Recently in the "FlightSim" category...
It really does appear that Microsoft has shutdown the ACES game studio and axed the entire staff. A lot of my friends are now looking for something else to do…
Microsoft Flight Simulator is dead.
Redmond, Washington-based ACES Studio, the Microsoft-owned internal group behind the venerable Microsoft Flight Simulator series, has been heavily affected by Microsoft’s ongoing job cuts.
Development sources have told Gamasutra that a large portion of the dev house’s staff has been let go - with multiple reports indicating that the entire Flight Simulator team has been axed.
It started unfolding earlier today when some collegues mentioned that the Microsoft cuts had started. I went to check out techmeme and noticed that all lot of the action seemed to be focussed around the Entertainment & Devices division. And then, little by little, it all started unfolding on Facebook…
The studio has gone. The products are no more.
I feel a little stunned, but can’t imagine what the folks who were working in the studio up until this morning are feeling. There were people on the team that have worked on FlightSim since it’s subLOGIC days. Did you know that FlightSim is (or rather was) Microsoft’s oldest product, in continual development (for the PC) from 1982 through to today?
The community seems to have noticed and popular sites such as AVSim and Sim Outhouse are waking up to the new reality. Hundreds of thousands of people just had their hobby put on hold.
So what now for Flight Simulation? I guess it’s a good day for X-Plane, though I think I’d really like to see FlightGear, an OpenSource flight simulator, ahem, take off…
It’s nice to see this finally going public.
Congrats to the Flight Sim team!
More coverage over here.
Before you ask, no. I had nothing to do with this.
There is a hidden easter egg in the latest revision of Google Earth, the formula for access to which is currently making the rounds.
Basically, to quote TechCrunch
To access the hidden feature, open Google Earth and hit Command+Option+A (note it must be capital A) or Ctrl+Alt+A if you’re using a Windows Machine.
However, given my obvious conflict of interest, I’ll just take exception to TechCrunch’s final statement:
…It wasn’t perfect, but it was as good visually as the paid Microsoft Flight Simulator, and in terms of actually presenting real objects it was better…
Obviously they haven’t looked at FSX. The two products have both different visual focusses and merits. How does the terrain and imagery look outside of major cities? How do those airports compare? How are the flight systems? ATC?
I’ll just stop now before I dig myself into a hole :-)
I have to say though, as easter eggs go, it’s a goody. It’s up their with the shooter in Excel 95. Btw, Excel 97 had a flight sim based easter egg too…
For my money, one of the best writers (ok, bloggers…) on the internets right now is my former colleague at Microsoft, Hal Bryan.
His posts are the highlight of my day. Well, week. Ok, month.
Take this snippet from his most recent post for example.
Have I no shame?
Actually, I do, but I’m about to squander the last of it away like Jack giving away his cow, without even some magic beans, much less their subsequent beanstalk, to show for it.
I collect DVD’s, and have a weakness for certain types of movies and television shows. Sometimes, my standards can actually be fairly high, tending toward well-written dramas, comedies-of-manners - “Careful there, Vicar”, “Very droll, Bernard”, that sort of thing.
This isn’t one of them. Not even close.
No, in this case, I’m admitting to enjoying something terrible. Why? Well, because it has a rather surprising amount of good flying in it. Before Michael Bay gave us Pearl Harbor, before Tony Bill gave us Flyboys, flying scenes in movies and television shows were usually real, and, thus, good. If scenes weren’t shot for that particular title, then you might see stock footage. If it was faked, it was usually faked so horribly with models that it was worth watching anyway.
Hal, you need to write more.
This is laugh-out-loud funny! Well, it is if you’re a Flight Sim geek or the one partially responsible for the “what matters are the cool graphics” moments and married to someone who grew up having to endure Bollywood constantly playing in the house…
[Thanks to Susan for the link.]
After reading reviews of One Six Right by Paul and Susan, I headed over to the movie’s site and ordered the DVD on the spot. It arrived a couple of days ago and last night Julian and I sat down to watch it.
Wow.
“One Six Right” is an exhilarating documentary film that celebrates the unsung hero of aviation - the local airport - by tracing the life, history, and struggles of an airport icon: Southern California’s Van Nuys Airport. Featuring thrilling aerial photography and a sweeping original score, the film dispels common misconceptions and opposes criticism of General Aviation airports. Through the love story of one airport, past to present, the film shares the timeless romance of flying with all ages.
