8 ms·

The trailer link on this page is very impressive. Here is the direct link to the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReDDgFfWlS4 https://www.youtube.com/wa

by foo101 7y ago

The trailer link on this page is very impressive. Here is the direct link to the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReDDgFfWlS4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReDDgFfWlS4

dmos62 7y ago
I'm stunned. Imagine all this tech was open-source. The projects people would make.
- mopsi 7y ago
  It is not open source, however, the platform is very open and a large ecosystem of third-party developers has existed for decades. It is like Windows vs third-party software. Windows isn't open-source, but people can still use it for amazing projects that go far beyond what Windows offers out of the box (e.g. MS Paint vs Photoshop).
  - dmos62 7y ago
    Microsoft had a brutal effect on IT through its anti-competitive practices, especially in its earlier years, when it was extremely influential. Lookup "embrace, extend, extinguish" and the memorable quote "Linux is a cancer". I can appreciate that the simulator offers a modder friendly environment, but really that's comparing a prison yard to a forest.
Thaxll 7y ago
It's impressive because it's most likely fake.
- cwyers 7y ago
  Why? The Forza games look that good, and Microsoft can just ask the Forza people for the code, they own Turn 10 and Playground Games. It's certainly possible to do that, although I shudder to ask what sort of a rig was required to do that.
- mstade 7y ago
  You're probably being downvoted for the time of your post but I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually true. E3 demos are notorious for being pre-rendered moonshots far removed from reality once the game hits the market. Some more egregious than others. That said, if the actual game is only half has gorgeous as this video, it's still crazy good looking.
  - intended 7y ago
    The video seems to be a weird mashup. If you look closely, some scenes are photo real. Other scenes, like the giraffes and a few frames before that, seem to be in the uncanny valley. I suspect that this game may be this generations Crysis. It requires ungodly horsepower to render at full settings, and perhaps a more-than-robust internet connection to transfer all the imagery data.
    - hiram112 7y ago
      That's okay. Hardware and bandwidth can catch up. FSX was released 13 or 14 years ago and it's still being sold on Steam. I didn't get into until about 7 years ago, and it still got my fans spinning on my dev laptop which had a 4th gen i7 and lots of ram.
      - chopin 7y ago
        But it must be programmed for the next gen hardware. I have a dual card setup with i7 8-core processor and can't run FSX at full settings (around 10 fps for three monitors). Monitoring shows that graphics cards and processor are far from saturated. The same for X-Plane 11. You can get some decent performance if you let run separate process for each monitor though. Both indicate to me that the problem lies in software. They also have in common that performance gets abysmal when you add more moving objects.
- pixelbath 7y ago
  The Flight Simulator team at Microsoft takes their work pretty seriously. I very much doubt this is prerendered; they know the cost of BSing their (very hardcore) fanbase.
  - Thaxll 7y ago
    It's not MS doing the game, those guys are: http://www.asobostudio.com http://www.asobostudio.com
    - int0x80 7y ago
      Do you know why is that?
      - jdsully 7y ago
        The original flight sim team was disbanded in 2009 during the recession. They’ve since moved on to different companies.
  - iso-8859-1 7y ago
    When you say "Flight Simulator team", are you talking about the team that ported the subLOGIC simulator to the IBM PC?
    - geofft 7y ago
      Seems unlikely - subLOGIC themselves did that port, and Bruce Artwick continued working on Flight Simulator for Microsoft, and there was significant work on Flight Simulator, particularly with regard to realism, in the decades after the initial release of the Microsoft version.
- munificent 7y ago
