Unnecessary detail at some airports???

[Jon Clarke]

I read with interest about Turbulent Designs partnership with Orbx and took a look at a couple of their addon airports. I noticed that a couple had extremely detailed scenery within the Terminal building. I have noticed some other developers also have detailed interior building details and am wondering if these details are really warranted or necessary. I have never taken a look at the interior of any Terminal, well maybe once and then never again. I don't personally see the point considering that I will be either at a parking gate ready to move out or on the runway ready for take off. I am immersed in the exterior details like moving gateways, ground traffic and ai movements. Certainly not the inside of the terminal. I maybe being  pedantic, but would think that the detailed interior requires CPU usage, adds to autogen and could possibly effect performance while remaining unseen from the outside. It is the exterior that warrants details not the interior.

Any thoughts?

[Triplane]

I don't get it either. Anything "added" will put an extra load on the system. How much additional load and where is anyone's guess but it's inevitable. And, like you, I can't think of any reason to ever look at the inside of a terminal building..........Doug

[sangsom]

Sometimes we should be deeply grateful for the public restrooms 

at  their addon airports.

[andy1252]

Personally, I'm more of a "world simulator that you happen to be able to fly around in" than a "flight simulator" kind of guy, so I tend to like this sort of thing. I've had plenty of "flights" where I've just spent an hour or two as Bob or scary avatar guy just wandering around an airport looking at stuff, or even getting in the Pajero and driving around the nearby town/city/countryside as the case may be. Maybe the interiors don't get loaded into memory until you try and enter that space anyway?

[Jack Sawyer]

I love it actually, I don't mean to disagree with you but to me it adds depth and immersion as Andy points out above.  And for me it gives me a lot of really good material to work with for comics as they make great backgrounds.  And I wonder if the inside of a terminal is actually drawn as you're flying on the other side of the world?  I would think it's only drawn as needed?  Maybe I'm wrong.

[dexthom]

Well Bob needs his potty or perhaps a rental car.

[JMBIII]

I don't fly to or from airports that would have terminals with interiors modeled. Low and slow from smaller airports is my thing. I stay away from that class of airspace.

Now if someone would model the inside of that old dilapidated hangar I keep my plane in . . . . . . . maybe. 

[CBPilot]

I don’t have any interest in building internals, much preferring parking and apron features. As long as the developer gives options to configure internals on or off then that would please everyone surely. Just a thought.

[teecee]

Honestly, there is no pleasing some folk.. What comes next? I don't need that part of country X or this or that city because I don't fly there? Teecee.

[lawrence aldrich]

16 minutes ago, teecee said:

Honestly, there is no pleasing some folk.. What comes next? I don't need that part of country X or this or that city because I don't fly there? Teecee.

It's OK.....but I would draw the line at being told to remove my shoes and go through a pixel detector to check in.

[ftxpolo]

If detailed the interior of a terminal building, it will take a long time to release  an airport, then I think it is not worth the effort.

All that attention to detail should be focus in POI's or external reference points that help or that are taken as a reference for an approach  to the airport.

[donbrindles]

33 minutes ago, teecee said:

Honestly, there is no pleasing some folk.. What comes next? I don't need that part of country X or this or that city because I don't fly there? Teecee.

 

Bit harsh that I think Teecee. So, would you like orbx to model the inside of all their airport terminals/buildings, with all the resource/cost implications? My view is that all the cost/resource implications would best be expended on what we see when we are parked at the airport, taxiing or flying, ie view within/from the cockpit or external views around the aircraft.

 

Just my two pennyworth,

 

Don

[Alex Goff]

In the terminal interiors I modelled (Meigs Field and Homer) it took roughly two days to do each, and both were contained on a single texture sheet with polygon counts similar to a single static aircraft. Essentially, minimal time and effort and resource usage. Less than modelling a unique aircraft anyway. 

 

After release, neither interior attracted much attention and most of the notes were on how to disable it. After KCGX I intentionally excluded the terminal interior from Bar Harbor and never saw any mentions of this. To me, the market has spoken pretty clearly and instead of terminal interiors I put more effort into surroundings and the apron area.

 

Although for some reason parking lots get a lot of attention and I spend much more time there than I did a few years ago.

[donbrindles]

28 minutes ago, Alex Goff said:

In the terminal interiors I modelled (Meigs Field and Homer) it took roughly two days to do each, and both were contained on a single texture sheet with polygon counts similar to a single static aircraft. Essentially, minimal time and effort and resource usage. Less than modelling a unique aircraft anyway. 

