Project A

[drefial]

Very nice, impressive !

[Matthew Kane]

Hey John, can you show us Wrigley Field?

[maxpax444]

Looking good John!!

[pmb]

3 hours ago, BladderBoy said:

After reading a large number of reviews on Steam, I get the picture that Aerofly is a game, not a sim. It's not even trying to be a sim. I will be watching closely, but my wallet won't empty until I see real weather, physics, and deep aircraft systems. World coverage would be an added bonus but it's not a deal breaker since I fly GA only. Gimme Socal with every airport and photoreal coverage, and I'd be golden!

 

I have been following most of that Steam discussions on AF2, but the sense of that Game vs. Simulator dispute escapes me. How many folks bought MSFS as a game (X-mas gift) for themselves or their children, getting hooked and ending up as serious tubliner pilots later? 

 

I am not a real-world pilot myself and will refrain from an own judgement of the flight models (but I think that would apply to a number of Steamers as well). Threads on IPACS own forum, FSDeveloper and some external reviews I read don't judge the flight model that bad (while system depth certainly has a way to go yet, which I agree).

 

I think it is scalability which actually matters, which largely depends on 3rd parties. Take the MSFS (whichever version) default aircraft which were not too convincing either, are they? I am even more proud of John Venema and ORBX seeing the potential of AF2 and stepping in to make it evolve. Well done!

 

Kind regards, Michael

[Ken Hall]

16 hours ago, Jordan King said:

Meigs! Beautiful. This is hands down the best VR platform in flight simulation. Looking forward to it! 

absolutely

[John Venema]

Couple more, this time showing how our models transfer across 1:1 perfectly, including volumetric grass. We are currently doing R&D on PeopleFlow; animation systems vary from platform to platform.

 

 

 

[zazaboeing]

Wow! Good to know!!

[kilby]

I would like to add, i am loving aerofly 2 and i am finding myself flying in it more and more.

Even though i have prepar3d, DCS and x-plane 11 which have better realized planes, i am still loving it.

The smoothness of this product is great and a VR dream.

Orbx with aerofly 2 is a great thought to start the new year.

[sim123]

Very nice product, but let's see if the planemakers like Pmdg, A2A , Carenado Aerosoft and others ,

will make there productline also availble for this platform.

[John Venema]

That's entirely up to them. I talk to Scott and Fernando from A2A and Carenado quite regularly and they are very much aware of our plans. This sim is not trying to compete with established platforms at all, it's a whole different niche that will appeal to a vastly broader audience who don't necessarily want deep systems aircraft but rather want a fluid VFR experience. And when Ken and I say it rocks in VR natively, believe us; nothing comes close.

[HiFlyer]

This is great news and I absolutely love Aerofly, but I hope Orbx is able to work with them to get the wild trees under control. They're everywhere! (middle of highways, sprouting through buildings, etc.) 

 

And some kind of osm placement to expand the scenery areas........

[Hobnobs]

It's early access so still in development. No ATC or AI traffic from what I understand. Looks amazing but probably still a way from an immersive experience we are used to.

 

There's a version for iPhone/iPad too which is fun if you are waiting on a bench for the misses to finish her Christmas shopping.

 

That's a point, are we about to see Orbx on mobile devices?

[alcliff]

Early this morning a bird chirped something about several mountain areas of Alaska, BC and Norway. Just saying ...

[morrigan]

Looks great. Just what Aerofly needs.

[simmerhead2]

As soon as Aerofly gets one "complex" aircraft, and some living world/AI features it will sky rocket!

[TigerTigerM]

Couple of questions on Aerofly - Is it currently only worth running if you use VR?

& will Orbx be looking to port existing Orbx airports across such that Orbx clients won't have to buy them again for Aerofly??

Thanks

TTM

[wolfko]

Is Aerofly just cities and metro areas? Haven't seen anything else in screenshots and videos so far.

 

 

[DesertPilot]

1 hour ago, TigerTigerM said:

Couple of questions on Aerofly - Is it currently only worth running if you use VR?

 

I currently don't use VR, and I think Aerofly is amazing even on a regular display.

[DesertPilot]

As time is normally tight for me, if I have 10-20 minutes of spare time, want to do a quick flight and just enjoy the incredible 3D scenery in cities, I think I'm likely to just load Aerofly and start flying in seconds. I look forward to the upcoming "Project A" addons from Orbx for that reason, and I intend to purchase them over time (assuming competitive prices).