  Ex-game dev here, though not a graphics programmer. I didn't see anything in the video that looks particularly difficult to achieve in a modern engine. The volumetric fog and clouds are really nice and might be difficult but I'd be surprised if they weren't doable. Everything else just looks like good models, textures, and lighting to me. I don't even see any particularly difficult techniques. And there are things that definitely scream "real-time" to me. In particular, the shot of the jet taxi-ing looks like it might have some poorly tuned screen space global illumination around the jet. Notice that fake looking soft shadows around the engines that move with the plane. Obviously, the whole world isn't going to be modeled and textured with the level of fidelity you see here. The trailer is only going to show the "hero" locations that get a lot of care and attention — Seattle's space needle, the pyramids of Egypt, etc. But I see no reason why the in-game experience wouldn't look like this in those areas.
  - caconym_ 7y ago
    > Obviously, the whole world isn't going to be modeled and textured with the level of fidelity you see here. The trailer is only going to show the "hero" locations that get a lot of care and attention — Seattle's space needle, the pyramids of Egypt, etc. But I see no reason why the in-game experience wouldn't look like this in those areas. Strictly speaking, this is true, but note that using modern datasets (like the ones used by Google/Bing Maps with the extensive lidar/photogrammetric/whatever 3D data) and modern internet speeds and infrastructure for streaming map data (again like what's used for Google/Bing Maps/Earth) will mean that the filled in areas are far more expensive and detailed than in flight sims of the past that had to assemble their own scenery and distribute it themselves via one-time download or physical media For some idea of how amazing this will be, check out Google Earth VR.
    - ehnto 7y ago
      The first thing I noticed was the small tell tale artifacting from lidar scans in the city areas, which actually gave me a lot of hope that this will be pretty damn awesome to fly in. Another thing that I noticed was some rock clusters that accidentally covered roads on the terrain, which makes me think there will be a lot of proceduraly generated content to add details into to the big open areas. Those two things combined I believe will make it possible to do the entire globe to levels of fidelity that will be incredible to fly in. Some areas might be a bit more "imagination" than reality, but hundreds if not thousands of cities have really great lidar scans they could incorporate. It's going to be an insane leap forward, and as they're scans it will be like flying over the real thing. In theory, I could fly over my own house in the city and actually see it. I guess we'll see what kinds of concessions they've had to make to fit it into a realistic game package, but I'm pretty hopeful as is probably evident.
dang 7y ago
It was discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20142089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20142089.
flyingfences 7y ago
The game looks impressive! As an aside, how do major companies - computer graphics companies especially - still upload letterboxed videos? If I'm watching a 21:9 video on a 21:9 monitor, there shouldn't be black bars on all four sides; it should fill the screen. The entire video was shrunk down just so that the final five seconds could be a green-colored screen with a little xbox logo in the center?
- mtone 7y ago
  Ultrawidify on Firefox is doing a pretty good job at stretching it out to 21:9 (dynamically so it switches on the xBox logo part).
- sundvor 7y ago
  So I'm not the only one here with a 21:9 (3440x1440). It's pretty frustrating!
- carey 7y ago
  The YouTube app that’s built in to my DVR has major issues with anything wider that 16:9; for something very wide and not letterboxed like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lztj7kFIMhA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lztj7kFIMhA, it gets displayed small and windowboxed on my normal 1080p TV. Possibly there’s some outdated targeting of the lowest common denominator by these companies.