If you have a love of aviation, or love stunning film making, you have got to pick this up.
“One Six Right captures the spirit, joy and beauty of flight. One of the finest aviation films ever made.” - Harrison Ford
The movie basically follows the history of California’s Van Nuys airport from it’s humble beginnings through to the present day with lots of great footage and interviews with pilots old and young. A recurrent theme is the continual loss of general aviation airfields all over the country and the fact that once they’re gone, they’re gone forever. The movie also calls out the unforgivable rape of Chicago’s Meigs Field by Mayor Richard Daley.
Highly recommended.
This weekend was a great one. Good weather and fun with the family.
[Note, unusually I have decided to write this post before processing and uploading the photos. Odd for me, I know. For most of you, dear readers, the photos will have already been added to this post before you read it and this paragraph will be irrelevant. For the few early birds, they’ll be coming soon. I just felt like writing this post now.]
Was the preceding paragraph a waste of electrons, or what‽
Plus, I got to use an interrobang. Cool.
Anyhow, back on topic.
Yesterday was Museum Day, so Julian and I took full advantage of it and headed off to one of my favourite places - the Museum Of Flight.
This time I got to look at most of the exhibits, including The Red Barn - the original Boeing manufacturing plant. Very cool. Julian was in top form, laughing and joking around and generally doing his utmost to avoid having his dad take pictures of him in front of large jet engines.
The museum was the busiest I have ever seen it, with the parking lot in front of the building completely full, though handily the buildings are so large and airy that it didn’t feel crowded.
Today though was a blast. The whole family decanted itself into the Jeep and we headed down south to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. This place has come along in leaps and bounds. I don’t believe I’ve been there since before Julian was born and it didn’t particularly impress Nabila and I then. Now though, the place is a must see.
Maybe it was just the day, but the view over the water from the entrance was just beautiful, as were the wonderful animals caringly curated inside. A particular high-point was the Wild Wonders Outdoor Theater and the two entertaining presenters with an obvious love for the subject matter and joy in presenting it to adults and children alike.
After that we drove off to Gig Harbor. My favourite “place where I’d like to own a second home”. Maybe one day.
The drive was mainly to ensure the kids had a nap - an unusual weekend occurrence unless they are forced to sleep via boredom and the motion of the car. It’s my normal weekend trick to ensure an evening unencumbered by cranky kids.
The cool thing about this time though was driving across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and witnessing the construction of the new parallel bridge. It was definitely an example of awe inspiring engineering.
Shortly after arriving home at three, Julian and I headed out once again for the RC airfield in Marymoor Park. Good fun. We even got to see a textbook departure stall incident where one RC airplane definitely bit the big one.
This was the nth time over the past year or so that I’ve taken Julian to the RC airfield. This time he actually asked to go there rather than just being taken there by his Dad, and he asked “can we go to the shop and buy a plane?”
Yes!
Looks like a great hobby for me and the boy to enjoy together.
I hope it doesn’t get too expensive.
Actually, given my track record for “expensive” when I get into a new hobby, I’d better start saving…
Flight Simulator was used today by CNN to describe the events surrounding the crash of the Comair jet in Kentucky last Sunday.
There is a video available of article available at CNN - interestingly, they're unusually good at describing the aviation terms and procedures. It also makes heavy use of Flight Sim.
Watch the video at cnn.com.
My former colleagues at Microsoft have released a demo version of FSX. All I can say is wow! You have to believe me when I say that this is no mean feat - actually producing the thing before the product goes final and shipping the demo of a two DVD game within the size of a CD (I have to say, it’s mighty close at 634MB :-)
Well done, guys and gals.
Go and download it now!
And while you’re at it, check out the very cool new flash site.
Damn, this is good. It’s amusing, looks great and although it’s purpose is to show off the new shared skies stuff (Alice will like that…), it also demonstrates tons of product features!
Good job guys.
It’s great to finally see a decent marketing effort put behind Flight Simulator.
Thanks to Nick for the link.
This might sound a bit heretical from someone who spent the last eleven years of his life working on graphics engine (just go and look at the screenshots for Flight Simulator X - mmmmm yummy), but you need more than just a great engine to ship product. It’d be nice if you had a reasonably nice one though.
In fact, you don’t need a great graphics engine at all.
Just take a look at Second Life.
