I’m flying the TBM Improvement mod now with movable sun visors. They are so amazing I can’t figure out why so many default airplanes have them included but inoperable? Like many things, it seems like they are just left unfinished.
The level of high contrast detail they reveal in the daytime is amazing. Clouds, water, other airplanes, ground objects, etc. just pop out from all the white washed out haze.
It might take using them in VR to get an appreciation for the impact they make.
The sim could also use simulated sunglasses. The OpenXR sunglasses work great but I don’t think they can re-render the full effect of what glasses would do.
I believe I know the answer to this One. !! Its actually documented in some of the JS code.
The Sun Visor code is there - but Commented out !!,
It seemed that during development, they had trouble getting it to work in some of the planes, so, there is this "Amusing " comment in the code, that they decided not to implement the Moving Visors in ANY of the planes ( to be consistent ?.) - that’s what the COMMENT says !!!
REALLY !! You could not make this stuff up - nobody would believe you .
Note: Other Developers have had no problem in Modeling Sun Visors.
I was puzzled by how nicely they actually work, yet are not used. Someone did some graphics programming on that for it to do what it does. The moon also looks great through it.
I’d guess they’ll get around to it at some point.
I suspect we would see much fewer complaints about daytime looking washed out if these worked or if there were aviator glasses in the sim.
Yes, sometime in the next 8 years – if we are lucky - or maybe not.
It’s already been two years, and no movement on the Visors ( see what I did there – {pun} )
One problem is that further improvements to make the default Aircraft more “Realistic” and full features, requires an increasing amount of both technical Programming skills, as well as a deeper knowledge of the specific aircraft systems.
These are two joint skills that are not easy to find, and these will that skill set are in high demand outside of the Gaming Industry, where they typically will enjoy employment with greater compensation, and maybe more importantly, and better and higher career path,
Consider such a development engineer / manager at Lockheed, with a bight future in upper management, and a potential career leading to a prime position at Lockheed.
Are they going to give all that up, and move to France, to work for a Gaming Company, on a project with a limited lifetime ? Doubtful.
In any case, anyone moving to France for outside the EU is going to face major employment law issues, including the languages issues.
Plenty of Key Positions being advertised by Asobo, to come work on MSFS in France, and they do nit appear to being snapped up.
Its not ALL about MONEY – although today, most things are !!!
Fascinating dynamics - MSFS is far more than just a “Computer Game” – its the tail that wags an enormous Dog …
I meant they could outsource, Game companies do it all the when they fall behind on projects. They use an established developer to help out. Microsoft has the resources but they may have to shift priorities though. The major flight mechanics and complicated systems would be left for a more experienced team. They have already done this on one or two of the local legends. I think the Fokker received this treatment. Working sunshades, operational doors and storm windows shouldn’t be to hard,
What decisions MS make are far beyond my pay grade / Knowledge, and I expect no right to be privy to any of it.
Its THIER game, and they play THEIR game by THEIR Rules, and with THEIR reasons.
Once can just hope that “With great Power comes great responsibility”
I see MSFS as a Roller Coaster Ride. I am a passenger on the ride, and am there to enjoy the thrills of the Ups and Downs.
I am not the one, nor do I want to be, the ones, on the platform, helping those on and off the ride **, or the ones who design the ride, and have the associated responsibly and liability fro its working.
** That’s not to say I wont help anyone, but if I do, its my choice and their liability !!
If I could make what I do currently, I’d love to do some development work on this stuff.
The community improvement projects are nice, and with encryption being dropped SU10, it opens up some more possibilities. Dropping encryption is an interesting choice they made.
However, nearly every project of passion I’ve seen, since there has been consumer software, eventually burns out. The poor developers gets hounded and under appreciated for giving large chunks of their lives away.
That was probably a touch of passive sarcasm from the developer that was told to stop trying to fix whatever the bug was. Or the developer that wrote it and another dev couldn’t figure out how to implement.
In one of the projects I manage, I have a comment in one method that states, “this is where your bug is likely located”.
There are a number of great things about the TBM Improvement Mod but that’s one of my favorites! I discovered early-on that I could also turn them to the side to block side glare. I’ve even grabbed the copilot’s visor to block glare from the other side of the aircraft.
I think, like doors, if they couldn’t easily make it work for all default aircraft, then it was COMMENTED OUT for all aircraft.
And since then, nobody has gone back in and figured out WHY it was not working, and fixed it … (or changed very much in any of the original Base or Premium.Deluxe planes).
Answer is very obvious, because they are default planes. You want to differentiate them on purpose from third-party payware planes. If the default planes would have all the bits and bobs they would take out a big chunk of the market and kill third-party developers.
I really think it’s a fair assessment to make and it makes sense, they have to draw the line somewhere
