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Showing content with the highest reputation on 04/05/2023 in all areas

  1. Thanks for all the sentiments and kind words. I myself am happy to be working on X-Plane full time and will strive to continue to do so. I can 'partially' sympathize with those who are...lets say...."on the fence" to put it nicely, regarding upgrade costs for software development, as I myself am one of those old-timers who came from what I like to call the "golden age of software" where it would obviously be great to buy it once and get upgrades forever, but as it stands, I now have at least 4 software subscriptions to software, billed every month, that is constantly evolving and some don't have the 'obvious features' I want and I understand it now as a developer. It used to be we could model a few polygons, slap a photo texture and we're done, because that's all the technology could handle. Now I have to model a few million polygons, slice them up and lay them all out neatly and texture them all and it takes a lot longer than it used to. I never had to worry about detail lighting before because X-Plane didn't have it, now its a whole "lighting pass" by itself. Same for sound engineering, etc. The technology has expanded a lot faster than the market. For those of us who remember playing Sublogic / Microsoft Flight Sim in 1981....we've come a long way technologically and I for one love it! The growth comes with some pains. I'll note that X-Plane dev requires more specialized knowledge now and finding folks with that knowledge and time is quite hard to find so its a challenge to execute what we now have the ability to produce. After nearly 20+ years of messing about with X-Plane, the important thing, I believe, is to keep moving and there've been some 'not insignificant' sacrifices in the background so that we can keep moving on this X-Plane work...as niche as it is. Its defininitely a labor of love and we all have to live with who we are. I figure if I can do what I love, I'll never work a day .....but I do need a paycheck to keep at it. I appreciate everyone out there who understands that. Thanks again. Back at it. -tkyler
    5 points
  2. Captains, It's with a lot of excitement and appreciated patience that we are ready to announce what's to come for IXEG's future! The team chose to let the dust settle a bit and not have too wide of a moving target in the early days of X-Plane 12 so as to not waste development time. The following will serve as a brief summary of what's to come, as well as a bit of a roadmap on where things will go. Things have changed a lot since the last X-Plane 11 update, one of them being that @tkyler is now full time in add-on development instead of juggling between real life jobs and that of our virtual world. This has given us the ability to focus on where we want the 737 to go into the future, and we hope you'll like what you initially see! Cost Back on February 7th, 2022, a little after Laminar Research announced X-Plane 12 was coming, we published on the IXEG 737 product page that purchasing customers would receive a free product update to the X-Plane 12 version. Per that statement, we are honoring this free update for customers who purchased the IXEG 737 on or after February 7th, 2022. For customers having purchased the IXEG 737 on or before February 6th, 2022, the upgrade will be a paid upgrade of $14.95 USD. Why this pricing structure? Our goal is to keep the upgrade pricing within reach of all customers at a fair price, and will ensure continued development of the IXEG 737 into the future. This all said, we also want to provide existing customers with additional value for the upgrade cost, above and beyond just the 'porting' work required to gain Version 12 compatibility. So in order to provide additional value, we decided to develop an all-new 3D cabin, working cabin doors and wing-flex to include in the update and gain momentum towards overhauling the 733 to modern 3D standards. This work has been ongoing for the previous months and is responsible for most of the development time by @tkyler thus far. We've included some pics / links of the interior work in progress below. Background on why this news is only just coming out… Flight testing was delayed slightly while Laminar made alterations that affect certain areas of our models, but also because @Litjan, who handles the flight model, was working towards his 747 Captain rating (now since completed....congratulations Jan!). With the pesky 747 certification process out of the way, Jan has actively resumed flight testing / tweaking things, and if anybody is curious, the team does NOT plan to develop a 747 product . What's to come prior to the initial v12 release? Items to be included in the initial v12 release: All-new, high resolution 3D cabin interior Animated doors Wing flex Ensure satisfactory flight and systems performance Rework our GUI interface to a more flexible, imGUI based infrastructure Once these are complete, we will release the update. A good portion of this has already been completed, and other bits are still in the works. We believe we can do this work before the fall in the USA, and have a solid platform to continue improvements. Once released and stabilized after addressing any bugs or issues, we will immediately continue the work of improving the 733 in several areas. Some items we will be addressing and improving are: FMS VNAV Prediction / Performance Holds Performance / Progress predictions. Swap to XP11 NavData format. FMOD Sound Implementation, allowing us to more easily expand our sound set. New exterior 3D and high-resolution textures Enhanced GUI for accommodating more robust interactions with operations. So that's where we are in the development. The IXEG 733 is being worked on continuously and we're excited about evolving the product as both X-Plane and computer technology / performance evolves, chasing immersion as far as we possibly can. We want to thank you all for being customers and hope we can deliver satisfying experiences through this iterative journey that is flight simulation development. On behalf of the IXEG team, especially @tkyler and @Litjan, we thank all of your for your excitement and patience that has so far driven us to this point. Enjoy the previews! Please Note: All images are showcasing continued work in progress and things, including texture work, are subject to change.