 

For in-depth flying, with complex aircraft, detailed navigation, AI traffic, and all that, I'll of course stick with 32-bit P3D for a good while to come. But I'm now unlikely to buy any new very complex 3D scenery for 32-bit P3D (on the scale of Drzewiecki Design's New York City X, for example). As such scenery results in reduced FPS and excessive flickering in P3D for me. With Aerofly, wow....

 

To be clear, Aerofly is still "early access" and not without its current glitches. I had to lower my Graphics setting to "Medium" for a smoother, relatively stutter-free flight around New York City (with the NorthEastern USA addon). But I'm still very impressed.

 

[BaronKen]

I'm curious... how many square miles does the NYC scenery cover?

[whitav8]

I have all the popular flight sims (FSX/ESP/P3D, DCS, WT, and now Aerofly FS2) and was disappointed with performance until Aerofly FS2 came along. I really like stutter free, fluid flying for high maneuvering flights down low - especially in VR (90fps Stereo with no need for ASW/ATW)- just try the Pitts (don't forget to hold a lot of up elevator on the start of takeoff and slowly apply power). I have really enjoyed ORBX scenery with their attention to texture detail - wasn't Australia amazing! But I prefer photoreal around cities with real buildings - and now look at Chicago - WOW!! Take off from O'hare and head towards downtown - how can the frame rate be so good (twice P3D) - and it's 64-bit!! AI, MP,  ATC, and weather will be coming but a full flight plan with waypoints and autotune/ILS is already available for the Airbus A320.

     If you are on the fence about trying Aerofly FS2, note that you can download from Steam, fly for up to two hours over a two week period - and still get a refund from Steam. This would let you fly around KSFO and San Francisco as well as in an F18 down inside the Grand Canyon to see how your system performs with it. Just be prepared to provide quite a bit of gigabytes - 30gb for the basic load and another 50gb for the free DLC high res everywhere (in between the cities) of California, Nevada, and Arizona - BTW, Sedona is a beautiful area to do aerobatics. Obviously, it will take quite a few hours for the download - do it overnight.

     It's simply great to see my PC perform so well without any config file fiddling - FS2 really uses the multiple CPU cores.

[alcliff]

2 hours ago, wolfko said:

Is Aerofly just cities and metro areas? Haven't seen anything else in screenshots and videos so far.

 

 

 

[caaront]

I have it on the iPad and love it.

 

Another sim I will have someday.

[HiFlyer]

Here is my recent FPS test of Aerofly New york: I was getting between 250 and 130 FPS

 

I leave it up to all your imaginations what Orbx could do with these Framerates and polygon densities.......

 

Intel Core i7 6700K @ 4.6GHz / 32.0GB G.SKILL TridentZ Series Dual-Channel Ram / ASUS STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 / Sound Blaster Z / Oculus Rift VR Headset / Klipsch® Promedia 2.1 Computer Speakers / ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q ‑ 27" IPS LED Monitor ‑ QHD / 2x Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB / Windows 10 Pro 64-bit / EVGA Z170 Classified K Motherboard

 

 

Here is the NY coverage area:

 

[DesertPilot]

After flying some more in Aerofly FS 2 today, I have to change "very impressed" to "stunned".  Aerofly is quickly becoming my go-to platform for my photoreal flying--not just the orthophoto imagery, but the 3D buildings as well.  And more.

 

I look forward to buying the upcoming Meigs add-on from Orbx, hopefully real soon! 

[wolfko]

2 hours ago, alcliff said:

 

 

Thanks Alcliff! Much appreciated!

 

[NoLonger]

Looks great indeed but IMHO Aerofly is mainly fun for quick flights because it has no depth at all in any department. Compared to P3D or XP Aerofly is utterly basic. I understand why people call this a game and not a sim. But... games can be great too.  I can imagine a lot of people getting this easy flying game and then getting more interested in more depth. I wonder though if it wouldn't be wiser to start with XP11 right away. I am very curious what the plans for Project X will be! Hopefully more than straight ports!

[Ken Terry]

Does it have the four seasons (summer, fall, winter, spring) plus Dawn, Day, Dusk and Night.

I note in the video above there are no 3D buildings at the airport, looks Ok form 5,000 feet but from 10 feet it is dead flat.

Much work to do to get most of us to switch.

Cheers

Ken

[Mark_Fox]

So I run out to get Aerofly.

