Today sees the addition of two former ACES team members to the blogroll. Sure, they've left the team, but they're still near and dear to our hearts...
Bruce Williams is first. To many, Bruce was the public face of ACES for a long time. An avid pilot and instructor, he has a website (and business) here: http://www.bruceair.com. Be sure to check out the site, especially the part devoted to Flight Simulator, and the section containing his in-flight videos.
Second, Todd Laney. Todd was one of the graphics whiz kids whose command of voodoo code allowed for some cool stuff for Flight Simulator and Combat Flight Simulator (including a last minute10 fps boost on CFS 2.0 that saved the day). Todd was responsible for Tick18. Scenery designers will know what I'm talking about. ;) Basically, Tick18 was a hack Todd created totally in his spare time (part of the reason it was never fully baked), and love it or hate it, the hack provided for some neat stuff. Todd now spends his time at Whistler, and with the MacOS, creating Widgets. I use the WSDOT traffic cam widget on my Dashboard at home on my G5.
Speaking of the G5... no sooner than do I break down and buy a new box (after six years), does Apple release this. Doh!
Over at Flightsim.com punas1 has a feature request list. My favorite is this one: "Double the price."
I see some neat things on the horizon, or just released for FS2004 : new Netherlands scenery, PDX area airports, and a new Georender. They follow a trend of using aerial imagery to form the basis of a highly realistic unique scenery area. It’s been interesting to watch the march of progress as aerial imagery—real good imagery--- becomes available. Terraserver was great five years ago, but it was all black and white. Getting better now though…
When I started we had to use photos taken from planes, and that was a real mixed bag. Now we have all sorts of stuff, MSFT’s Virtual Earth, Space Imaging, and Google’s offering.
I really wonder what products like Google Earth’ll will help to come into being. For example, rice paddies have always been hard to do right in Flight Sim. Asian, European, and American versions are very different from each other, and there used to be next to no source available. Google earth (client edition based off of the old Keyhole product) has tons of imagery for East Asia and rice paddies. What’ll that lead to? Dunno, but it’ll probably be good.
That reminds me. My buddy Robert sent me a comparison of FS and Google awhile back. Take a gander:
http://noghead.blogspot.com/2005/08/microsoft-flight-sim-2004-vs-google.html
http://digg.com/gaming/Google_Earth_vs._Flight_Sim_2004_Comparison_(Pictures)
Don't forget, I'm hiring.
Pwn3d!
No fancy schmancy links to all sorts of band pages with song samples.
No...
today we kick it old skool:
1. Mighty Mighty Bosstones: Knock on Wood
2. Social Distortion: The King of Fools
3. The Pogues: Sunnyside of the Street
4. The Specials: Message to you Rudy
5. Southern Culture on the Skids: Daddy was a Preacher and Mamma was a Go Go Girl
6. Public Enemy: Welcome to the Terrordome
7. The Clash: Koka Kola
8. Old 97s: Murder or a Heart Attack
9. Lit: Own Worst Enemy
10. Eminem: Without Me
11. Sir Mix a Lot: Posse's on Broadway
12. New Order: Ceremony
13. Bare Naked Ladies: One Week
14. Sundays: Here's Where the Story Ends
15. Barry White: Can't Get Enough of your Love Babe. (wanna make sumpthin' of it bub?)
16. The Clash: Hateful
Avsim was kind enought to post a link to some of the ACES team member's blogs. Thanks Avsim, and welcome Avsim readers. I, of course, love Avsim as I am their "favorite arteest and lurker" ;)
I figure then, it's only fitting that I deliver up some tidbit for our dear reader(s).
One of the things I'm very proud of in the last release of Flight Simulator is our weather environment. I've linked to various papers detailing the weather system (like here) before, so I won't go into what we did again, but I did want to talk a bit about the water environment work that was done. You see, while I was fairly happy with what we shipped, there was one glaring feature that works mostly the way you'd think, but can deliver some mighty... odd results.
We created a brand new sky system, offering up a variety of color palettes to give each day a slightly different hue cast (and sunset). Okay so far as we go.
We created a brand new cloud visuals system. Added a nice little functionality to create wether themes.
Again, okay so far as we go.
The water environment maps switch out depending on time of day, dawn dusk, noon, and so on.