 

After release, neither interior attracted much attention and most of the notes were on how to disable it. After KCGX I intentionally excluded the terminal interior from Bar Harbor and never saw any mentions of this. To me, the market has spoken pretty clearly and instead of terminal interiors I put more effort into surroundings and the apron area.

 

Although for some reason parking lots get a lot of attention and I spend much more time there than I did a few years ago.

 

Thanks Alex, I second that,

 

Don

[Triplane]

3 hours ago, teecee said:

Honestly, there is no pleasing some folk.. What comes next? I don't need that part of country X or this or that city because I don't fly there? Teecee.

I guess it all depends on whether we want a FLIGHT simulator or just some eye-candy which we can get by browsing the internet. I know the world has passed me by but sometimes I really long for the "old" days when flight dynamics and RL procedures were hot topics. MS changed all that with FSX and I just never caught up. Maybe it's because I have so many hours flying in RL. No eye-candy can top that. Or maybe it's just because I'm an old man who's learned what's important in life...now if I could just remember what that is ....Doug

[teecee]

It's how I remember the "old Days" Doug.. pretty well housebound now, dcn't or can't fly  any more so I keep my sim right up to date scenery wise and spend my hours just cruisin' low and slow. Teecee.

[VH-KDK]

FSim should cater for all tastes, I am not into modern military but I don't expect there to be no time spent on that type of plane just because I don't like it.

I am one of those who just like to hop in a plane, press Ctrl+E, take off and admire the scenery. I will fly over a nuclear power station or a prison because it is a Flight Sim and I can do it.

So I don't mind if there is the airport interiors as I like to look around and the more little hidden extras the better.

13 hours ago, Jack Sawyer said:

I love it actually, I don't mean to disagree with you but to me it adds depth and immersion as Andy points out above.  And for me it gives me a lot of really good material to work with for comics as they make great backgrounds.  And I wonder if the inside of a terminal is actually drawn as you're flying on the other side of the world?  I would think it's only drawn as needed?  Maybe I'm wrong.

No need to apologise Jack as it is your valued opinion and as you and I know the places where you can have an opinion are shrinking day by day.

[Rodger Pettichord]

As for me, I don't much care about building interiors, but I love having the tarmac and taxiways be as realistic as possible. When I get a chance to actually fly from one of the ORBX-duplicated airports, I love taking that memory back to my flight sim flying and finding a close correspondence. Alex's comments above reflect my thoughts, no disrespect meant to those who think otherwise.

[Russell Linn]

Regarding Turbulent sceneries, we take the atmosphere of the airport and the style of the terminal in to account.

 

At MBS, 90% of the terminal on the main apron is glass. Having opaque glass gave an underwhelming "flat" look to a well designed terminal. Adding the interior created an incredible amount of depth, which is what the original designer was aiming for. Russ White wanted to capture that, and that he did.

Did we go to the extreme with the amount of detail in the interior? Welp... that's subjective but it's just what we do. We like to push the bar on everything we do, because it's a hobby of ours.

Performance-wise, an interior would not affect performance as everything is low poly with minimal draw calls (as Alex says). Removing it would give absolutely no noticeable performance gain. We don't add interiors for the sake of having interiors. We'll only do it if it adds a lot to the experience.

For example, the front of the terminal at KIDA has tinted glass, so the minimal interior was only intended to create a nice depthy silhouette.

Thanks,
Russ

[paulb]

I never complain about detail being added at airports. They need to cater for all tastes IMHO.

 

Also, I have yet to find an orbx airports that cause me issues with frame rate etc. They all work fine for me. The developers know what they are doing .

 

As mentioned by Jack and others above, detail often adds to the immersion and enjoyment .

[Sniper31]

2 hours ago, Russell Linn said:

Regarding Turbulent sceneries, we take the atmosphere of the airport and the style of the terminal in to account.

 

At MBS, 90% of the terminal on the main apron is glass. Having opaque glass gave an underwhelming "flat" look to a well designed terminal. Adding the interior created an incredible amount of depth, which is what the original designer was aiming for. Russ White wanted to capture that, and that he did.

Did we go to the extreme with the amount of detail in the interior? Welp... that's subjective but it's just what we do. We like to push the bar on everything we do, because it's a hobby of ours.

Performance-wise, an interior would not affect performance as everything is low poly with minimal draw calls (as Alex says). Removing it would give absolutely no noticeable performance gain. We don't add interiors for the sake of having interiors. We'll only do it if it adds a lot to the experience.