 

I bought Aerofly FS1 before I realized I wanted Aerofly FS2! Ah, it's all good.....I imagine my FS1 "donation" will be used for further development of FS2!

 

FS2 is awesome BTW!

[HiFlyer]

ipacs aerofly  [developer] 7 hours ago

 

[Official] Aerofly FS 2 Scenery SDK

 

Dear Aerofly users,

We have finally made our SDK for Aerofly FS 2 publicly available. If you are interested,
please visit the following website to download the installer:

https://www.aerofly....rofly_fs_2/sdk/

The download is free, all we require is an Email for registration so we can inform you,
if a new version comes out that might be incompatible to previous versions.

The SDK features a complete model of the Robin DR400 airplane, complete with all sources.
It should show you all the various aspects required to get an airplane into Aerofly FS 2.

Using this SDK you can currently do the following:

• Create your own airplane
• Model your own airport or scenery objects
• Read simulation data from Aerofly and send commands back in using a Windows DLL

Besides the actual SDK you will need either 3D Studio Max 2012 or newer or Maxon
Cinema 4D 17 or newer if you plan on creating your own airplane or scenery.

None of the tools are required however to get the sample Robin DR400 airplane
into Aerofly FS 2.

Please consider this SDK as a work in progress. We might add more features to it
in the future, for example for adding your own aerial images or elevation data or to
even add code to program your own cockpit displays. We also might add support for
other modelling tools like AC3D.

[DesertPilot]

2 hours ago, Ken Terry said:

I note in the video above there are no 3D buildings at the airport, looks Ok form 5,000 feet but from 10 feet it is dead flat.

 

From what I've seen so far, in the airports that are included with Aerofly FS 2 as part of its free Southwestern US scenery (including Los Angeles and San Francisco), there are indeed 3D airport terminals, jetways, aircraft, road ramps, etc.

 

A demonstration of what is possible with the airports that Orbx might be implementing as part of Project A...below screenshot is of the KSFO airport.

 

 

[HiFlyer]

Maybe some of Rob Ainscoughs videos would help. He covered Aerofly in high def very thoroughly. I'm actually slightly startled he hasn't done New York, yet.

 

Their version of Twenty-nine-palms looks just like the Orbx previews, and had me wondering if they had worked together. Aerofly Airports are very near payware quality.

 

 

[Ken Hall]

15 hours ago, John Venema said:

And when Ken and I say it rocks in VR natively, believe us; nothing comes close.

No contest, as for the aircraft these guys aircraft are in my opinion the best, the detail is mind boggling. for example, the biplane has a small propeller driven device ounted on the strut, its some kind of forged metal and it looks just like that the way the light bounces of it, every instrument in that plane looks real, don't get me started on the reflections, I stepped outside the Learjet and the whole airport scenery was reflected in the windows I just stood there gasping at the panorama, I was parked next to a 747 and it towered over me I got a sore neck looking up at it,

The rift and sims like this are  going to literally put you in the drivers seat of any aircraft you've ever wanted to fly, forget new monitors ,get a rift, My beautiful 34" LG wide curved screen has been relegated to Development work.

[Ken Terry]

On the KLAS video toward the end showing the go around at KLAS I thought I saw lots of trees growing thru the main drag down the strip.

Would be interesting to see a helicopter video of the main street of Las Vegas in Aerofly

Cheers

Ken

PS Desert Pilot, I referred to flat buildings at Sion arrival.

[Mike62]

For those of us that cannot afford a VR headset, how is this sim with a good old fashioned non 4K monitor?

 

Mike

[HiFlyer]

14 minutes ago, Ken Terry said:

On the KLAS video toward the end showing the go around at KLAS I thought I saw lots of trees growing thru the main drag down the strip.

Would be interesting to see a helicopter video of the main street of Las Vegas in Aerofly

Cheers

Ken

PS Desert Pilot, I referred to flat buildings at Sion arrival.

 

Your eyes weren't deceiving you: its an actual issue that I've mentioned on their forums. Tree placement tends to be rather random, but I don't see any reason that can't be addressed. Especially when their SDK is still a document in motion and subject to modification in response to the requests of third parties like Orbx.

[Scott Harmes]

On 23/12/2016 at 5:57 AM, Antonio Aviation said:

Breathtaking, will be this compatible with the HTC Vive?