Okay... so we run into a little bit of trouble here. Each sky set (there are ten) can have it's own color "theme" if you will. There is, on the other hand, only one set of water environment maps. The maps mimic what happens in real life, namely the surface of the water reflects the sky conditions (clear through overcast), as modified by surface conditions (calm, glassy, rough, etc). Which means that you can easily generate a disconnect between what the environment map should look like (as described above), and what it actually looks turns out to be-- which is one texture capturing one moment, one color theme, one sky condition.
Examples of where this disconnect can be found (and where we decided that having variation was more important than having uniformly conforming color) are at sunset, where the dusk water environment map maybe yellow, but the sunset is a vivid red.
Okay, you say that's no big deal.
Here's the big "bug." Mix these three things together: weather theme, time of day, and water environment map. What do you get?
Milk.
Okay, not really milk, but you get a "perfect storm" of sorts.
What's the worst time of day in Flight Sim from an aesthetic point of view?
Noon.
The sun is almost directly above, so shading is at its most uninteresting (start out in the mountains in summer at noon. blech! now advance the time to say, 4:30 pm. Voilà! C'est mangifique!). It's also very bright.
Okay, now add in a nice weather theme. Let's put in "fair weather" for our nice sunny noon day. So which water environment map do you get? Do you get env_highnoon.bmp loaded?
No.
You instead get env_overcast.bmp. Yep, overcast.
Why overcast? Well, the wetaher theme fair weather calls for a cirrus layer of 6/8ths coverage. We load the overcast environment map when cloud coverage gets pretty thick (starting at 6/8ths actually...), which in the real world tends to make water look a little grey. Sometimes purpleish, sometimes greenish, sometime yellowish, and so on, but not so blue skyish, that's for sure, so we load a different environment map. We don't have a seperate environment map for each sun state (morning, noon, dusk, etc), only one overcast, so it sort of has to look good at about anytime of day (don't forget, we the water gets some lighting too).
Starting to get the picture?
When you load the default flight in Flight Simulator, the default time of day is noon. Our "nice" wetaher themes all have cirrus cloud coverage of 6/8ths-- looks fine, overcast cirrus isn't exactlly overcast, if you know what I mean. So you load the overcast water environment map (already kind of a weird color), light it at its brightest (noon), and have lots of blue sky in the scene.
What do you get?
Milky water.
sigh.
So now you know.
If you haven't already, take a look at some of these neat add-ons for the sky and/or water environment for Flight Sim (some are for FS2002, but should work fine in FS 2004):
Active Sky
Bill Lyons water
Flight Environment
Environmental Water Textures Library,
Oceanfx.zip and Oceanstx.zip
in addition, you might try a library search at Avsim for any of the following names:
Daniel Buechter, Kevin Rangel, and Ed Truthan.
There are many more of course, but I can't do all the work for ya now can I?
New ACES blogger: http://blogs.technet.com/beatlesblog/default.aspx
welcome (back) Tim!
Lacey's got an interesting link up on his blog regarding a "best of" list from Time magazine.
I've read 15... Of course, I read the good 15...
Does it count if you've seen the movie? 'Cause then it'd be like 20...
Over in the Avsim forums, duckbilled (I don't name 'em folks, I just report 'em) points us to a video captured from combat sim LOMAC (Lock On Modern Air Combat), from Ubisoft. See it here.
Pretty fun. Nice self shadowing on the aircraft.
Also a new video from flyhalf. Behind an ad wall I'm afraid, but good nonetheless. Too many add-ons too mention them all, but certainly, Active Camera, FScene textures, and a cool Swiss Military Bastion from Things to Come. I might point out that the bastion scenery has its own movie:
Swiss Military Bastion - THE MOVIE:Download (.wmv - 11 MB)
Yahoo works.
iTunes works.
Urrgh.
Anyway, I wanted to point people to the following video, which I thought was pretty durn cool. It shows off several very nice add-ons for Flight Simulator; TrackIR 3, FlyTampa KSFO , and Megascenery San Francisco. There's an freeware add-on aircraft as well (see the Avsim thread here) . Anyway, Ithought the video shows off really well both what the sim is capable of, the joys of flight, and the reason why thre are things you can do in a sim that you ought not to do in real life.
Anyway, the video's here. Take a look. Look for the moving B.A.R.T...
oh, and can I just say that the video plays here at home on my mac? with sound?
