Here is one thing no one thought of

[jcupido]

Hi,
I have seen everything covered in these forums with respect to what people want to see in the next version. I thought 'well there is nothing for me to say'. And then I was on a flight in Rome ready to take off and I looked out the window to see something I have always noticed in all my years of flying. Tall/Medium/Short grass waving in the wind!!
Has anyone ever noticed this off the wings as you pull away from all the terminals taxing out to the runway. Waving grass and lots of it. I'm thinking the green or brown flat smooth ground isn't doing it anymore. It is those simple things that can create so much realism in FS. I mean think about it. How easy is it to just add some grass autogen to the airport (don't need it anywhere else really) and how many ooos and aaahs will that create as you taxi to your target runway. If they can create birds that fly in the sim then what I wouldn't do for a little grass. I wonder if there is freeware out there for this?

[erict]

yeah that would be cool. You could actually see the jet blast blowing the grass around.


How about cloud shadows? Or no shadows when it's overcast?

[Payt]

Cool idea!

Actually, i had it on my wishlist as well ;) There are quite a few games which have pretty good grass in them already, so it should be possible to use it in FSX as well. Nowadays, modelling of such thngs as grass and furr is actually a standard feature of graphics cards, so the question is whether the FSX team will use it. Ofcourse it would only really work when flying really low, or at airports, i imagine.

[Treker4747]

Does it add anything to the GAME though.

You're on the ground for a small precentage of the time you're in the game, do you really NEED to see grass blowing around? Isn't that going to take up alot of cycles that can be better spent rendering clouds or ground scenery/buildings so the flight in the AIR looks good?

What next, are people going to want to see ants and bugs crawling around on the groun? See insects splat against the windshield during T/O?

Figure out the difference between eye candy (blowing grass) to bigger stuff, better flight models, better ATC, better weather, and the view from the sky actualy looking like you're flying on the planet Earth, and not over some pixelated landscape.

I don't need to see grass blowing, what I DO need is for ATC to stop vectoring me into the mountains and other planes!

[sandgate]

Err...GAME?

Did he say GAME?

Simulator - yes! Hobby - Yes! Obsession - definitely!

But.. Game? Certainly not, sir!

Go to the back of the class and stand in the corner.

Regards

John

[RyanbATC]

Say there could be more graphic density options, like, if you have the new quad-GPU SLI config you could select "insanely dense" autogen or whatever the feature may be and you could get waving grass...sometimes pilots spend A LOT of time taxiing...think of BOS or LAX in the rush times :)

[Treker4747]

>Err...GAME?
>
>Did he say GAME?
>
>Simulator - yes! Hobby - Yes! Obsession - definitely!
>
>But.. Game? Certainly not, sir!
>
>Go to the back of the class and stand in the corner.
>
>Regards
>
>John

Don't get hung up on semantics.

[jcupido]

There are 2 places I would like realism. At the airport and in the sky. They are where I spend the most time observing eye candy. This is my way of getting away without GETTING AWAY! Hey, I'm all for not getting vectored into a mountain but I'll tell you, the way hardware has spiced up lately adding a little swaying grass is just a few lines of code. Doesn't have to be smart grass...hell it doesn't even have to move from jet blast. It's like auto gen. You can have it painted into the ground or stand above the ground in 3D. Static grass around the airport only would definitely be cool! If it doesn't sway to wind direction then it likely won't take up that much processor time. The bad definitely outways the good.

[bjpilot]

My attempt at Gmax failed miserably, but IIRC you can model a "line," which is in essence a 1-dimensional object. If the grass were made of these less than one polygon lines, you could have lots of them with little FPS hit.

[bjratchf]

>Say there could be more graphic density options, like, if you
>have the new quad-GPU SLI config you could select "insanely
>dense" autogen or whatever the feature may be and you could
>get waving grass...sometimes pilots spend A LOT of time
>taxiing...think of BOS or LAX in the rush times :)


Think of trying to get out of LGA anytime!

__________________
Wer Rechtschreibfehler findet darf sie behalten!

[RichLach]

What about 3D snow? Living in the Northeast, we see snow about four months of the year. It is not painted on, but plowed into piles that line the roads, taxiways, runways, parking areas, etc. Run into a pile and reality will give you another effect.