 

If it is Aerofly FS2, which most people including myself seem pretty certain it is, then yes it is compatible with HTC Vive already.  It has native VR support for the Rift and the Vive, and also OSVR, which I don't know a lot about.

 

On 23/12/2016 at 9:09 AM, Dusterman said:

Downloading A now.  Looks like I'll be eating beans instead of steak in 2017 to pay for my flightsim addiction.

 

Won't we all!  I'm still loading up my existing sims with more and more, and now they want to give us more sims  .  In all seriousness though, I think most people will just have to draw a line in the sand.  I already struggle to find time and HD space to use the simulators I have installed now, so I won't be adding every new sim that hits the market in 2017.  TBH I am not overly enthusiastic about all these 64 bit sims just for the fact they are 64 bit.  I am yet to have an OOM error in P3D V3 anyway.

 

In saying all that, I did also purchase Aerofly FS2 last night.  I have been meaning to for a while just for the VR support, as apparently it is one of the best flight experiences in VR.  Haven't downloaded yet.  I need to clear some HD space first .

 

Cheers,

 

 

[DesertPilot]

3 hours ago, Mike62 said:

For those of us that cannot afford a VR headset, how is this sim with a good old fashioned non 4K monitor?

 

Mike

 

I'm using an old fashioned non 4K monitor (27" 1920x1080) myself, and I still find Aerofly to be amazing. Very high FPS and fluidity with the monitor. Am saving VR for the future.

 

A suggestion--play back some of the various recent Aerofly FS 2 videos on Youtube, in fullscreen / 1080p60 quality mode, on your monitor. That might be comparable to how Aerofly might display on your monitor.

 

[Jon Clarke]

I too am currently downloading Project A. It is going to take me 54 hrs to do so. I do have a couple of observations though regarding the scenery.

All the fantastic performance (not VR as that is different) relates to the fluidity etc. Is is not true that if you use photoscenery in P3D for example you also get great performance. I used for example Megascenery Socal for a long time in FSX and with Vsync disabled would get upto 100 fps and fluid. You can now buy Socal in HD which is extremely detailed, but expensive. My point is that most sims will perform great if you only use photoscenery, no ai and limited autogen (in this case around cities only) and none of the other bells and whistles that FSX or P3D with the full range of extensive addons offers. The resources used and "performance" are directly associated with the complexity of detailed addons and not the basic sim. Fly in the socal area with just Megascenery for example, again with limited autogen, no ai, no real weather and you will get the same performance as being reported in Project A.

Also project A is being discussed as great for VFR. I always fly VFR and why I do that is so I can view the great detail that is offered in FTX Regions like PNW et al. Full of detailed airports,full if you want of ai, full of autogen throughout, weather systems, ATC and as realistic in LC and topography, roads, bridges and road traffic as can be. This to me is totally immersive.

I am not knocking Project A and I stated at the beginning of my post i am downloading it as i write this and look forward to trying it out, but just thought I would mention that the only difference i can see from P3D with Photoscenery is that Project A is 64 bit and for those with VR a great experience.

I anxiously await to see it's performance when Orbx gets it by the scruff of the neck and starts producing the detailed sceneries, full of autogen and in built LC and Vector type detail. I also anxiously await Project A's development team to start introducing detailed "other" aspects to the sim. Then I will be able to compare performance in a truer light.

[DesertPilot]

Yeah, P3D works great when flying with plain flat photoscenery (I have a lot of legacy photoscenery from MSE, Blue Sky, etc from years ago).  However, if I have photoscenery activated for large regions (such as multiple large states), it takes P3D a long time to load, a good number of minutes. For that reason, I enable photoscenery for only one or two states a time.

With Aerofly, that isn't an issue--I select any worldwide location, and it loads in seconds. I don't have to activate/deactivate sceneries. If I want to quickly switch to another location (such as from San Francisco to New York City or Switzerland), I can do that within 15 seconds and be ready for take off from the new airport. 

 

Furthermore, Aerofly's performance is excellent and fluid when complex 3D objects are added (buildings, vegetation, etc).  And the 3D objects look so realistic. For now, I consider Aerofly to be great when I want to do quick VFR flying and I only have 10-20 minutes of time (for example, no time for me to do in-depth navigation setup, I just want to get in the plane and start flying).

 

To be clear, I'm not replacing P3D with Aerofly. Rather, I'm having P3D and Aerofly complement each other depending on the type/depth of flying I want to do any given time.