Microsoft flight released

[SkippyBing]

The planes are being flown right over ground obstacles and between buildings. Reminds me of Grand Theft Auto, teaching young kids to steel cars and pick up prostitutes as rewards. They seem to be trying to get kids to fly at public buildings and things.

To be fair I do that as well, mainly because the CAA would take my licence off me if I did it in real life and it's fun. I mean the low flying bit, not the stealing cars and prostitutes thing.

Sometimes I fly through things http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1RtAipva5M&context=C3d4df31ADOEgsToPDskKFXt3vay76ysAhz3tw0gyB...

 

[GHD]

I also was on the beta team. Today I attempted to install the RTM and it wouldn't work

In fact I needed to unzip the downloaded .cab file manually and run setup

Anyway, the only thing I notice is that the water textures have improved since the beta.

On a 3GHz AMD, I get about 60fps with all settings apart from weather on max.

 

[Hughes-MDflyer4]

Did anyone see the introductory trailer on the main Flight page?

The planes are being flown right over ground obstacles and between buildings. Reminds me of Grand Theft Auto, teaching young kids to steel cars and pick up prostitutes as rewards. They seem to be trying to get kids to fly at public buildings and things.


I know, I know... 'Bill, stop, be serious, its just a game, for kids... ' But. the old Flight Simulators were 'serious' and for learning to 'really' fly.

Those were the days, at least for me. I sound like I am an old man now... <combs gray eyebrows>


EDIT: I must note, as I think about the above that I just wrote, that when my sisters kids would visit, they would come into Uncle Bills room and see the latest sim planes. They always flew at the outside view (over the rudder, behind the plane) and always flew into the ground and wrecked, giggled, hit the restore and did it again, over and over and over. Taking off in a Boeing 747 in a forested small Island was another adventure favorite. 'Uncle Bill, what happens if I run into this building?', etc, etc, etc... :S

With that said.. perhaps they 'are' on the right track. We are just too old and think like pilots.

<rubs in pain ointments into eyebrows... squizzle squizzle>

So because they flew between buildings in the video, you think that you have to fly like this all the time? The video is a video. It's not limited to flying like a child.

The following is not directed at you Bill, but the community in general.

Would everyone stop being a bunch of grumpy old men? Flight is obviously not an FSX replacement. So what? Move on, go fly FSX. But Flight is fun for ANYONE, even the hardcore simmers. The graphics are far superior to FSX...as well as the flight characteristics. What's wrong with flying with Flight? Nothing. I'll be using it when I want to take a break from FSX realism. (although Flight has realism in places that FSX doesn't, so it's like "Which do I use?!" ) Enjoy it. It's free. Microsoft put three years of work into this project. They didn't just create what we see now and think that it will be all. They have said, they are developing a lot more and can't wait to show us. It will grow. Like I said, it's not an FSX replacement, but it certainly is fun to use every now and then.

 

[jtanabodee]

So because they flew between buildings in the video, you think that you have to fly like this all the time? The video is a video. It's not limited to flying like a child.

The following is not directed at you Bill, but the community in general.

Would everyone stop being a bunch of grumpy old men? Flight is obviously not an FSX replacement. So what? Move on, go fly FSX. But Flight is fun for ANYONE, even the hardcore simmers.

Relax guy, it just video and everyone knows that. Every kids want to fly but not realisticly like simmer. Even my little boy, he wants to fly to crash the airplane to the sea more than landing beautifully on the runway.

I think Microsoft might have a strategy to include us in their bussiness in near future. They might cannot make the world by themself with the same degree of detail that they provide in the Free Flight.

Why don't turn us to their partner? Convert their app store for addon to a new Sim Market.
They can have kids and anyone who want to fly and developer who want to take part. The whole community will be happy.
Release SDK that can preview in FSX and then send the file to Microsoft to convert to Flight. They do not lose anything and can have more customer both simmer and developers.
Dear Microsoft, that's money, money and money.................ha ha.

 

[rhumbaflappy]

As usual, Flight discussions lead to bickering, with little or no new information exchanged... just insults.

If there's nothing new to add, maybe we should just let this topic die peacefully. Being grumpy about Flight is unfortunate. Admonishing others for being grumpy about Flight is just as unfortunate. Criticizing Microsoft is best done on their facebook page, where they may have a chance to respond.