The graphics are, to put it mildly, pants.
Circa 1996 pants, and that’s being generous.
But of course, that doesn’t matter because they’re not selling to the hardcore FPS gamer, and they are making a crap load of money (and raising a load of funding too).
They’re building a great experience that appeals to a lot of people.
Good for them, but the graphics still offend my sensibilities - I think they get away with it because their customer base just doesn’t know any better.
And don’t give me any of that “but our customers’ machine capabilities are all over the map - writing engines that work on the full range of machines from no 3D hardware to the latest NVidia monster is hard.”
Yes, it’s hard. But everyone else in the industry has been solving that problem for years. Just hire a couple of decent engineers1.
Imagine what it would be like with an engine with the quality of FlightSim or Guild Wars?
Now that would be something to write home about.
1 Well, maybe they have - their upcoming features for the next build of the client claims “now with hardware lighting!”. Whoop-de-doo.
Kudos to Nick Whittome, Flight Simulator MVP, for trying out Flight Simulator on a Mac under Windows XP and the newly released BootCamp.
Hehe - no port needed :-)
On a sidenote, I picked up a 2.16GHz, 2GB, 100MB/7200 rpm MacBook Pro yesterday. It is a wonderful piece of hardware - Dell, Toshiba, etc… need to take note - there’s a very tasty new Windows laptop out there now…
Just in case you’re going to be at the Game Developers’ Conference in San Jose next week and didn’t know, two members of the Flight Simulator development team will be giving presentations.
Adam Szofran will be giving a talk on the “Global Terrain Technology for Flight Simulation”:
This talk presents some of the terrain engine technology developed by Microsoft Game Studios. Of particular interest are techniques for handling the large amount of geospatial data required to represent the Earth from the surface up to orbital altitudes. Also discussed are fiber- and thread-based technologies for composing surface textures on the fly at run-time using a variety of geospatial data. The last part of the presentation focuses on how to triangulate a global, multiresolution terrain mesh requiring double-precision coordinates when the rendering hardware only supports single-precision coordinates.
and Adrian Woods will be presenting “The Make Art Button: Batches, Actions, and Scripts”:
Do something once, it’s creative. Do something twice, it’s repetitive. Do something three times, you can probably automate it.
This session gives artists tools they can use to help minimize repetitive tasks and maximize creativity and iteration. Using the dreaded DOS prompt, Photoshop actions and droplets, and MaxScript, the speaker shows how technical ability can actually unleash creativity. For example, you can use MaxScript to enable in-game visuals never seen before. You can use Photoshop actions to speed up production time. And you can use the DOS prompt. Spend less time getting carpal tunnel syndrome, and more time creating beautiful artwork.
I wish I was going to be there, but my current employer won’t let me…
I just noticed that some new screenshots of FSX have been published over on AVSim.
To say that I’m incredibly proud of the graphics and art of that product would be an understatement. Go Guys!
Via Mike Gilbert, Flight Sim’s lead PM, I see that Flight Simulator was held up as an example of the future of PC graphics by Peter Moore.
Cool.
Yesterday evening I had the distinct pleasure of being the guest host on The Podcast Network’s G’Day World with Cameron Reilly. It was a blast.
We chatted about a bunch of stuff including the new venture, Flight Simulator, movies, tech news and interesting aussie phrases…
G’Day World is probably the longest running subscription I have in my podcatcher, and it was very cool to finally be a part of it - I’d love to do it again if Cam will have me :-)
Check it out and download it over on TPN…
Here’s a cool video that an international airline pilot put together to show his three year old daughter what he did at work.
The five minute video shows a three day Boston to Paris roundtrip, set to the music of U2. A very cool piece of work.
I just had to pass this one on:
My husband is into the whole Microsoft Flight Simulator world, which is apparently a rather large world with organizations and ranks and events and training and barbecue suppers and satanic rituals and what have you.
Read the rest of this amusing post over on Mel’s Diner. And don’t skip the comments!
Well, the time has finally come for me to say adios to Microsoft and hit the startup road. This has nothing to do with Microsoft or the Flight Simulator team/product and everything to do with my insane desire to try something new.
In fact, this was probably one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make - Microsoft and in particular the Flight Simulator team is a wonderful and stimulating place to work and it is hard to walk away from eleven years of history.
