Aircraft Compatibility

[Carabosse]

Sorry if this topic has already been covered - but I'm just a newbie on this forum! 

I have quite a large number of add-on aircraft... about 4 times as many as the default aircraft in FSX.  Some of these add-ons I have had to tweak, so they work properly in FSX.  I for one will be annoyed if I can't use these aircraft in MS Flight. In fact that could be a deal-breaker.

Has anyone given feedback to MS, saying that an important part of the 'wishlist' is full compatibility with FSX (and preferably FS2004)  aircraft?

[Keep It Simple]

I would think that native FSX aircraft could be compatable as the way FSX handels aircraft is not a problem and there is no reason that I know of not to make them compatable with Flight.
However I would not have any hope for anything older then FSX aircraft.

Let's not loss sight of the fact the the present code for MSFS is dated and very inefficient. Many have been saying for years that it needs to be rewitten

[Carabosse]

Personally I would love more realistic scenery etc - maybe some sort of tie in with Bing maps, or whatever.

But I suspect we will get something which is more akin to "Flight Simulator Facebook", and dumbed down for the gaming community with no real advances so far as simulation is concerned .  Perhaps this is why Microsoft disbanded the Aces team?

[Keep It Simple]

Quite the contrary acording to the lastest info from MS.
They said they dropped the word "simulator" purely for marketing reasons and Flight will definately be a simulator.
However, it will also include some features that will appeal to the more casual simmer and/or gamer without dumbing down the hard core flight simming experience.
Too many peple get turned off by the word "simulator"

[Travis]

I can tell you from the viewpoint of an aircraft designer for the past 8 years, that if MS doesn't update the coding for Flight and do away with the current format FS uses, I will NEVER purchase.  The legacy codes that are forced upon the designers by making everything backwards compatible have made it impossible to do some things with FS that should have been figured out with the release of FSX.  Things like ducted fans, vectored thrust and VTOL aircraft.  Not to mention not being able to utilize any thrust system other than turbines, jets and props.  And that is just the airfiles.  That doesn't cover the insanity that is inherent when trying to write coding for gauges or animations using XML.

Yes, this means that the older aircraft won't be able to be used, but that's an acceptable issue when you think about how much will be created when it does get released.  Give it one month from the release date, and there will be several dozen fresh aircraft released by the current FS teams.

[BrandonF]

The FSX coding is not as dated as one may think. I remember reading a post on Avsim a while back stating that one of the FSX developers said that FSX was in fact a modernization of the old code. The way I feel is that the modernization was not done right, so I suspect Flight will perfect the modernization of the old code.

I will go and try to find the post stating this info...

8-)

EDIT: Ah, here it is:

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/293576-ms- ... p__1816812

From greggerm on Avsim:

Just because FS2004 and FSX have semblances of backwards compatibility and use the .BGL scenery formats doesn't mean that their core coding is ten years old. From my reading back in the FSX release days (*I wish I could find it!!) I recall Phil Taylor indicating that FSX was in fact a major modernization of the core engines, and they weren't operating on ancient code like many have postulated here.

[Keep It Simple]

A moderization off the old code?
To me that just means that an anttempt was made to make the old code a bit more efficient.

However, it's still the old code and which is inherently ineficent and no amount of tinkering will make it the way it really shoud be. A basic rewrite is

[alrot]

I'm not so experienced in aircraft designing , but I hope for the sake of MSFS community that at least they allow to export us again in gmax and 3d studio max in the new format our and my Humble models other wise this would be the sudden death of MSFS

[Travis]

Alrot: the folks over at Microsoft read these types of forums specifically to get ideas on what to include with the next release of the sim.  Be thankful that they at least tried with FSX (a little!).

That being said, it would seem that Gmax is out the window.  It is fair too outdated to serve as the basic programming software for the newest sim.  Max would seem to be the obvious choice, but apparently Maya is the leader in the field right now, because of movie magic.  However, Max remains the standard for game industry, so it may be that we will still have a way in.  I do think that if MS wants to have a real group of 3rd party developers, they're going to have to redo something along the lines of Gmax, since there aren't many folks out there willing to dish out the 3500+ bucks to purchase either Max or Maya to design aircraft unless they're getting paid.

[alrot]

[quote]

That being said, [b]it would seem that Gmax is out the window.

[alrot]

I can't avoid this

there is a lack off FSX-SDK users Its rare to find & download a genuine FSX model  , from every 100 developers ,90 used the old FS9-SDK , because they don't know how to use FSX-SDK ,most of all are using the same old models made in makemdl.xml

[Travis]

and with all do respect your latest model was made in FS9-SDK

But of course it was: I don't own FSX, since my setup can't run it.  I also didn't want to learn the FSX SDK because of all of the hassle's with the sim you mentioned above.

I'm not pretending to think that I know better.  I just believe that, just as the legacy coding is outdated, so is Gmax.  It was intended to service FS8 and 9, but doesn't have powerful enough tools to work the true magic of FSX without major tweaking and XML coding.  These issues could be taken care of by a newer, updated version of something similar to Gmax, perhaps based off of the current Maya version.

I use Max 9, and I can definitely tell the difference between Gmax and Max.

[BrandonF]

They'd better not use Maya or 3Ds and leave gmax behind, as freeware developers would be history. I have been using the FSX SDK for several months now, and I don't have many complaints at all about it. It's definitely easier to export MDLs from Gmax now. The FS9 makemdl would cancel the export if one tiny thing was wrong that wouldn't affect anything. (You couldn't do a little test export sometimes for one error that you don't want to deal with at the time)

As long as they include some sort of freeware modeling program similar to gmax, then we will be fine.

8-)

[usapatriot]

Personally, I would prefer for them not to offer ANY backwards compatibility with older add-ons. I hope they use a better, more advanced aircraft modeling system and supporting older add-ons would only add bloat and the possibility of MORE bugs in the new game.

[Fr. Bill]

Continued use of GMax isn't something over which Microsoft (or anyone else for that matter) has control!

The decision whether to license anyone to use the Autodesk GMax SDK to code an export module is totally up to Autodesk!

MS/ACES practically had to get on their knees and BEG Autodesk to grant them a limited license to use the GMax SDK so they could provide an export module for FSX.

Autodesk has made it crystal clear that this was a "one off" instance, and that they were highly disinclined to do it again.

So, if "Flight's SDK" (assuming there is one) doesn't offer any support for GMax, it's most certainly NOT the fault of Microsoft!