The engine looks new
No. It really doesn't look like anything new.
but still uses some of the same textures shared with FSX mixed in with new ones.
Textures are not the only thing. The mesh looks exactely the same, same smoothing system, same landclass system, just some different content shown (different rock textures and more precise default mesh and landclass for that particular area).
Too much looks different for it to be FSX.
Not at all.
Only the shadowing system looks different. The rest is not different from what FSX can display.
And actually, the FSX engine was not that outdated...it was a modernization of the old code.
It was not really outdated in the way it was displaying the world, it was outdated in the way it was handling the physics and the graphical effects around that world. It still looks good, but outdated definitely, especially when you look at XPlane 10 preview screenshots.
Microsoft has shown actual improvements, along with new features. Lets look at a few examples.
The waves meeting the coastline. Nothing like that can be achieved in FSX unless you used a static texture painted onto the ground. You'd have the waves, but they wouldn't move.
They are improved for sure. However we could get better moving waves in FSX simply by editing the actual wave textures. Sure the ones in Flight look better than defaut FSX, but the main problem is that nobody ever created anything for waves in FSX....
[*]Ground textures no longer stretch on vertical terrain. Can this be done in FSX? Not that I know of.
I'm not sure it doesn't strech anymore, I wouldn't confirm that too fast.
The "strech" effect can be compensated simply by using a higher resolution rock texture, but I think we should look at more screenshots about this before.
[*]Aircraft lighting/shadowing greatly improved. Can this same lighting be achieved in FSX? No.
That's right.
[*]Buildings have self shadowing and cast soft shadows. Trees cast shadows on the ground, aircraft, and other trees. Terrain also casts shadows on the trees.
This is also definitely an improvement over FSX.
[*]Weather system appears improved. From the few screenshots we've seen, it's hard to tell if it is just some texture updates to the clouds, or the actual rendering of them.
No, it just look the same.
All that, and default scenery that finally doesn't look like crap. At least not in Hawaii anyway,
Not in Hawaii, that's the important part.
Default scenery in FSX doesn't look like crap, "at least not in St Marteen". We all know what kind of ridiculous meshes and landclasses we got for the rest of the world... The situation will be no different in Flight.
and it looked pretty bad in FSX.
Let's compare generic with generic.
Bigger high detail coverage of any location than we have seen in FSX by default.
This is just propaganda. You don't know anything about "any location", only screens about Hawaii were given so far.
If the rest of the world looks pretty good, (obviously won't have as much detail, but just a simple texture/autogen replacement would do) and Flight has better performance, it's going to be one nice sim.
I agree on that, focusing on performance.
[quote] Imagine when the add-on companies get their grimy little hands on it.