - The update was only released on Tuesday.
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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by John Young »

I think expectations are way too high for MSFS, particularly just a few days after the release of SU12. Things have changed from where we left off, when SU11 broke the AI, 4 months ago.

At the point we stopped developing, the Selfridge ANG package, featuring my converted A-10C’s and a new KC-135R model, was about ready for release. The bigger Lakenheath package was still with Greg awaiting flight plans for the F-35A’s and the creation of a new test package with updated scenery from Ian (supplied) to enable the new additions. The F-35A’s will probably need additional aircraft painted up and programmed now, to reflect real-world deliveries since last November.

I installed SU12 this morning and re-tested the Selfridge package. Previously the aircraft would depart and fly the circuit, but with no resemblance to the flight plan specified aircraft serials and timings. This morning after 10 or so attempts with different scheduled departure times, I couldn’t get the aircraft to depart at all. The sim also crashed at the loading screen twice and I had to force a re-start and re-launch each time. It may be a simple reason for the AI not moving (the sim was not paused), but I am loathe to spend more time trying to problem solve it when there are so many other reasons why spending more time on this is not likely to prove fruitful for me. Here’s 10 of them:

1. I’ve now turned 74 and don’t have the same level of energy for this. I don’t really want the intensive pressure, problem solving, testing tedium and frustration, that developing for MSFS entails.

2. Having spent over a thousand hours learning how to convert FSX AI aircraft for MSFS and producing a package, I’m loath to spend a lot more time doing the same, when Asobo could break the AI function again, if they haven’t done so already.

3. Greg has now departed from MAIW and I’m not clear who will take over his role for the Lakenheath package.

4. On the wider issue, I’m not clear what the future of MAIW is in any case, in terms of management resources, funding and active membership. I’m not comfortable spending a lot of time on this unless I have significantly more confidence that our community can stay intact and grow. At the moment there isn’t enough visible demand to warrant the effort involved.

5. While we could upload to another site, I am really off-put by the recent debacle of Flightsim.to, the most popular site for MSFS freeware offerings. I’m not prepared to upload there.

6. Conversion from FSX to MSFS is a complex process and only two people are currently equipped to do that – myself and Pete. Pete has an incredibly busy work life and I fully understand why he has been willing to support but not produce actual conversion packages.

7. AI aircraft require scenery and while it is possible to amend default AFCADs to enable AI, as I did for Selfridge, custom scenery that we can work with is in short supply. Ian has been happy to provide scenery for Lakenheath, but his focus is now on pay-ware offerings. I can understand that given the work involved.

8. We found with Selfridge that trying to convert exiting aircraft with 1024 x 1024 - pixel textures is not satisfactorily. Paint kits really need to be in 2048 x 2048 - pixel format and I’m not sure that many MAIW aircraft, apart from my own, meet that criterion.

9. Conversion of exiting aircraft obviously involves repetition of what’s already been done, subject wise. While the visible results in MSFS with PBR textures can be quite stunning, the enjoyment is not quite the same as a whole new project. Building new aircraft from scratch with Blender is a bridge too far for me and I suspect many others too. I could build first using the Gmax FSX Gamepack, but adding the conversion process after that adds a large block of time that I would rather use doing other things.

10. I really don’t want to be the sole developer of MSFS packages at MAIW – I don’t enjoy the frustration of testing and the crazy file structure of using the MSFS “Simple Aircraft” as the starting point is just so confusing at times. Others may be interested in taking up the challenge and we have a very detailed manual to help do that, but it will require a lot of support effort.

I’m sticking with FSX and P3D at the moment and even there, I’m not working at my historic pace.

Sorry to disappoint, but that’s where I am with this.

John
Last edited by John Young on 25 Mar 2023, 16:58, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by TimC340 »

John, that's totally understood.

It doesn't take a lot of reading over at FSDeveloper to realise that the level of knowledge needed to work effectively in MSFS is several levels above what we've needed for FSX and P3D. While there are several enthusiastic amateurs making their own local airfields, the aircraft and major sceneries are becoming more and more the preserve of the big scenery houses. There are exceptions, of course, and fligtsim.to was the place to find the best of them, but trust in that site has been severely dented and will take time to recover.

The enthusiast military market for flight simulation has moved to DCS World and some of the first-person-shooter milsim games that allow aircraft. Games like Arma 3 and Squad, which have YouTube content creators with followings in the millions (check out OperatorDrewski, who is very entertaining!). These games don't allow the recreation of peacetime military scenarios that we've become used to with MAIW and its antecedents, but they very much appeal to the modern game player. MSFS, with its focus on civilian flying rather than the wider aviation environment, comes a poor second to these games when it comes to operating military aircraft in the way they were intended, yet can't really accommodate our style.

