January 28th, 2021 – Development Update - Microsoft Flight Simulator

Screenshot by Filippo20032222

Work on World Update 3 is nearly complete and we have started to integrate the photogrammetry cities into the sim. There is a bit more integration work to be done and then various data passes that need to be completed, but progress has been very good. We now anticipate that the update will be ready for you between February 9^th and February 11^th. Below are a few images of London in the simulator … the city is (obviously) massive and it’s going to be incredible to fly around in that environment. This World Update contains five brand-new photogrammetry cities – Cambridge, Oxford, Birmingham and Bristol – nearly 80 POIs, five new meticulously hand-crafted airports (Barra, Liverpool, Land’s End, Manchester-Barton and Out Skerries), as well as visual and logical improvements to 85 more area airports, improved digital elevation data across the U.K. and a trio of new activities.

Thank you to those who chatted with us live during yesterday’s Developer Q&A series. We were happy to meet with you again and answer questions. On the live stream, we promised an email address for those interested in helping us with reporting accessibility bugs and requesting accessibility features. Feel free to write to MSFS4ALL@microsoft.com if you have accessibility requests. If you missed it, here is the whole VOD on Youtube with timestamps for questions you asked:

–MSFS TEAM-

PARTNERSHIP SERIES: ORBX

FEEDBACK SNAPSHOT

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THIRD PARTY UPDATE

We are very happy to see that more and more planes are getting produced. In just the past few days, we’ve seen new announcements, updates on major airliners that are in production, and also new aircraft releases. it’s really great to see that the SDK has matured to the point where more and more teams are bringing their creations to the platform including the following:

New releases:

- Black Box’ L-19 Bird Dog
- DC Design’s F-15
- Lionheart Creations’ Trinidad
- Sim Skunk Works’ Fiat-Aeritalia G-91

New announcements:

- - Aerosoft’s Twin Otter
  - Just Flight’s PA-28R Arrow
  - Whiskey Jet’s update for the A220
  - Aeroplane Heaven’s awesome DC-3!

Quick update on the numbers:

We have a total of 105 approved pay-ware partners (+5 from last week) and 136 products (+15 from last week) live in the in-sim store.
Outside of our store, 545 products have already been released in 3^rd party stores. Beyond that, another 247 products from 3^rd party developers are in production (126 announced, 121 unannounced). In total, over 795 3^rd party products are either released or are in development.
Airports:
- 522 airports (+15) are either released or are in various stages of development.
  - 361 airports (+20) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
  - 110 airports (+12) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
  - 58 airports (-5) beyond the released airports have been announced.
  - 103 airports (-5) are not announced, but the dev let us know that the airport is in production.
Aircraft:
- 101 aircraft (+1) are either released or are in various stages of development.
  - 18 aircraft (+1) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
  - 9 aircraft (+1) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
  - 65 aircraft (+0) beyond the released airports have been announced.
  - 18 aircraft (+0) are not announced, but the dev let us know that the aircraft is in production.
Scenery:
- 157 sceneries (+17) are either released or are in various stages of development.
  - 154 sceneries (+17) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
  - 12 sceneries (+2) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
  - 3 sceneries (+0) beyond the released airports have been announced.
Missions:
- 12 sceneries (+1) are either released or are in various stages of development.
  - 12 sceneries (+1) have been released on the platform so far in various stores.
  - 10 sceneries (+0) have been released in the in-sim marketplace.
  - 3 sceneries (+0) beyond the released airports have been announced.

SDK UPDATE

DevMode:
- We fixed several issues on the Scenery Editor: 1) crash when hiding/unhiding an airport category 2) performance issues when sorting in alphabetical order and 3) “replace model” feature when multiple objects are selected. Also, Scene list and viewport are now updated when using “Split path”.
- We are still hard at work on the Scenery Editor. Recently, we have improved the overall performance and initiated a series of UX/UI refinements.
SimConnect:
- We fixed flight load/save (SimConnect_FlightLoad / SimConnect_FlightSave).
WebAssembly:
- We fixed StringFormat conversion to NanoVG alignment in GDI+ layer.

MARKETPLACE UPDATE

Today there are 20 new products and 3 updated products releasing in the Marketplace.

20 NEW PRODUCTS

3 UPDATED PRODUCTS

LAYOVER WITH THE DEVS

Tell us about yourself and your role within MSFS.

My name is Lionel Fuentes, I am Technical Director on Microsoft Flight Simulator. I have been working on this project from the very beginning, touching everything that is tech related. In particular, I focused on everything related to the engine, the world representation, the SDK, the developer mode and on optimizations, with the fundamental objective of “making it work.”

What was the most challenging aspect of the sim while creating a world consistently and why? (Trees detection, missing buildings, data streaming etc.)

A lot of things were challenging! As I usually say, “the world is big” and so representing it came with a lot of difficulties. For example, we had to adapt our engine at its core so it would support placing objects at such a big scale using 64-bit floating point X,Y,Z coordinates instead of 32-bit.

A big world also means a lot of inconsistent data to store, process and download. Often you have an algorithm that works in one part of the world, but it doesn’t mean that it will be the case in another part of the world. Nothing is ever perfect and you need to find the right trade-off.

However, this was not the only aspect of the sim that has been challenging for us. It’s a first for Asobo Studio to make a simulator. Initially we are a game development studio with no expertise in simulation and aviation. We came with a very humble perspective as we had a lot to learn. It was a big step! In addition to this, Microsoft Flight Simulator is also a live simulator, which is also totally new to Asobo. We had to think about how to distribute and develop features and re-organize processes to suit this type of project. New people with different background and expertise joined the project as well (Customer support, Community management etc.).

On top of this, we started with the FSX code base while still using our in-house engine, so we had to start combining both, which was not an easy task. Also, we were creating tools at the same time we were using them. And those tools had to also be usable by the community, which was also new to us!

We tried to make the best out of the difficulties we were facing. Even though it has been quite challenging, I’m pretty happy with the result.

You’ve been working on the SDK as well. Whenever you create a tool, you can’t wait to see what people will do with it. Could you share what you find the most impressive and explain why?

Clearly, the most impressive thing I’ve seen when it comes to SDK and developer mode is the reaction of the community! For instance: if we have something not available, they just find a workaround, they find their way through it, they document it and they can even create the tool themselves. The community is impressive and willing to get something out of the sim by investing a lot of time and effort, they are super motivated. I’m very impressed everyday by what people are doing.

A good example is the content manager. It’s still under development on our end but the community already made one! There is also an alternative airport editor and a Blender exporter just to name a few. This community is very alive and involved and it’s super motivating for me.

DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP

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TWITCH SCHEDULE

Join us tomorrow for an informal community fly-in over the Greek Isles. More information can be found here. Next Wednesday, Chewwy94 will be taking over the stream, so come say hi! Please refer to our Twitch schedule here for any updates or changes.

COMMUNITY VIDEO

Scenic Montage World Tour – Theninjacowboy

COMMUNITY SCREENSHOTS

This past week we challenged you to take a screenshot in Bustling Cityscape. Thanks to all those who participated! We will continue with another screenshot challenge announced next Thursday!