I second this a 100%. Ideally, we have a public issue tracker that documents the current state of things and allows people to subscribe and comment on (already filed) bugs. The development updates basically don’t tell anything.
The development snapshot could be improved by providing the top bugs fixed (and pending release), feature being worked on, etc…
@Jummivana
Thank you for the massive refresh of the VR feedback snapshot.
Please note the following correlations though:
| Bug (problem) | Wishes (solution) |
|---|---|
| 4. VR-Overexposed | 3. Provide Color Space, Tone Mapping etc… |
| 4. VR-Overexposed | 6. Can you please add a “Sun Glasses” mode |
| 4. VR-Overexposed | 6. Implement a Metering System Better Suited for VR |
| 9. Ambient Night Lighting Illuminates more than Full Moon | 6. Implement a Metering System Better Suited for VR |
| 10. VR Mouse - Right Eye needs to be fixed | 8. Dominent Eye and Mouse Cursor Position |
In addition, I’d like to pass these comments because some of the bugs and wishes are technically less complex and most likely easier to solve and implement more rapidly than what the snapshot is indicating:
| Bug | Comment |
|---|---|
| 1. Increase Distance Threshold to See Aircraft Lights | This was increased for 3D mode previously, it might just be the threshold value have not been propagated back in the VR pixel shaders and/or VR code. I understand 2021-22 is conservative but this doesn’t look like a very complex fix either?! |
| 7. Propellers and Reprojection | There are mods already for most aircraft and the solution to this is to make sure the alpha value in the texture doesn’t go above a certain threshold. It seems 25% alpha is working but this should be easy to try out with a set of textures with varying alpha, and establish which threshold is working with WMR, with SteamVR and with Oculus. |
| Wishes | Comment |
|---|---|
| 2. Cockpit Size and World Scale in VR | It is basically setting up a translation matrix based on a UI slider, and then do a matrix mul per eye… nothing more. |
| 6. Can you please add a “Sun Glasses” mode | It is basically reducing exposure in the existing Tone Mapper by 1 or 2 stops… nothing more either. (no need for displaying a pair of glasses in 3D in front of the eyes for example) |
| 13. Render Sun with Fading Disk when Bloom is Disabled | In lieu of a reduced version of the Bloom shader which would be working only on the sun pixels (hard to separate this from the rest because the bloom is a whole screen shader), a simple Sun with blooming light texture overlay would probably give enough visually pleasing results. |
I’d like to also mention this topic is both a bug and a wishlist item:
| Wishes | Comment |
|---|---|
| 12. TAA is Transforming Road Traffic into Ghosts | This is a bug because moving cars are not displaying as expected, but it is a Wishlist as well because it requires enhancing the TAA algorithm. If I were to be describing the process in “simple” terms, the result would look like computing the cars motion vector pixels separately and subtracting them from the overall scene motion vector pixels. |
I have it. They are subtle improvements, but I can see the difference. I’d recommend it.
I have this enhanced add-on since the first date of release and I really like it. It transforms almost all default textures to real-looking level.
The only cons for 3rd party I see is for some ORBX airports like KSJC, the transfomation looks worse than original (so I suppose ORBX use very much default textures from Asobo for their sceneries)
Funny how posts like this don’t get flagged by the community but two different posts get flagged for daring to say that we the community are the beta testers.
Cool. Good to know re some 3rd party airports. Most of my flights are to far-flung corners, so if anything it sounds like the mod will give airports there more character.
Hi Ghostly Frend
I didn’t mean to offend anyone,but it is called Flight SIMULATOR,
so why not chose simmers with a lot of experience?
The release version was unusable for big bird pilots,or?
Scott
I honestly didn’t feel @GhostlyFrend that I was venting, I felt like I was offering constructive criticism. My specific recommendations stand:
Which of those points do you perceive as being “venting” or feel are not appropriate feedback? I definitely acknowledge that there was disappointment in my post, but that’s mostly because they talk about having a “beta” program to shake out bugs but give it no chance of success by starting it too close to the (already set) release date.
Thanks,
Scott
This is a huge step forward!
I do think that an open beta would be useful though, as each of the 300 people will probably fly a select set of aircraft/routes, so it’s possible that some configurations might be missed.
Well, to be fair to my point, per the guidelines posted today testing isn’t going to start until a week before the release. And given that it took nearly 3 weeks for the bug to be fixed, my concerns remain.
I do acknowledge that this may be more helpful in the future…hopefully beta testers (which I apparently am now one) will get access more than a week prior to release.
Scott
Two weeks might seem short, but in my experience people here seem to discover bugs within HOURS of a new release, at most a day or two.
They can always delay release if major problems are found.
Testing will update your current version, so no possibility to compare features / bugs. Only through MS-Store. No pictures/videos allowed for capturing bugs. Sorry, I am out.
Just signed up and think I’m in!
This is a good point everyone needs to remember. With this new beta program, release dates really become just “target dates” now. If problems are found, I expect the devs will delay a release until it’s ready. We should all want that.
This is the first one they’re doing, so maybe we need to reserve judgement until we have a few updates under our belts. I’m happy these steps are being taken.
Let’s give it a go. It can’t make it worse (even if they ignore all feedback, which must be unlikely!), only better, and if this is a test of a test, which is what it feels like, that might pave the way for more extensive beta/pre testing for SU4 and other later releases. I suspect, at this stage, they are looking for a fairly quick “anything really obvious” test, while they check that they can run different versions in live successfully
I assume those who are in the beta are allowed to say they are in the beta…?
if someone is in the beta… and owned the steam version of the sim… do we think they would need to subscribe to xbox game pass to get the store version? Or will there be some kind of “free beta version” just for the duration of the testing?
(Obviously they’re not going to pay £60 just to be in the beta…)
Thank you for your kind support! However, even if I’m fluent in French and know some of the country quite well (obviously), I believe I’d be much more useful to the franchise if I were engaging with Microsoft and Asobo developers both for assisting them with some aspects of the SDK and for them to helping me bringing my products to the platform.
That’s a good question. I’d hope that there’d be some kind of “free beta version” especially considering the duration of the beta period.
Indeed! I guess if a person has never used xbox game pass they can at least use the £1 for first month offer.