A recent discussion over at FSDev suggested that Asobo/Microsoft are working towards deprecating the bgl method of traffic insertion, and that SU12 is another step on that path. They've allowed FSLTL, Just Flight and AIG to develop new methods of injecting AI traffic, and for the moment it would appear that piggybacking one of these may be the only reliable way of injecting user-created traffic. WRT the earlier discussion we had about this, I realise that MAIW's experience with WoA (from which AIG evolved, I believe) there is a reluctance to rely on third parties, but this may be the only way ahead unless we can find a tame developer who will duplicate their methodology for military aviation. I think that's unlikely, as if you're going to do all that work you may as well get paid for it!

Is it possible that we may have to look towards X-Plane to continue our line of work? Or will continuing development of P3D allow us to retain our methodologies whilst enjoying better renditions of the real world? Either way, any improvement in fidelity will demand much more work to exploit it and make the effort worthwhile.
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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by gavinc »

Having finally got my system up to the point where it can run MSFS I can fully understand the frustration developers are feeling.

I love MSFS for flying low and slow (especially over places I know well - I recently flew over Guildford and could easily identify my old house and the places we walked the dogs) but I can't see doing the sort of MAIW things for it that we did for the earlier sims.

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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by TimC340 »

As I've often said, MSFS is an expensive way of getting the full Google Earth experience! It is getting better and better at that, and some of the flyable aircraft are approaching the level of complexity and fidelity that was becoming the reality in P3D before all the developers rushed over to MSFS. It is becoming a truly excellent flying simulator when it's working well, and the sim pilots - especially those using stuff like VATSIM - are getting a decent experience. The recent civvy AI products, while not great, are at least making an effort to inject some variety of traffic into the mix, but the 'spotter'-type player that MAIW targets is very poorly served by MSFS. I don't think that's going to change any time soon.
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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by PB68 »

I have to say that I whole heartedly concur with all of the comments above.
There is just so much uncertainty not just with MSFS, but everything currently ( MAIW included ) and it is very difficult to visualize a clear route forward.

It became very difficult indeed to make any progress at all with developing converted AI aircraft, after SU11 and SU12 effectively broke the Offline MSFS Ai System. This is currently the state in which we are at.

As John has already mentioned, together we have poured countless number of hours into the conversion process and both of us are deeply disappointed that nothing has managed to come to fruition.

The Lakenheath Package ( featuring F-35A's and F-15E's ) that we had ready or at least nearly ready, in my view would have still required further work for it to be completed. The Lakenheath scenery provided very kindly by Ian McCartney, required a few minor changes, which are now impossible to implement as he has moved on. John Mentioned some of the other issues regarding this package release earlier on in his post.

The Retro Lakenheath Package ( featuring F-15C'S, F-15D's and F-15E's ) that was very advanced in development by myself, has suffered from a very similar fate. The scenery of Lakenheath although a different version than that of the F-35A and F-15E version, ideally still required minor changes to it, but these might not have to be essential. The JYAI F-15s themselves were the most developed to date, featuring customised working afterburners, customised wingtip vapour, customised touch down tyre smoke, slime/panel lights and a host of working animations all of which being xml controlled. All of the Paints for this package are completed and the Traffic file worked up until SU11 and SU12.

You may have noticed that I posted a few images the other day and this shows that I do continue to ' tinker ' with MSFS where time
permits. Another achievement has been getting ' Retro ' Airbases into MSFS where the ICAO code for that base has since been reallocated. Bentwaters EGVJ, Woodbridge EGVG and Alconbury EGWZ all now appear on the MSFS UI Map and replace the default airfields that MSFS currently uses for those ICAO codes.
When it is working ( cough, cough ) AI traffic in the form of the JYAI A-10A's fly between these locations and elsewhere of course.
In short, Retro is very much possible in MSFS, but will require work to do so.


In summary, it really does look like what we had before regarding the implementation of AI into the Sim ( .bgl Traffic Files ), might have to change. This is because it might no longer be compatible and an area of " Legacy " obligation, that MS and Asobo want to support.

I am already in talks with another developer as to what the possibilities are, but I think TimC340 touched on this earlier in his post.
I will keep you posted when more information becomes available.