Continuing the thread in this direction will lead to it being locked.


Dick

 

[jtanabodee]

I got your point, Dick.

That this website is just for developers. FLIGHT is not for us, no point to discuss. No relevant issue.


I think, just only my opinion, admin should delete all the discussions regarding Flight, should he?

UNTIL microsoft release SDK, and developer can get involve, any discussions can begin.

 

[decapod]

MS Flight is however a decendant of FSX.

Those PAK files are just renamed zip files - look in those and you'll see a lot of familiar file types. They even left in a few files from the Train Sim 2 development.

I'm still hopeful for future versions (but not very hopeful)

 

[Frits]

This is what i think of Flight.

1. It look better than FSX,still needs work to make it a living world like in FSX.

2.It free and the engin is rock solid,no stutters.

3.The rest of the world to come.

4.I hope an sdk For frreeware and payware.

5.Payware that MS takes a cut of and get sold on the market places,so no more piracy,MS must get a cut it there sim and there sdk.

6.This can only get better,the rest will come atc,weather,MS said it will give the hardcore simmer also what they want so give it time.

That what i think!

Frits
http://www.triengtrieng.webs.com/

 

[hcornea]

The contents of the files may be "interesting" but the package is written specifically to exclude external content.

Any content needs to be built and signed using MS-provided tools.

It is tempting for the casual attendee to forget this is a Developer Focussed forum, and to get involved in how great the game is (or isn't). The discussion is moot, however, because the platform is not open to development.

Looking at the platform performance-wise (using Brandon's screenshots for reference) the LOD_Radius looks to be medium low, with little autogen drawn and the textures are blurry.

The default airport looks nice (but blurry).

There is little in the platform that FSX cannot do (some DX9 shader tweaking, and shadowing perhaps) ... so I think all developers should feel buoyant at the prospects of keeping their current developer tools and continuing to breathe life into FSX (or indeed, FS9)

 

[mgh]

It may not be directly relevant, but the full Xbox Development Kit (XDK) is available to licenced developers of retail games who have signed up to the Registered Developers Program.

 

[hcornea]

I think that enables you to develop xna Xbox games ... but not "content" for an existing game, doesn't it?

 

[mgh]

That could be so, I offered it as an indication of an approach Microsoft could take, as does this Games for Windows .

 

[AeroFiles]

I presently do not plan to download it. MS has made it clear that Devs are out. I originally came into FS via their Gmax addition so that I could make my own designs of planes. Its gone now, and so am I.



Bill

+1 what a shame, but good that FSX still has a whole lot to offer and FS9 is still alive as a number 2'nd.
And then there is the promising X Plane 10.

I have FLight downloadet and it runs like a charm on my Dell XPS 17.
I like it as a game but at the moment not as a replacement for FSX.

I liek the out of airplane feature, thats nice to have as a standard feature in a game, sort of like Grand theft auto, but only airplanes, and you can't steal other airplanes, and thats good

 

[Stoney3K]

MS Flight is however a decendant of FSX.

Those PAK files are just renamed zip files - look in those and you'll see a lot of familiar file types. They even left in a few files from the Train Sim 2 development.

I'm still hopeful for future versions (but not very hopeful)

Microsoft Flight is based around, more or less, Microsoft ESP. Where FSX had a lot of 'legacy' stuff in it from FS2004 and earlier versions with a splash of ESP mixed in, Flight has cleaned up a lot of the mess and leaves only the necessary bits.

Along with using the PAK file format (ZIP with files stored at a fixed offset) and compiled XML files, this gives a huge performance boost over FSX.

I already did some reverse engineering and found a lot of material to be consistent with content developed off the ESP SDK, so I suspect you could use it to create new content. Scenery is still in good ol' BGL format, carried over right from FSX.

I have to admit, Microsoft did quite a good job at cleaning up the file system and getting rid of all of the 'modules' which may have been a performance hog on FS2004/FSX. This was done to remain compatible with legacy Windows APIs, something Flight wouldn't need.

Despite the huge performance gain and excellent organisation here, though, Flight has a signature system in place that won't allow you to modify the files unless you can re-generate a security catalog signed by Microsoft. Change anything, and Flight would fail to start, because the integrity of the files is compromised.