I've been spending so long waiting for Photoshop files to save or for the same files to save across the network (for back up) that before I came to work today I cut myself a new mix:
Can't Truss It Public EnemyWhite Girl X Ziggy Stardust David BowieProfessor Booty Beastie BoysNo. 13 baby PixiesStutter ElasticaWish I Was In Love Southern Culture On The SkidsHoliday in Cambodia Dead KennedysFloat On Modest MouseTurkish Song Of The Damned The PoguesBring the Noise Public EnemyBaby Got Back Sir Mix-a-Lot
And today's special guilty pleasure:
Hollaback Girl Gwen Stefani
Last night I watched the girl in the cafe starring the phenomenal Kelly Macdonald (Trainspotting, Gosford Park, and more) and Bill Nighy (Hitchiker's, Love Actually, and more). I recommend the movie wholeheartedly. A love story revolving around a G8 summit and the Millennium Development Goals, the movie reminds us that even one ordinary person can effect change, but that to do so, one must act.
The world's been a topsy turvy place, especially in the last few years it seems, and there are reports of donor fatigue setting in, but remember, money is not the only means of action...
Anyway, I won't preach anymore. Not in this post at least...
Waiting for +2GB files to save (or copy over the network) can be a drag.
Thankfully this weekend sees a brand new music mix...
6060-842 The B-52'sIf I Should Fall from the grace of God The PoguesRain The CultBig Tall Man Liz PhairJump Around House Of Pain white man in hammersmith palais The ClashDammit Blink 182 Pop Loser Velocity GirlRoad To Nowhere Talking Heads Girlfriend In A Coma The Smiths Johnny Too Bad The SlickersThe Emperor's New Clothes Sinéad O'Connor
and... I hate to admit it... but...
sk8ter boi Avril Lavigne (yes, I know...)
If you have looked here: http://members.microsoft.com/careers/default.mspx today, you might have noticed that:
I'm hiring.
I see that simflight.com picked up on ACES team member Kevin Griffin's Katrina aid work.
Kudos again to Kevin. . :)
Hal shoots us the news that Aviation High School has a memorial fund set up to honor Brittany and Kandyace. He also provides a link to make a donation remembering the pilot.
I've suggested the Richard Harvey scholarship fund over at Avsim. While the page shows a last update of March 2004, the fine folks at Avsim reassure me that the infrequency of the update is merely an oversight that'll be corrected soon.
One, a local event, is covered eloquently here, by Hal Bryan.
Another comes from Ohio, where a pilot, very active in the Flight Simulator and real world aviation community, was killed in a mid air collision. If you're interested in aviation, Flight sim, or both, please consider donating to the Richard Harvey scholarship fund, named for the lead developer of TRI's flight sim FLY!, or to the Mark Schaden Memorial Fund.
If more details, or a fund becomes available for Aviation High School or its students, I'll let you know.
Sympathy is extended to all.
ACES art team member Kevin Burgess offers up a tidbit:
“...Spielberg confessed to having logged 3,000 hours in "Flight Simulator."”
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1511482/20051013/index.jhtml?headlines=true
Get back to work Kevin.
One of the thread posters has a quote from a PM lead here in ACES, Mike Gilbert. Here's the quote:
"Anyone who knows our third-party community is aware that they are ones creating the truly masterful individual aircraft and scenery. So, when we hire for an aircraft artist, for example, we don't really want the person who can create the best possible aircraft with the current technology. We want the person who will help us create the next generation of technology. " (emphasis added by the thread commenter)
The full blog post from Mike can be found here: Workin' for a Living
I'd also like to add a comment by Sean James, found on a post by Steve Lacey, graphics guru extraordinaire:
"I would hope that the default aircraft textures and virtual cockpits are looked at. 3rd party add-ons appear to have an edge over MS in this department. We all eagerly await the next release."
The thread and comment swirl a bunch of different responses from me.
Let me spew a few reactions forth--- but before I go any further, let me just state, I'm speaking about visual quality here. I'm *only* talking about visuals. Not flight models, or FMC, or drag coefficient. That hoohaw is way outside my baliwick. Just art. That's my area. I'm an art lead.
With that being said...
Now, I disagree a bit with Mike Gilbert's statement.