Regards,

Pete.
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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by TimC340 »

Thanks Pete. I had a bit of a play with it tonight and, although I have both FSLTL and FS Traffic, no custom AI movements were seen, although static AI aircraft were injected (I was using London City and had several E190s from BA and Swiss on the ramp). There was some movement from MS-injected GA. One or other of the programs reported 'unable to contact the server' (I think that was FSLTL as it uses FlightRadar24 (ADS-B data) to inject real-time traffic).

I understand that FS Traffic can inject bgl traffic files, though I believe it has its own proprietary format. However, it can do custom traffic if you're prepared to sit down and learn the right way to do it. This post over at Just Flight describes one guy's (unsuccessful as yet) attempt to do it.

I haven't even attempted to use AIG, as I believe it only works with their own aircraft. While some of them are excellent, not all are and of course they don't do military (but nor does anyone else yet!).

I do believe there is hope! Despite Asobo's efforts to frustrate AI traffic, people are finding ways to do it despite the shortcomings of the sim's handling of any AI (some of which is not dissimilar to FSX/P3D). It's pretty obvious that a flight sim is only doing half the job if it doesn't represent other traffic, and most players aren't going to do the whole VATSIM thing just to get some atmosphere in the sim - and all of this is aimed at people who want to fly in the sim, not people who just want to sit and watch.

Funnily enough, the airline world had the same issues with getting AI traffic injected into their multi-million dollar Level D sims. Once it started to appear, it made the whole thing a lot more believable (rather than 'other traffic' being the sim instructor making funny voices on the intercom in the build-up to a TCAS avoid maneuver!

I should probably add that even Just Flight have had to put disclaimers in their manual for the product. These are some of the failings of MSFS that they note in the manual:

"- Aircraft can sometimes randomly disappear when at a gate.

- Aircraft have only one ground contact point, causing them to ‘jump’ over gradient changes and in some cases appear to be floating
or sunk into the ground.

- Aircraft loiter on the runway before beginning their take-off roll and before they exit the runway after landing. This can cause excessive go-arounds.

- Aircraft may land short or long of the runway in strong winds, when using high sim rates, or if an airport’s ILS system is not set up correctly by the scenery developer.

- Aircraft taxi slower than expected.

- Aircraft taxi with their engines at 100% power.

- Aircraft turn immediately after take-off to their first waypoint and do not follow a SID (Standard Instrument Departure).

- Departure aircraft do not climb higher than the initial altitude to which they are assigned by ATC.

- Only an extremely limited number of configuration options are active in the FlightModel.cfg, causing undesirable aircraft behaviour during all stages of flight.

- Aircraft take off on the incorrect runway (either not taking off into the wind or taking off from a runway not normally used in real-world operations).

- Aircraft taxi routes are not correct at all airports.

- Airports having incorrect gate sizes set (AI aircraft cannot use gates where the wingspan is set smaller than that of the aircraft).

- Airports having incorrect taxiway set-ups, causing AI aircraft to get stuck and eventually disappear.

- Airports not having airline codes set at gates, causing airlines to use a random selection of gates.

- Jetway animations are inconsistent when connecting to the aircraft, preventing the jetway from connecting flush to the aircraft on every occasion.

- Changing the time, date or weather during a flight temporarily removes all airborne traffic. MSFS Live Traffic and Multiplayer model matching may be inaccurate.

- Multiplayer aircraft may spawn at the same gate as an FS Traffic aircraft."
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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by John Young »

And to think that 20 years ago, Microsoft released FS2004 with fully functional AI. Why, when using the same principles, is MSFS AI such a dog's dinner today?

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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by TimC340 »

I think John, it's because - as in many games - the producers thought that multiplayer would cover it (and neatly avoid the problems inherent in developing what is a fairly complex addon) and failed to consider that many players would never have anything to do with multiplayer.
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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by TimC340 »

I've been thinking about this a bit, and I have to say I'm wondering why we're so concerned about MSFS when we've really not yet explored the potential of P3D.

P3Dv5.3 is far, far more powerful than we give it credit for. We essentially use it simply as a vehicle for FSX or even FS9 addons because it is largely backwards-compatible, yet it's capable of way more than either of those sims. MSFS has a built-in scenery advantage with its satellite/aerial photography base, but it is possible to equip P3D with similar visuals (at a price, of course!). It doesn't take a great deal of research to find addon scenery and aircraft for P3D that are every bit as good as similar stuff available for MSFS, and the techniques required to make those addons are far more accessible to our skill sets than those relevant to MSFS. And the AI engine works, even if it is a bit clunky in places. On top of that, P3Dv6 is in development and if, as LM imply, it uses Unreal Engine 5 but has a degree of backward compatibility with P3Dv4.5 and later, it should be a reasonably seamless upgrade for many of us.

