In multiplayer you won’t see each other aircraft properly because MSFS is either mocking other players aircraft with one from the defaults, or from an optimized pool of generic 3D models (depending on your settings).
With the expected growing list of aircraft available in the Market Place and other online resources, this is depriving the community from the immersion of flying with other aircraft accurately represented, not only from a visual standpoint but also from a practical standpoint.
Let me illustrate the “visual standpoint”: I was at KOAK the other day and I’ve seen 2 SouthWest operated flights on the tarmac which were Beechcraft Bonanza G36… even though I selected the “no substitution” options. I’ve found this rather unexpected for a SouthWest flight departing KOAK.
As for the “practical standpoint”, here are a few example:
Look at the flying MP aircraft in front of the upcoming Milviz Corsair (video starts at 34:30)
Here is the link to a video showing Mirage 2000 in MSFS. I wouldn’t like seeing a generic Cessna replacing the M2000 flying 1000 kts passing me by and wondering what the heck all these maneuvers:
Similarly, if someone is flying an ultra light which is supposed to have higher traffic priority to an airplane, I would like to see it accurately represented so that I can respect procedures in a Vatsim like session or any other Live session for example.
Using Minecraft as an example: when playing on servers the game caches other players skins and capes and you see them in your game exactly like they are expected.
Suggestion:
- Add SDK support for 3rd party developers to add MP 3D model (Multiplayer Model - Visual Only). This would be a separate 3D model + textures + animations container they can provide alongside their full model. More details…
Each 3rd party 3D model should respect a pre-defined naming convention (make / model / etc…) so that it could be replaced locally with a better visual model if any (see point 6).
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The MP 3D model can have any animation embedded and tied to any simvar or custom var, but with limitations (see point 5).
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If no MP 3D model is provided, automatically generate one with lower poly count just for visual representation. Limit animations to the ones using the control surfaces and gear simvars only (and probably a few others from the list pertaining to anything which is visible outside the aircraft). More details…
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Stream each other MP 3D models (3D + textures to the cache, animation vars in real time) so that any player can see each other with the aircraft currently flown with.
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Set limits to the MP 3D model to keep frame and VRam budget to minimum (like Minecraft). Textures could be limited to 2048x2048 max, animations to a dozen or so values and only in a simple linear fashion mapping directly vars to keyframes (like when using UBOs and instancing).
An additional strategy could be using the MP 3D model up to a distance and then use Asobo generic library of 3D models when farther away (see point 6).
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Over time, Asobo could add standard MP 3D models of the most used aircraft. You could extend the library of standard 3D models over time so that it will reduce traffic and latency while at the same time you could improve the visual representation for the players. You are already providing accurate 3D models in the simulator and you’re certainly already doing telemetry which could be used to gather stats on most flown 3rd party aircraft and therefore prioritize which to add in the default lib of MP 3D models.
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Don’t make the user to have to download such MP 3D models manually otherwise it will defeat the purpose because you can’t know in advance what aircraft you’ll encounter during a flight nor you can’t know all the places where to download them from.
This feature must be promoted as being an integral part of 3rd party aircraft offering so that most 3rd party vendors embrace it.
In addition to Asobo growing a list of standard MP 3D models library over time, it shouldn’t preclude other 3rd party from offering their own libraries of generic MP 3D models.
In case of duplicates, a simple selection based on the following priority should be enough:
MP 3D model included with a 3rd party aircraft > MP 3D model included in a library of MP 3D models > Asobo library.
The discussion brought additional ideas:
Make this an opt-in setting globally, and opt-out setting selectively
Why the MP model must be a mandatory component included with any 3rd party aircraft for this to work.
Why displaying other players actual aircraft and liveries can boost the Market Place sales.
NB: I’m sorry but all the above links are pointing to other posts than intended, because moderators are merging other topics into this one and when they do, this changes original posts numbers, and the links are therefore no longer valid. I’m tired of having to change these manually every time a moderator merges topics and I don’t feel like wanting to change them now once again.