For example, the front of the terminal at KIDA has tinted glass, so the minimal interior was only intended to create a nice depthy silhouette.

Thanks,
Russ

I totally understand this and agree. Thank you for that explanation and I for one have had no problem with the designs of Orbx airports with interior scenery, or other 'eye candy' detail (I have yet to use Turbulent scenery yet, but I soon will). There are always good control panel options to turn off this or that. If you are worried about eye candy hurting your framerates, than get better hardware. Some of us love the detail and eye candy and for me at least, I can never get a private pilots license, so seeing all the detail I can see via the sim is the next best thing. I CAN travel though, and I do much of that, and no sim will ever replace the real world view. But, what's wrong with wanting to see the best look possible when simming? If all I wanted was wire frame simming I would fire up my Commodore 64 and FS2.   

[Jon Clarke]

18 hours ago, Russell Linn said:

Regarding Turbulent sceneries, we take the atmosphere of the airport and the style of the terminal in to account.

 

At MBS, 90% of the terminal on the main apron is glass. Having opaque glass gave an underwhelming "flat" look to a well designed terminal. Adding the interior created an incredible amount of depth, which is what the original designer was aiming for. Russ White wanted to capture that, and that he did.

Did we go to the extreme with the amount of detail in the interior? Welp... that's subjective but it's just what we do. We like to push the bar on everything we do, because it's a hobby of ours.

Performance-wise, an interior would not affect performance as everything is low poly with minimal draw calls (as Alex says). Removing it would give absolutely no noticeable performance gain. We don't add interiors for the sake of having interiors. We'll only do it if it adds a lot to the experience.

For example, the front of the terminal at KIDA has tinted glass, so the minimal interior was only intended to create a nice depthy silhouette.

Thanks,
Russ

 

Thanks Russ, you really answered my question. You state that there is no impact on performance in having a detailed Terminal interior, therefore I see no reason to deviate from that in the cases where it is warranted, as explained well in your response regarding MBS. I never meant to indicate that the internal scenes were " extreme" just questioning ans seeking answers to whether they were necessary, warranted and/or had a performance impact. Those aspects are covered in your response. 

I look forward to many more of you and Turbulent/Orbx airport addons.

[Tony Wroblewski]

One thing I've always liked doing is going around the airport and having a look around before heading off, and I generally do the same when I land at the next one. Each one has a unique atmosphere,  so at least for me, I appreciate having interiors on the buildings, and I think they're a must if the building has a lot of windows.

[Scott Harmes]

Yep.  I'm sure this discussion has been had in the past, but for me, I like exploring airports POIs and cities as much as I like flying from point A to Point B, so having a highly detailed airport adds to that immensely.  I don't think a modelled interior is a requirement, but I appreciate it, and I certainly don't knock a developer for doing it.

 

As Andy said up the top, I think of FSX and P3D as World simulators rather than just flight simulators alone.

 

Just have a walk around with Avatar Guy or BOB at KMBS or KIDA.  The detail speaks for itself.

 

Cheers,

[Sid]

Definitely a World simulator for me too Scott and Andy . I also use the sim in multiple ways and love maximum depth and versatility. Without that direction I think I would have lost sufficient interest in this hobby long ago to quite some extent...but thanks to great companies like Orbx and Turbulent existing who don't shy away from innovation, pushing the boundaries, animation, quality of detail within the airport/terminals as well as crucially creating detailed and locally-atmospheric surrounding cities, natural landscapes and POIs closer and closer to the real world, I was rescued and don't have to worry about losing interest in buying sceneries due to any lack of immersion as this world simulator keeps getting topped-up with more and more interesting things to see and a sense of a living dynamic world to fly and explore on land and water too, and that with negligible or irrelevant performance impact...fabulous development skills! P3D is after all marketed as a Land, Air and Sea simulator ultimately and I hope that capability keeps getting developed alongside constantly improving hardware so as much versatility of scenarios and flexibility and depth of use can be extracted from the simulator by as wide a variety of users, and therefore potential customers, that exist as is possible at any one time.

 

We are indeed a very diverse bunch for sure, with a lot of great commonality but there is a substantial segment that loves to see detailed, immersive, alive, wide detailed-coverage areas and innovative dynamic scenery that can be explored indoor and out and not just limited to airport buildings either, being created by specialist Scenery developers like Orbx/Turbulent etc. It's exactly what makes these scenery developers great scenery developers. So I simply and humbly add to the group of opinions above in this favour and say keep up the great work and please don't stop innovating. So many exciting projects in the works right now here thanks to that innovation towards a closer immersion to reality within the sim world...and it all works and performs well! That constant advance is what keeps me glued and hooked . Please never stop doing what you do devs. Keep exciting us and giving us more of the real world to experience in our sim world. I can see that for some above it makes quite a difference to their lives and that sense gives me great joy to see . That's another little 2 cents added to the debate anyway. An interesting discussion.