On top of that, MS has form for abandoning sims! FSX, Flight, FS World (a Microsoft partnership with Dovetail) were all abandoned when the then management couldn't see a profitable future. MSFS was given a 10-year life by MS back in 2020. On the other hand, P3D is a spinoff of a military training product that has contracts extending into the relatively distant future. Yes, it was originally based on FSX code but it has moved on a huge amount since then.

I think we should spend a bit more effort on developing specifically for P3D v4.5 and later, and exploit the advances those sims incorporate. It's great having the ability to import FSX and older addons into P3D, but developing stuff based on the limitations of those sims is effectively doing ourselves out of potential excellence. Yes, some new techniques are needed, but nothing on the scale of MSFS.

If MSFS ever does sort its AI engine out and makes development accessible to amateurs, then we can revisit it. Hell, at the moment even X-Plane 12 offers us more potential than MSFS. I think we should stop looking for greener grass and make the best of what we're good at.
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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by John Young »

The problem I have with P3D Tim, although V5 is slightly better than V4, is the graphics. I've tried countless times to adjust the display settings, but the display always appears gloomy, even with no clouds. It's why I prefer to take screen shots in FSX.

As far as AI aircraft are concerned, I'd like to learn how to make PBR textures for them. I can't do that in the modelling process, but it can be done as an MCX conversion, I would guess much in the same way as with MSFS. I just need to discover the myriad of settings for success. That should improve that part of the graphics. I would hope also, that passing the model through MCX doesn't change any of the animations already present. That would be a pain.

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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by TimC340 »

You can use programs like Reshade to completely alter the ‘feel’ of the graphics in any game, and doing so is pretty mainstream these days. If you have the full suite of global Orbx products, they change the way the sim looks as well as hugely improving on the standard scenery.

I haven’t really got into PBR yet, but I think it’s far less complex than it appears at first sight - and, as we’ve all seen from payware products, the results can be really good. Blender allows PBR texture creation and use natively in the modelling process, and there are several sites that offer free PBR textures. There are also several tutorials on creating PBR textures from scratch in Gimp/Photoshop/Affinity - FSDeveloper has some good ones.

I don’t know exactly what processes MCX uses that might be problematic, but one of the advantages of that program is that Arno is available and willing to discuss any issues and work through them with you if you discover it isn’t doing what you think it should. For a small program it has a huge range and depth of capabilities, and it can be quite opaque - the manual isn’t wonderfully helpful sometimes and is usually well behind the latest build’s features, so it’s very useful to have the originator accessible! And where Arno’s English language skills may sometimes be lacking, there are many other experts who’ll step in to help. FSDev is a huge resource and well worth keeping up with.

Ian’s work on Coningsby and Lakenheath showed some of what P3D can offer us, and lose little to MSFS. It’s obviously difficult to get up-to-date photo references of modern military airfields to inform similar projects, but perhaps we could try a retro project to showcase what we can do with this sim?
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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by John Young »

Thanks Tim, I don't use OrbX, nor do I want to use an external program to alter the feel of P3D. I want to keep it as near "virgin" as possible, to ensure users see what I see when viewing my models in the "out of the box P3D set up".

I won't hijack the thread with PBR texturing, but just to say, there are two aspects to the process - the drawing of the RGB components in a graphics program (I can do that) and the parameters that need to be injected into the MCX settings. I can do the latter for MSFS, but haven't yet tried it for P3D. I'll perhaps experiment with the current project.

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Re: A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

Post by TimC340 »

I think the default scenery in P3D is its biggest disappointment. It hasn't really moved on from FS9, and the introduction of HDR is what seems to have dulled it down. Of course, it's adequate for the military tasks the professional versions of the software are used for (many of the applications use custom scenery themselves) and I guess LM isn't going to spend a lot of development time on something that's peripheral to the main purpose of the program. One of the big advantages of using Unreal Engine for the next version is that it will be much easier to create convincing sceneries - particularly the battlefield type that P3D Pro is used for - and that will have positive knock-ons for us. Indeed, you can create the entire flight simulator in UE5 (including the aircraft) if you want to as Epic games show here. But that's for the future.

As for PBR, I simply don't know enough about it yet to comment usefully. I need to learn!
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