See, when we hire folk we do look for those "who can create the best possible aircraft." We want (and I believe we get) people on our team who can produce stellar results in the most economical fashion.
I have yet to see one third party add-on product that I thought we'd be unable to reproduce with our in house talent.
I have seen third party people produce work that is better than what we shipped.
I see a lot of third party work whose work I don't think is necessarily better than our default offerings, but is certainly different, and over the course of the lifetime of a product sometimes "different" is confused with "better." (and I will say, sometimes different is pretty spectacular!)
Please don't misconstrue what I'm saying here. There are add-on products, like PMDG for example, that produce a product that is radically different than what we shipped. They serve a different, more high-end market. Their panels are more complex, more detailed. The exterior model of their 747 for example is *much* more detailed than our default offering. People constantly compare our default version of a plane like the 747 with efforts by folk like PMDG. And in their eyes we come up short.
But let me let you in on a little secret: the default Microsoft 747 as offered in FS 2004 is the same model as what was offered in 2002. Different (and better) textures, but the model is the same one worked on nearly five years ago. (Again I'm just talking about the visuals here. There were code changes that made it a different aircraft than what we shipped before)
I can already hear the chorus: "I've been robbed! Those cheapskates wouldn't even give us a new model! They charged us for a whole brand new version and didn't even work on it! M$ sucks and even though they have billions of dollars they're out to rob me!"
Sorry. Not true. Honest.
Go back and look at a past version.
FS 2000 (professional version) had 12, yes, 12 aircraft.
FS 2002 (professional) had 16 (some of them untouched carryovers from FS 2000)
FS 2004 had 24.
24 aircraft.
That's a pretty rich selection to offer users. I understand the person who wants what PMDG (or Dreamfleet, or other makers) offer doesn't see our 747 as nearly as complete, but I argue that it gives a great introduction to what a 747-400 represents, and that it lays the groundwork for the enthusiast who wants to delve deeper as a PMDG offering does.
For FS2004 we did a bunch of new aircraft, and reworked some older favorites. It required a ton of work and many late nights. For example, the FS 2004 Lear exterior and virtual cockpit looks pretty good, in my opinion. We constantly upgrade what we offer people, and part of upgrade means we can take advantage of more capable modern computer hardware. That generally translates into things that look more real. Keep in mind that what we were capable of making in 2000 let's say, we were not necessarily capable of shipping in 2000.
Sure, you say: "The Lear looks okay. But so and so's version looks ever so much better..." Here's where I get to my point. The one about not seeing one third party add-on product that I thought we'd be unable to reproduce with our in house talent.
We fight with one hand tied behind our backs. We have tight constraints with both people, time, and material. Material? Yep. Polygon counts and textures are an example. Some of those very nice looking 3rd party aircraft use 5,6, up to 10 (or more) 1024 X 1024 textures. (that's a whole lotta memory to shoot up to a video card)
We use 1, maybe 2. Better yet, we might use 1 1024 X 1024 texture coupled with a 512 X 512 texture. Why do we do this? Performance.
We make all sorts of trade offs to get the best blend of visual fidelity and performance that we possibly can, given that we do something very few do: we build a planet. We also make an effort to be as inclusive as possible to as wide a market as possible.
What about people, and time? Well, our team is much smaller than the picture most people have in their head. A lot smaller. And a portion of the team is devoted to either management, or quality assurance (Test). Now PMDG currently lists 9 members on it's team (about 20% of the full time employees of ACES studio) producing aircraft. They've put out 6 aircrat for FS 2004, which has been on the shelves for what? close to 2 and a half years? There's a reason that it takes the amount of time to produce the level of fidelity those guys put out. (and they are to be commended for their work)
I'll comment on one more point a bit before I close. As I said before, over the course of the lifetime of a product like FS, sometimes "different" is confused with "better." We work hard to live up to the marketing tagline "as real as it gets," but the real world is so varied, and so complex, that we have to implement solutions that cover only part of the real world version. We often have to make aesthetic choices; ten sky sets, and not a thousand. Terrain textures that look more like Somerset, than say like Lyons, or Trondheim.