[FalconAF]

 The issue isn't...and has NEVER been..."is the wrong kind of scenery being developed for our flight sims?"  I've been flight simming for over 3 decades, and real world piloting for over 4 decades.  Here's what some people need to learn about our flight sims concerning "scenery":

 

There is no such thing as a "wrong" scenery.  Yes...it's a "flying" simulator.  But we enhance it with moving cars, boats, and ship addons that cover the world. And enough AI traffic addons to choke a pony if we want to.  But is seeing cars, boats, or even "other airplanes" NECESSARY to fly our own airplane?  Nope, not really.  But THAT is not "The Problem".

 

The REAL problem arises when overzealous flight sim users try to USE every darn addon they have at the SAME TIME, with their "scenery settings" set at "Let's choke this computer to death!!!"  

 

I have boat addons.  And shipping addons.  And AI traffic addons.  And just about every other kind of addons in the world.  What I DON'T do with them is try to load something like an ORBX Southern California with an FSDT KLAX with My Traffic 6 settings at 80% AI traffic with the worldwide ships addon displaying 500 ships floating by KLAX in the ocean with my Active Sky displaying 8 cloud layers at 4096 with T-Storms, all of it set at "Extremely Dense"...then try to fly my PMDG out of KLAX and expect to see "non-blurry textures with no stuttering at 60 FPS".  And I have a very capable, relatively top-of-the-line,  healthy well maintained computer.

 

It's not the TYPE of addons available to us that is "a problem".  As others have said, different people like different things.

 

Just quit trying to run them all at the same time in scenarios with "scenery settings" your computer (whatever it is) doesn't have a prayer of doing. Or that no amount of "tweaking" would let it do anyhow.

 

And if you don't like boats or cars or people walking around the airports that have up close and personal grass settings that can kill your sim if you use the grass, etc, just don't use those scenery items.  Or whatever else it may be you don't like (or CAN'T use with your own computer).  

 

[Jon Clarke]

Just want to make clear that the origin of my post was nothing to do with any preferences nor "world" sim aspects but purely on any performance hit that may arise with things like interior modelling within terminals as an example. Alex has given a developers perspective on this issue and has stated that the work involved was only a couple of days and that it has no  impact on performance. That response suits me fine and I encourage "interior" modelling with no performance impact to continue as it adds even more realism and immersion for us all.

FalconAF also extends the aspect of performance impacts very well in his post about the number of addons and when and how best to use them. There is no "one size fits all" when it comes to the addons that can be active simultaneously nor to the Settings options for all flights in the sim. Each scenario/location requires specific settings and appropriate addon involvement. We all know and appreciate that for every addon we have active, whether it be scenery, weather, ai, shipping or any other addon, we are subsequently reducing our PCs maximum performance capabilities. Remember when you first installed your P3D or FSX with no addons and were getting 60fps everywhere, then started adding addons and watching the performance figures drop?

[Gypsy Pilot]

Well, I like it, and for me, that's all that matters.

 

Dale

 

[Ziggy]

I think it’s cool, I like the detail, but I must admit I do turn off the feature when I’m flying, but when I walk around to check things out it’s a neat little bonus!

[Spacey]

Up until recently l too thought interior terminal buildings was an overkill and waste of CPU resources.

 

Recently for my retirement l purchased a FDS 737 1:1 scale cockpit. Suddenly what was previously overkill became fantastic realism and needed immersion . As l sit in the cockpit for 30+ mins doing my preflight, all that previous unnecessary eye candy suddenly became extremely important to the point that airports which don’t have terminal buildings that are transparent and missing other features such as moving airport vehicles, people, etc is no longer enough.

 

Whilst I understand not everyone has the full scale cockpit to sit in, it becomes clear that each of us has very different needs. And as our level of realism increases, so does our need for all these extra features. So what was once for me absolute overkill, is now a necessity for immersion into sim flying.

[Rob Abernathy]

You just hit the nail on the head Spacey.  To each their own, but it sure seems that when it comes to sim flying enjoyment that Orbx is at the top of my list of what addons to run.  Add in other flavors until you get it just right your way.