What have I worked on in that time? Well in summary, back in January 1995 I joined some friends at a small 3D graphics startup in London, UK. One month later we were acquired by Microsoft and shortly joined the fledgling DirectX (then Games SDK) team. Our product, Reality Lab, became the basis for Direct3D and shipped in June 1996 as the key feature for DirectX 2. After that I worked on DirectX 3, VRML, IE4, DirectX 5 in Windows Multimedia and then moved onto Chrome (who remembers that?) and DirectX 6.
In 1997 we relocated to Redmond.
In 1998 it was time for something different, and I led feature teams on Flight Simulator 2000, Combat Flight Simulator 2, Flight Simulator 2004 and FSX, found time along the way to run the development team at a new studio, work on a bunch of Xbox stuff, build a game engine and scriping engine/language completely from scratch and generally get my fingers into a lot of incredibly interesting pies.
And now it’s time for something completely different.
For the Flight Simulator fans in the audience, let me tell you that the product is in a great place. It’ll ship on time and look astounding - I’ve made sure of that!
Anyhow, stay subscribed - my blogging will continue (does it ever stop?) and in fact I will continue to post about Flight Simulator as long as my value-add is still relevant (and the team puts up with me :-)
Although I can claim to be the first Flight Simulator Team blogger, I’m really happy that Mike, Jason, Adrian, Hal, Susan and others are now on board, and delivering a really compelling and insightful look into the world under the hood of Flight Simulator. The conversation rocks. Long may it continue.
Stay tuned…
There appears to be a general confusion in the forums about what SLI is, how it works, how applications take advantage of it, whether Flight Simulator gains any advantage, etc…
Hopefully this will clear up some of these issues, but first a caveat. I don’t have an SLI system and I’ve never seen Flight Simulator running on an SLI system. This information is based on what I know, so take from that what you will.
SLI itself is a bit of a misnomer. SLI stands for (or used to) Scan Line Interleaved. Basically, one horizontal scan line goes to one card, the next goes to the other, etc… Now this doesn’t mean that you get 2x the performance as there’s a bunch of work that has to be done on the hardware no matter what pixels are being filled e.g. clipping triangles, performing vertex shader operations, etc…
This is basically what the original consumer level (i.e. 3DFX circa 1998) was doing, because no consumer 3D hardware performed the geometry transform and full triangle setup on the hardware. It was all done in software and then the final projected triangle with all associated edge derivatives were sent to the hardware. The overhead of the per triangle stuff was only incurred once.
With the hardware doing little else other than filling pixels, the true SLI mode made sense. It also made playing the original Half Life with a 3DFX Voodoo 2 SLI setup a lot of fun…
Fast forward a few years and hardware is doing pretty much all the work, that means that sharing the rendering load between multiple cards very hard. To be quite honest, most apps are geometry and transform bound - the 3D hardware vendors have got very good at pushing pixel fill-rate, while the busses that get the data to the card haven’t really kept up. Stick two cards in the mix and you’ve doubled the data that needs to be sent to each card.
Of course, they could arrange for one card to be a conduit to the other card, or something like that, but I’m just speculating as I don’t actually know…
It’s very easy to saturate an AGP bus with 3D data, let alone the PCI bus. Just ask any audio developer about the fact that the graphics guys have been eating all the bandwidth.
Now, with PCI Express the bandwidth has gone up again, and we’re on our own bus. Also, the graphics card guys need to boost the speed again (and of course they want to sell you more than one of their quite expensive cards), so SLI makes a return.
This is goodness, but as far as I can tell it’s not really SLI - i.e. they’re not interleaving scan lines, but rather providing a bunch of different ways the cards can be used in tandem. Techniques such as splitting the screen in half and sending one half to each card; rendering one frame on one card and the next on the other card; etc…
Check out NVidia’s website for the various options that they provide.
So, at the end of the day, it’s a way to split the rendering between multiple cards - though it’ll probably never get you a real 2x performance improvement. Of course that doesn’t matter though - anything better than 1x is good!
So, what about the application (i.e. Flight Simulator)?
The application knows nothing.
It’s all hidden under the hood of the driver - there is nothing the application needs to do to enable it, support it or anything it.
Of course, we may do some interesting things that make it hard for SLI to work effectively, but hey, we shipped first. Hehe.
Anyhow, these guys have done some testing and it looks like it does improve the graphics (in particular fill-rate) performance, as you’d expect.
Does that make sense?