At the same time, a product like Flight Simulator gets used a lot over a span of a couple of years, and seeing the same thing over and over again is boring. So yes, it's understandable that when someone releases a new version of the environment maps for water, or a new texture set for Autogen, somebody will inevitably say "why couldn't Micro$oft just do it right the first time?" To those people, all I have to say is: vive la difference! I promise that if you took whichever add-on is your current favorite, went back in time, and substituted the shipped default version, in a couple of years someone would come out with a new add-on replacing that one, and everybody would rave at how much it's better than the default.
I say, embrace the different offerings. Every now and again someone'll come along with a new twist that everyone can learn from. I know that I personally have been influenced more than a few times over the years by an add-on or two: Lennart Arvidsson's texture replacements for FS 2000 were great, and influenced my future work. Gerrish Grey's tree work was also influential.
I guess my real point is that sometimes I think people read the words "Microsoft," and think "that's all the money in the world. Rich, good for nothing S.O.B.S." But you see, I happen to work with these S.O.B.s, and know that there's a lot of passion and talent that goes into programs like the Flight Simulator series.
Maybe almost as much as exists in the third party community. :)
Okay. I've rambled on enough. Hope I haven't ruffled any feathers.
I've got nothing but respect for all the people who work on titles like Flight Simulator-- whether they work in Redmond (next to a coyote infested gravel pit) for Msft, or in the real world as part of the 3rd party community.
'night
Jason
So last weekend I had my rear in gear and ripped a couple of CD's (music all legally purchased) to listen to while working. This weekend? Still listening to the same stuff.
With the hi fi system cranked up then, it's off we go...
With actual, unpaid, proof that someone outside of Microsoft (and a few loyal readers) reads this blog, comes Kilstorm McBride and a question posted at Avsim. Mind you, I have no intention of giving an answer here, as I have no idea why the feature in question is no longer in the product. I shot a mail over to Hal who probably does know, and maybe he'll throw a post up in a few days.
Oh, and Kilstorm? We do read our mail at tell_fs@microsoft.com. Even the really long feature request ones sent last year... ;)
Congrats to frequent blog commenter Owen who started his own blog Polypoke...
Over at Flightsim.com a fellow named helldiver (I'm sure that's not his real name...) asks in his post terrain resolution in FS2004 vs FS2002: "has the terrain resolution been increased from FS202 into 2004?"
If Mr. Diver is asking if the terrain texture resolution is increased between the two products, the answer is no. Both products have the same terrain texture resolution size of ~4.8 meters per pixel.
Poster Orlaam on the boards at Simflight.com offers up some interesting aviation and sim related links. The screenshot competition for October is heating up at Simflight. My current favorite entries are from Yode and Roughlandings, both get the theme for October. I wonder if Flightsim.com Orlaam is the same as the Avsim Orlaam?
Meanwhile, Simviation's screenshot contest has floatplanes as the theme. Current faves are: Rollerball, Congo, and Spitroast. Check 'em out.
And lastly, while I'm mining other people's sites for content, If you're a member of the Flightsim user community interested in Flightsim, I encourage you to read these following posts:
Mike "Taildragger" Gilbert:
Workin on projects here in ACES
Backwards compatability
When will Flight Sim be like...
Hal "9000" Bryan
Are you getting rid of 2D panels?...
Steve "Steve Lacey" Lacey
Dropping in random DLLs
Backwards Compatability and the myth of the "outdated engine"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9671263/
I'm just glad that the title of "oldest bowl of noodles ever found" no longer belongs to me...
In our previous episode of Workin' for the Man, I used a google maps link (see post below). Tonight I got a comment from the Man hisself:
"Dude, how about a MSN maps link instead of Google?" (see comment on post below)
Now, I know I work for Microsoft. But I also follow Scoble's 21 blogging rules. In particular Rule #1 "Tell the truth. The whole truth. Nothing but the truth. If your competitor has a product that's better than yours, link to it. You might as well. We'll find it anyway." and Rule #18 "Link to your competitors and say nice things about them."
I've been using Google's maps for a while now-- and I like 'em. The last time I tried our version I was not impressed. (although I am a HUGE Mappoint fan. I bought Virtual PC for my G5 laptop so I could run Mappoint )
But if there's one thing I try to be and that's a good corporate citizen. So I gave it a try.
Know what?
For this search, Microsoft is wayyyyy better.
Check out the link to Microsoft's Virtual Earth version of the same search for the gravel pit next to our office.
