This time around it’s not by me haha. The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences published their regular podcast hosted by Ted Price (Insomniac Games’ boss) interviewing Jorg Neumann (head of Microsoft Flight Simulator) about all things MSFS.
Plenty of interesting points of conversation including feedback, the fact that the user base is not only stable but growing, a possible hint to Switzerland being featured in a world update, the Xbox release, another hint at “embracing the history of aviation” at some point, what went wrong with London’s photogrammetry, even some discussion about the far future, and much, much more.
As usual, Jorg is a pleasure to listen to. It’s an hour, so grab a cup of coffee and make yourself comfy
these updates are invaluable to the me personally, it certainly gives me insight into how difficult their tasks are right now but also their enthusiasm and willingness to listen to the community.
I’ve noticed a slight wain in enthusiasm by the french guy, sorry cant recall his name and I feel he’s under a lot of strain and this community can be brutal at times, so If youre reading this french guy, you’ve done an amazing job so far, keep it up many of us really appreciate what youre doing.
If it wasn’t for these updates I’d not have any understanding of what’s going on behind the scenes and much more annoyed with the current situation.
Interesting that Jorg mentioned the subject of bridges and acknowledges they are working manually on many famous ones because people like to fly under them. Yet I have tried flying under multiple hand crafted bridges and it always crashes. I do not believe they implemented any bridge we can fly under yet - or am I missing something ?
Sebastien… the boss of Asobo studios. Yes indeed, I think he is really under a massive pressure as many people do not believe they are doing their best, or care about people behind the game, just demand perfection straight out of the box. I guess it is really depends how you look at the life and how much empathy you have for other people’s livelihoods.
Both arguments are valid: “I paid my money I expect what was advertised” and “give them a break, they are doing their best and improving the game and genuinely care about what community says”… so it is a matter of perspective.
I think they could go a long way in satisfying both camps by acknowledging severe bugs quickly and publicly, and then keeping us updated on progress towards a hotfix.
There are some you can fly under, and some that are solid. No idea if there’s a rhyme or reason between which is which or simply a matter that they’ve been implemented by different people.
Woah, so he worked for Origin systems way back when on things like Wing Commander, Ultima and Crusader. Played them all back in the day. Was impressed with his credentials tbh.
Coming from a 3DS Max perspective; when I was developing game assets (such as viaducts and bridges) I always faked transparency by using an alpha map to give that illusion. The space underneath was actually solid (hence you cannot fly underneath as you’re hitting an actual wall). This was to reduce the vertex and polygon count as much as possible and optimise the game for rendering.
I haven’t seen any FS models so don’t know if this is the case but it’s possible that those bridges you can fly under may actually have the space underneath modelled, ie cut out.
Really cool interview to listen to- I can put my hand up and say that I’m in the 50% of real world pilots that the flight simulator franchise inspired to go and gain my pilots qualification!
Awesome to hear what the swiss have done with releasing their aerial data for free to the public, looking forward to seeing how that materializes in the sim eventually too!
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences published their regular podcast hosted by Ted Price (Insomniac Games’ boss) interviewing Jorg Neumann (head of Microsoft Flight Simulator) about all things MSFS.