(IMO, this is security done right, since they only need to keep the cryptographic keys secret, and not be obscure about file formats.)

There may be some vulnerabilities we can exploit to make Flight play 'unsigned' content (maybe even existing FSX scenery or aircraft), but I need to delve into the process internals and stick a debugger to Flight to find out anything sensible about it. Anyone willing to help, feel free to make a backup copy of your Flight folder (it'll run straight out of a folder copy) and hack away.

With Flight out in the open, though, it will probably be a matter of time until somebody finds an exploit and the first hacked scenery or aircraft will pop up. The engine is far superior to FS2004/FSX, but its biggest drawback at this time is the severe lack of content and the SDK not being available to other developers.

 

[solid]

I will not say a word about the MS contraption since its locked like the Crusaders locked their women before going to the fight (I guess you´ll know that!)....I have been in the commercial software business for 42 years now and MS by leaving the "almost real" Sim market wide open by going to the crusades has opened a wide window of opportunity for visionaries to jump in and take that niche of the market. Obviously it can´t be a loner or two, it must be a company willing to put money and talent into it. talent? we use people from Russia, Austria, Argentina and many other countries to do specific jobs and their performance is fantastic, so talent is there in any field, just put an add on the web.....Money?, that´s the real deal, but a good presentation package with real figures usually gets investor interested, a good job would have to be done here but there is always investors for everything. Having said that, I think FSX has many years to go yet and FSX developers should not worry too much, real simers who really enjoy their hobby will not leave it just because some crusaders went to the desert....anyway, just take a good look at the indicated site and look at that beauty.....things like that will eventually bring on a new sim, maybe not tomorrow or three years from now but I bet simers will have oceans like that to fly over......in my time I have seen computer tech grow from a little pup to a flying dragon....just remember the lousy green flying games of the late 80s....OK, enough, I am in the middle of trying to make some Italian airfields out there in the North Africa of 1936 where my next Adventure Flight will be staged...I´ll have a beer first anyway.

http://www.outerra.com/index.html

and here is the propaganda for the mentioned flight

http://www.fsadventuresky.com/deluxe

 

[Heretic]

Downloaded it already...loving it.

Not an FSX replacement (yet!) but certainly fun. The aircraft fly very realistically, performance is great, (very VERY optimized engine that relies heavily on your GPU) and it looks nice!

So kind of a recreational Flight Simulator without the "workload" of MSFS?

"Flight! Unlimited"...heh.

 

[Stoney3K]

So kind of a recreational Flight Simulator without the "workload" of MSFS?

"Flight! Unlimited"...heh.

First impression, I will have to agree. Flight is more about flying by the seat of your pants, and not having to worry about things like flight plans, ATC and loads and loads of procedures or checklists.

That's also probably the reason there aren't any jets or heavy airliners in Flight... yet.

If you look through the Flight data files closely, there's enough evidence that it may support a lot more complex things like system simulation, custom flight models (defined in XML for each aircraft individually) and more expansions, since basically everything in Flight is defined in those data files. Right down to the dialog boxes, which are actually Shockwave Flash files.

So from a programmer's point of view, Flight is flexible enough to support the heavy iron later down the road, even with a better way of interfacing and presenting it than FSX had (with the Panels & Gauges API).

The only problem is Microsoft's unwillingness to give third party developers access to the tools to develop for Flight, even if they could earn money from it. There's a lot of talent around the world that would be more than happy to develop for Flight.

 

[lionheart]

I liek the out of airplane feature, thats nice to have as a standard feature in a game, sort of like Grand theft auto, but only airplanes, and you can't steal other airplanes, and thats good

We have wanted (almost needed) that for ages! I think there used to be one for FS2004 and 2002, a payware addon. It had an issue though, as I remember but was a very cool enhancement.


Being able to walk around the plane before flight, I think, is one nice feature....

 

[stevo]

Downloaded, tried, only thing I can say really is oh dear what a shame!!!! Developers can't use it, Hard core Simmers wont like it, Kids will get board of it....whats the point??



but its a free game so all is not lost.

 

[Aviasim]

We have wanted (almost needed) that for ages! I think there used to be one for FS2004 and 2002, a payware addon. It had an issue though, as I remember but was a very cool enhancement.


Being able to walk around the plane before flight, I think, is one nice feature....

Would that be Active Camera, Bill?


Regards