Need for Leadership Re: Multiplayer Plane Models

User Support Hub Aircraft & Systems
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I’m not a dev, nor do I play one on TV. I’m just a player…one who plays this title too much according to my spouse. I like the escapism of flying something I could never afford IRL, in a place I’ve never been to. I think this game has been called beautiful because it renders the actual world…way more beautiful than…[record scratch]…why is that A330 tipped back on it’s tail? Oh wait, that’s must be a plane I don’t have.

Call for leadership:
Could some developer please take the lead and reach out to the rest of the developer community..your colleagues, and sometimes competitors, and put together the following:

  • A community folder mod containing everyone’s addon planes…as non flyable models and whatever liveries you choose to include…start with your own product(s)

  • A non flyable - yet highly detailed model is possible. The eye-hospital DC-10 is an example

  • Make it one pack, along the lines of the liveries megapack project(s), only there will be fewer to add

  • If everyone volunteers, there will be no copyright issues

  • Encrypt it so people can’t steal the model and slap on a quick flight model, if need be

  • Allow freeware devs to join in and add their creations

Sales impact:

I don’t know if the sales impact of seeing ridiculous online player planes (hovering bonanzas, barons at Mach 2, A330’s dragging their tails at 80 kts) has been studied by marketing. Yes, it is possible that seeing these scenes might drive players to buy the addons. There might even be marketing data to this effect.

However, I’d postulate that the opposite has never been tried…if a player seeing a good model for a plane he doesn’t own (in multiplayer) would lead him to buy that addon.

Maybe include just one livery based on your company (like the PMDG-paint DC-6). Paint your website along the top of the fuselage, put a QR code on the vertical stabilizer…modern airliners are becoming billboards anyway. There’s plenty of room for commercial compromise here.

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A bad example tho… As this model cant be used in the sim, they did not keep polygon count in mind while modelling it. Putting such detailed planes as AI models will kill the performance.

Making good looking but lowpoly AI models is a very specific craftmaship. There are a few devs out theredoing just that, look at AIG, they are working on it. However, MSFS multiplayerwould need a way to modelmatch these AI planes, in a way like it isdone on VATSIM.

The solution you are looking for, will just not happen.

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I think we desperately need a good AI aircraft model pack just for VATSIM model matching purposes. The IVAO models are ok but many don’t show up or look right when they do.

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I think a solution to this might need to be implemented by Asobo via the Marketplace (as much as the Marketplace irks me). Third party developers could submit models to Asobo where they would be packaged into a “model matching” download option. MSFS could use their encryption and could also help ensure that no nothing but the model and and maybe prop animations were included so that people couldn’t somehow end up making flyable models. My hopes of this happening are essentially 0 though.

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Piggy backing on these, i would support a $10 max (ideally free ofc) addon that would add simple models for all the Airbus, MD, Boeing etc. You can’t fly em but they match to data on vatsim/flightview/flightaware whatever. Nothin fancy.

In a perfect world, i’d like to see airports match gate assignments. United planes in confirmed Southwest gates are immersion breaking for me. TBH seems kinda small considering the other stuff “wrong” with the sim :roll_eyes:

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Agreed, yesterday I had Tomcat circling me on my journey along the Italian coastline. However, his plane was modeled as a Bonanza and it just looked extremely odd.

Would it really be so hard for Asobo to create some low quality generic plane models (mainly a jet fighter and a warbird) so that it doesn’t look ridiculous when they pass by? I feel like it could be done in one afternoon.

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we did a Waterplane trip with some buddies the other day.

The Junkers Ju52 waterplanes were shown as A320 to other players. Floating on the water.

That was terrible.

I mean, imagine any other multiplayer game programmed so sloppy that it shows the wrong models for the other players. Never heard of this.

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The problem here is to do with variations and how MSFS “sees” them. There are so many aircraft types, with so many livery variations that they number in the tens of thousands ( if not hundreds of thousands ). Every single livery and variant has a unique “title” which tells MSFS which airplane to put on the screen: if you don’t own it, it then goes by variables such as number of engines - which is why you might see an Airbus in the place of a Tomcat.

There is no way a single DLC could contain all possible variants, and it would be out of date as soon as a developer or repainter adds a single extra livery to any one of them.

The answer that I’m working on is to release a freeware pack for each of my airplanes that contains all the stock livery variants on a low-poly AI model with basic animations and effects. That way, it’s small, simple and can be downloaded by anybody if they don’t own my stuff. If a user is flying a Tomcat with a custom livery, you still would see an Airbus or whatever, but the majority of users would be seen as Tomcats and that would mostly solve the problem.

A true solution would be MSFS seeing the Aircraft type for what it is, instead of just the unique title - that would allow a single freeware AI airplane with one livery, that would be seen by anybody who doesn’t own it. We can live in hope… :slight_smile:

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Well, just thát! (Apart from the hopes, there’s always some.)

The actual makers of the airplanes know all about the modeling of their airplane, can’t be thát hard to make a generic model alongside their marketplace version, would it?

Just means that Microsoft doesn’t have to produce the models themselves, but it will help the developers as more models get to be shown in Flightsim, egging people to try them out for themselves by buying them. It would be quite the marketing.

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Are you still doing this @DEAN01973? I LOVE the consideration on your part for us! That’s A LOT of work on your part and I appreciate it!

Any new thoughts on this subject?

I believe Jorg was working with AIG on something here, but it’s been a long time since they’ve discussed the subject on the DevQ&A’s, and it seems like that project fell through or got shelved?

You’re right on the complexity of the problem, though.

And I’m one of those people who goes through and “fixes” the aircraft.cfg files. So many are soooooo wrong. But then am I just screwing up the model matching?.. sigh

No idea why developers find it so hard to go read the ICAO web page to use the proper values, or why so many developers don’t know how to properly set up the ATC names… Or parking space callouts. I hate the lazy “ANY” more than anything. I don’t need to see anything but airliners at my gates…

I get why they don’t always use the Manufacturer name, that they have to get the license to do that and sometimes that’s not even possible, not just expensive, so I’m not as concerned about that. But I have to fix the above on nearly every plane I purchase.

It’s a considerable amount of work, essentially redesigning the plane. The “automatic” code of modelers can do funny things when lowering the poly count, for performance reasons, so you can’t just press a button and “poof” an appropriate model and all the textures is created. And, over time, they have to keep those models and textures updated as Asobo makes changes to the code. And on top of that, there’s the management of all the models and files that can be quite a nightmare. It took me a while to wrap my head around how the DC-3 is organized and managed for example.

Not to mention, since you suggest it’s a good marketing idea… have you read the posts on this forum on the expectations of customers here? Do you really think low poly models that you can’t fly or look at outside of the sim are going to convince people to purchase the planes?

Not that I disagree that it would be nice if they supported it in this way. In fact I HEARTILY agree! Just please don’t suggest that it’s a minimal amount of work.

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I did release a stand-in pack of AI jets ( F-14, F-15, F-16 and Typhoon ) for non-users of our products so that they could see the types correctly in multi-player. Sadly, even then, if the fighter owner was wearing a custom livery they would not show correctly, and sometimes even if they were wearing stock liveries they would not show due to memory limitations in MSFS, especially on console.

This is 100% an Asobo issue to fix, as there is nothing we can do at our end to make it any better when, even when correctly set up, MP aircraft do not display as they should.

My recommendation is using the “Type” entry as the chief governor of display, and having an F/A-18E show as a military jet, a generic airliner as airliner, and so on, so at least the types are broadly shown correctly. We should not be seeing an Airbus or similar in place of an F-14 in this day and age.

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