for me , the most accurate assesment about this topic in general.
We should not ask a simulator to bring us a picture of the ground that is better than what you get looking outside of a real plane … (Unless you are paragliding or something, i suppose) In my experience , things get pretty blurry after the first 2-3 minutes of take off.
Greetings
The most shocking thing to me was also the spelling of words in the release notes in-sim as well as the spelling in the description of some of the settings in-sim. Comes across as quite unprofessional considering the global presence of this sim and its affiliates. Completely agree with OP here.
“How’s the new flight simulator?”
“Bad man, really bad”
“Wow, how so?”
“The trees, they’ve just gone; they chopped them all down. And the loading screen drives me crazy, and the update screenshot looks horrific, and now there’s typos in the dockomentaytion. I’m going back to X-Plane”
……………………………
“Hey, where’d you go?”
The last (UK) loading screen was like this too, I admit it’s a great time to get flight snacks but some of you had to see it?
The sim is far from perfect because the tech isn’t quite there yet however as humans we can poop on technology we didn’t know existed minutes earlier.
Reminds me of a comic from a while back, talks about being on one of the first commercial aircraft to have WiFi, halfway through the flight it goes down, the man next to him exclaims that “it’s BS” and slams his laptop shut.
Right now all 3-D rendering of the globe through photo geometry is a bit sketchy when it comes to trees, oddly pitched and accented roofing, things like fire escapes and even gradient pitch of roads and rivers.
This shot in particular has many different roof types the AI is clearly having trouble with the European sort of flat top mansard roof (I Googled and could not find a name) mixed with the eclectic nature of the old city.
Over time humans have to tell the AI, no, it’s like this often enough that it learns to handle it.
Until then low and slow isn’t going to be super amazing perfect, probably why they are in no hurry for helicopters.
Edit: Forgot to mention, Bing maps in my area has really kicked it up a notch in their clarity in the maximum view before street view level, hopefully this will transition into the sim.
OK… so here is my CHALLENGE - especailly to those with HIGH END machine
With the CURRENT update to MSFS, can YOU reproduce the Screen Shot on your PC - without any Mod or Addons, and without Photoshop.
I tried, with little success, No matter what time & date I set the time to, I could not get the shadows from the Trees on the right side of the Avenue, and the Trees were different as well… far better trimmed & maintained in the Asobo version.
How close can you get – and with what settings:-
.
Close, but the Trees & shadows seem to be the biggest difference.
Looks like shots were taken at about 400ft AGL
I can’t believe this is a new topic…
Well…I think Asobo was sincere with this pic. I saw a post of a guy flying over some of those updated places, and what he saw was exactly this! Buildings melted…looks like a scenery mod from google earth but nops! It was a native image from sim.
I think their AI are taking images from google buildings bank lol
The reason I made my post with the Challenge is:
There are constant discussion about how well scenery displays, with different users describing different details.
Here is an IDEAL example of what MS claim this scene should look like, or what they can make it look like on what is probably a very high end machine.
The question is, can others with high end machine reproduce this image, or is a an unreachable Goal, as the screen shot could possibly have been enhanced to look even better with a bit of skilled PhotoShop …!! (or maybe not - I am not claiming this – but Marketing Guys can get pretty creative at times !! )
Here we have good MS REFERENCE, to compare our PC setup’s with.
I think I came close with my Mid range gaming Laptop, but despite having everything set on ULTRA, I could not get the Trees and shadows to match … which I find a little “interesting” !!
Well it depends how do you see it, for me this is a flight simulator and not a car or truck simulator where you expect to see details. I expect more details on airports, aircraft and weather but is just me
Completely agree with the people saying that photogrammetry looks good over a certain height. But it begs the question - why did they choose a screenshot at a much lower height that has melted buildings? It’s not a big deal though. I just think it’s a bit weird.
In the future, they should use a screenshot of a water masking area that is not actually in the game as a splashscreen. That would certainly please the community.
Maybe they are trying to reduces the hype, from community, related to quality. If the first image is a piece of *, all the other images will “look better” and it creates a trick.
Or…maybe there is a easter egg at this image that we still not see haha
Obviously you are being facetious, but there must be a well thought out reason why they chose that image, over the millions of other potential images they could have chosen that didn’t highlight one of the very few visual flaws. It’s almost as if they are trolling. If they are, my hat is off to them.
The melting buildings
Somebody needs to look into a set of good ol’ spectacles 
I thought the exact same thing when I saw the splash screen. They seem to be proud of that melted mess.
joke is looks like this in sim aswell
No wonder we aren’t getting helicopters until 2022. This is going to become a huge sore thumb.
What you see is what you get 
That’s the reality with photogrammetry. At least the Bing variety of it.
Still, you’d think someone would say: “That looks pretty bad… maybe i can find a better angle that doesn’t have the photogrammetry in the foreground…”
My impression is that Asobo have A LOT of work on their hands. You could see it in the last Q&A where Jorg, Seb, and Martial all looked exhausted. They are probably doing their best to meet deadlines which they probably had no say in. So i don’t think these kinds of things speak to a lack of care on their side, just of the pressure they might be under.
That’s my “glass half full” view on it, eitherway.