Give it a try. Google's version. Microsoft's version.
Both use the same USGS source image. Microsoft let's you get a gajillion times closer in. Give it a try, and see how close you can get. Pretty nifty, que no? The Google version has a little more contrast, but all in all I prefer the detail offered with the extra zoom.
So to the Man:
Thanks for helping me keep my eye on the ball. In the future with such searches I'll be sure and keep us in mind.
I'm waiting for a batch processing a few thousand image files to finish, so I've jumped to the laptop.
Mike Gilbert has a nice post about workin' here at ACES that's worth reading, especially in light of this:
http://fsinsider.com/jobs.htm
If interested in applying for any open positions, please do bear in mind that we are not Bungie Studios, and that we in fact work next to a gravel pit.
There are usually a few hardy souls here in the ACES studios on the weekend, but it's my favorite time to get solid bursts of work done.
For one thing, I can play music without having to wear headphones (not that I mind much wearing 'em).
Here's the playlist in rotation for Super Happy Fun Dance Party for me here at the office this weekend:
Our illustrious studio manager sent out a link to an article on videogame aesthetics and the idustry's push for "photo realism." I found it interesting, especially as it gives a shout out to some favorites from my former life in the comic book industry: Jim Woodring, Chris Ware, Paul Pope, Peter Kuper, Mary Fleener, Kyle Baker, Scott McCloud, and Frank Miller. I've worked with at least four from that list (well... I did production work on their books anyway...).
If you haven't read Scott McCloud's seminal work on comics Understanding Comics yet and you're involved in any media industry, you're missing out.
Big news in the 3D industry. As mentioned over in Steve Lacey's blog, Autodesk is up to some movements (shennanigans?.)
Yesterday they announced "Autodesk will no longer offer Gmax® software as a stand-alone product." Considering how many add-ons for Flight Simulator 2002 and 2004 are made using gMax, I expect that the add-on community will be err... alarmed at a minimum.
Today several ACES studios members including (but not limited to) Mike Gilbert, Steve Lacey, Adrian Woods (our Technical Art Lead), and myself met with a representative from Autodesk to talk about gMax and the recent acquisition of Alias. I can't talk too much about the specifics of the meeting, but we (ACES) certainly conveyed the depth of usage gMax has in the FS community alone, and that Autodesk needs to make sure they don't leave their thousands of gMax users in a virtual backwater.
We don't have a concrete (or official) statement or plan of action at this point, but the ACES team is very committed to making sure that there's a solution for current users of gMax in the FS add-on community and a great solution moving forward.
As you may (or may'nt) have noticed above, today we welcome Adrian Woods to the growing number of ACES studios bloggers. Welcome aboard Adrian! Adrian's take on the whole Autodesk/gMax thing can be found here.
Hal Bryan, has a very nice post on his blog about the Flight Simulator "mod" community and how it gets no respect. Hal wants more readers.
Speaking of Hal...
We have a lot of space nuts here in ACES studio (Hal being one of 'em), lot's of us tracked the Ansari X-Prize and were ecstatic when SpaceshipOne made history. So as a New Mexican and space cadet, can I say how jazzed I am about the idea of the X Prize cup?
The fish that didn't get away: More on yesterday's link to the thirty foot salmon liveried aircraft Alaskan Airlines is flying. Turns out the livery was funded by a federal grant of nearly $500 K. That's a whole lot of clams...
Avsim's front page yesterday has a link to digitalaviationart.com. The idea is that if you're a model maker, they'll turn photos of your model into full fledged pieces of art. Check out the process here.
I was perusing some forums the other day (I forget where, flyawaysimulation? Simviation?) and I came across bluesphere project, an interesting little gem from Gerrit Kranenbarg. Bluesphere is mostly a repackaging (as freeware)of some of the original art for Flight Simulator 2004. Looking over the screens, you can see that Gerrit is trying to put more aerial perspective effects into the terrain, especially as it's seen from higher altitudes. He changes one highly unpopular weather effect (how we portray visibility layers), in what I think is an effective fashion, as seen here.
Have a problem with Flight Simulator 2004? What about with Windows XP? Have you checked out the Microsoft Knowledge Base for answers?
In Germany this weekend? The 3rd annual German FlightSim Conference takes place on Saturday at the Paderborn-Lippstadt Airport Forum.