by foo101 7y ago

The trailer link on this page is very impressive. Here is the direct link to the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReDDgFfWlS4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReDDgFfWlS4

dmos62 7y ago

I'm stunned. Imagine all this tech was open-source. The projects people would make.

mopsi 7y ago
It is not open source, however, the platform is very open and a large ecosystem of third-party developers has existed for decades. It is like Windows vs third-party software. Windows isn't open-source, but people can still use it for amazing projects that go far beyond what Windows offers out of the box (e.g. MS Paint vs Photoshop).
- dmos62 7y ago
  Microsoft had a brutal effect on IT through its anti-competitive practices, especially in its earlier years, when it was extremely influential. Lookup "embrace, extend, extinguish" and the memorable quote "Linux is a cancer". I can appreciate that the simulator offers a modder friendly environment, but really that's comparing a prison yard to a forest.

Thaxll 7y ago

It's impressive because it's most likely fake.

cwyers 7y ago
Why? The Forza games look that good, and Microsoft can just ask the Forza people for the code, they own Turn 10 and Playground Games. It's certainly possible to do that, although I shudder to ask what sort of a rig was required to do that.
mstade 7y ago
You're probably being downvoted for the time of your post but I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually true. E3 demos are notorious for being pre-rendered moonshots far removed from reality once the game hits the market. Some more egregious than others. That said, if the actual game is only half has gorgeous as this video, it's still crazy good looking.
- intended 7y ago
  The video seems to be a weird mashup. If you look closely, some scenes are photo real. Other scenes, like the giraffes and a few frames before that, seem to be in the uncanny valley. I suspect that this game may be this generations Crysis. It requires ungodly horsepower to render at full settings, and perhaps a more-than-robust internet connection to transfer all the imagery data.
  - hiram112 7y ago
    That's okay. Hardware and bandwidth can catch up. FSX was released 13 or 14 years ago and it's still being sold on Steam. I didn't get into until about 7 years ago, and it still got my fans spinning on my dev laptop which had a 4th gen i7 and lots of ram.
    - chopin 7y ago
      But it must be programmed for the next gen hardware. I have a dual card setup with i7 8-core processor and can't run FSX at full settings (around 10 fps for three monitors). Monitoring shows that graphics cards and processor are far from saturated. The same for X-Plane 11. You can get some decent performance if you let run separate process for each monitor though. Both indicate to me that the problem lies in software. They also have in common that performance gets abysmal when you add more moving objects.
pixelbath 7y ago
The Flight Simulator team at Microsoft takes their work pretty seriously. I very much doubt this is prerendered; they know the cost of BSing their (very hardcore) fanbase.
- Thaxll 7y ago
  It's not MS doing the game, those guys are: http://www.asobostudio.com http://www.asobostudio.com
  - int0x80 7y ago
    Do you know why is that?
    - jdsully 7y ago
      The original flight sim team was disbanded in 2009 during the recession. They’ve since moved on to different companies.
- iso-8859-1 7y ago
  When you say "Flight Simulator team", are you talking about the team that ported the subLOGIC simulator to the IBM PC?
  - geofft 7y ago
    Seems unlikely - subLOGIC themselves did that port, and Bruce Artwick continued working on Flight Simulator for Microsoft, and there was significant work on Flight Simulator, particularly with regard to realism, in the decades after the initial release of the Microsoft version.
munificent 7y ago
Ex-game dev here, though not a graphics programmer. I didn't see anything in the video that looks particularly difficult to achieve in a modern engine. The volumetric fog and clouds are really nice and might be difficult but I'd be surprised if they weren't doable. Everything else just looks like good models, textures, and lighting to me. I don't even see any particularly difficult techniques. And there are things that definitely scream "real-time" to me. In particular, the shot of the jet taxi-ing looks like it might have some poorly tuned screen space global illumination around the jet. Notice that fake looking soft shadows around the engines that move with the plane. Obviously, the whole world isn't going to be modeled and textured with the level of fidelity you see here. The trailer is only going to show the "hero" locations that get a lot of care and attention — Seattle's space needle, the pyramids of Egypt, etc. But I see no reason why the in-game experience wouldn't look like this in those areas.
- caconym_ 7y ago
  > Obviously, the whole world isn't going to be modeled and textured with the level of fidelity you see here. The trailer is only going to show the "hero" locations that get a lot of care and attention — Seattle's space needle, the pyramids of Egypt, etc. But I see no reason why the in-game experience wouldn't look like this in those areas. Strictly speaking, this is true, but note that using modern datasets (like the ones used by Google/Bing Maps with the extensive lidar/photogrammetric/whatever 3D data) and modern internet speeds and infrastructure for streaming map data (again like what's used for Google/Bing Maps/Earth) will mean that the filled in areas are far more expensive and detailed than in flight sims of the past that had to assemble their own scenery and distribute it themselves via one-time download or physical media For some idea of how amazing this will be, check out Google Earth VR.
  - ehnto 7y ago
    The first thing I noticed was the small tell tale artifacting from lidar scans in the city areas, which actually gave me a lot of hope that this will be pretty damn awesome to fly in. Another thing that I noticed was some rock clusters that accidentally covered roads on the terrain, which makes me think there will be a lot of proceduraly generated content to add details into to the big open areas. Those two things combined I believe will make it possible to do the entire globe to levels of fidelity that will be incredible to fly in. Some areas might be a bit more "imagination" than reality, but hundreds if not thousands of cities have really great lidar scans they could incorporate. It's going to be an insane leap forward, and as they're scans it will be like flying over the real thing. In theory, I could fly over my own house in the city and actually see it. I guess we'll see what kinds of concessions they've had to make to fit it into a realistic game package, but I'm pretty hopeful as is probably evident.

dang 7y ago

It was discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20142089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20142089.

flyingfences 7y ago

The game looks impressive! As an aside, how do major companies - computer graphics companies especially - still upload letterboxed videos? If I'm watching a 21:9 video on a 21:9 monitor, there shouldn't be black bars on all four sides; it should fill the screen. The entire video was shrunk down just so that the final five seconds could be a green-colored screen with a little xbox logo in the center?

mtone 7y ago
Ultrawidify on Firefox is doing a pretty good job at stretching it out to 21:9 (dynamically so it switches on the xBox logo part).
sundvor 7y ago
So I'm not the only one here with a 21:9 (3440x1440). It's pretty frustrating!
carey 7y ago
The YouTube app that’s built in to my DVR has major issues with anything wider that 16:9; for something very wide and not letterboxed like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lztj7kFIMhA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lztj7kFIMhA, it gets displayed small and windowboxed on my normal 1080p TV. Possibly there’s some outdated targeting of the lowest common denominator by these companies.