    3 points
  3. I bought this marvel of simulation back in 2016 for XP10 I think, I don't remember if I had to pay for the upgrade to XP11, I definitely would have, and paying $15 for the upgrade to XP12 still seems like a gift to me. It's one of the planes that I have most enjoyed ever flying by hand, I am not a pilot in real life and I cannot speak with knowledge of the facts, but I have been in flight simulation for many years, I started with a Spectrum 48K and Spitfire 40, and the feeling that you are flying a machine that weighs many tons and has a lot of inertia, I have not achieved it with any other aircraft of its class. Perhaps I do not know how to explain well what I mean, English is not my language and I have to use a translator ,sorry. In short, if you have it and have enjoyed it, $15 dollars is nothing and if you don't have it but you like these monsters of the air, don't hesitate, you would be missing one of the best, if not the best in its category.
    3 points
  4. First, excuse for my bad english. I'm french. I'm very happy to read this announcement. I love so much this plane and quality of the hard work is wonderful. I think it's normal to pay developper for their work and lots of hours spend to make compatible with Xplane 12 and on enhancement of the cabin. And 15$ is a very honest price. Nobody wants to work for free, me the first. I'm very impatient to fly with one of my favorite plane. Thanks for your work. Bests regards.
    2 points
  5. I think now is a good time for a reminder that regardless of any state IXEG was in, X-Plane 12 broke existing functionality to the point the product literally doesn't work. You can't even use flaps in X-Plane 12. Because of code changes necessary to get it working again, a fee was bound to happen after 6 years of being on the market with no upgrade fees prior to this. As a whole, X-Aviation has always been overly fair with upgrade pricing, most of the time not charging any. We simply do not believe in this type of gouging when it's not warranted and the work to update something was very little on our end. At $14.95, it's a bargain to the work being invested on the porting front alone, and realities are people need to be able to live to produce. You're looking at this the wrong way. These new additions are intentional and designed to show commitment going forward. You're paying for the port to 12. We just happen to believe that we should also show good faith in improving the product along the way rather than just ship the port with a charge. Giving free upgrades to new customers who purchase products during transition phases (like X-Plane 11 becoming X-Plane 12) is very common in software. It is a way to retain customers who are uneasy about purchasing a software product when the next major version is so near. In our case, Laminar had already announced X-Plane 12 and new customers needed a reason to purchase a v11 plane rather than wait it out for v12, and thanks to Laminar announcing 12 so early, the time from announcement to release of 12 was over a year. That means a year of market uncertainty for consumers looking to buy things, which keeps us in business. The data we had showed sales were slumping in the market across the board for this reason alone, and by letting new customers know they could get the upgrade free, the confidence was instilled to make a purchase and also help keep food on our table. Heck, even Apple does this with some of their hardware, surprisingly. Most of the products in your install there have already had announced roadmaps for 12. Islander, TBM, and your two SR20's will be free of charge. If you have v2 of the MU-2, it too will be free of charge.
    2 points
  6. Those are generally custom implementations, many times handled be a dedicated developer. While I am interested in VR interactivity, I view it as a 'interface layer' to be built on top of existing functionalities.....but the functionality development takes priority. That being said, during the course of development on other things, I do take time to peek into solutions towards catering to VR users....so its not completely lost on me Bulva and I will turn my mind to VR issues. -tkyler
    2 points
  7. Ah. For the time being this is not planned. We have many things we want to get to before additions like this. Maybe one day, but not anytime soon compared to something like VNAV work.
    1 point
  8. on some level.....yes, but I'm not sure how good the effect will be just yet. One reason I've held off on wing "motion" is I've always wanted to do it right, rather than just code up some randomized motions or simple Flex = f(airload) behaviors. By 'do it right' (for the engineers out there), I mean implement both flex and vibration, which are different, and furthermore, flex/wing weight (fuel) changes the dynamic modes of the vibration (long and slow vs. quick and short moves) . While coding up free vibration is easy, the bigger challenge (unknown) is integrating some impulse (force input) into the mix, more specifically WHEN to do so. In severe weather, those impulse inputs take the form of drafts and micro-changes in densities as the wing moves through the air, and on the ground, undulations in the terrain/taxi speed. I have no idea yet how X-Plane quantifies 'bumps in the pavement', turbulence or severe weather (in XP12), simply because I haven't looked into it fully yet. How might X-Plane simulate random "drafts and density pockets" that would serve as an impulse forces on the wing?....Are they periodic based on some function? Randomized perturbences etc? Is there some dataref that says "im in a cloud"? (I doubt it). Certainly I'll be asking Austin directly first So while simple wing flex based on airload is very easy and is a better effect for long flexible wing products...on the -300, wing flex isn't as much fun to look at as 'vibration'....particularly in turbulence and those slow oscillations as you taxi with fuel in the wings...but 'forced vibration' is the more difficult situation to simulate. So.....wing flex will be simulated for sure, but that particular effect will be quite small on this relatively short wing...BUT vibration....yea...thats the one we want, especially me. The MU2, with those big wing tanks are just crying out for it also. I just need to determine how to best implement the perturbances, the magnitude and timings of them. Best case, X-Plane will provide some sort of dataref that represents the perturbances directly and those will be adequate... worst case, all I'll get is some "turbulence level" number and I'll have to determine my own wing motion timings somehow....and thats where potential "evolution of the effect" may come into play, where we release with a more basic effect and then refine it based on experimentation. I can tell you I want this one to be 'just right' pretty bad! and will work on it until it is. -tkyler
    1 point
  9. This looks amazingly realistic. I would purchase it again for the full price, so 15$ is a bargain.
    1 point
  10. Thanks a lot for the news ixeg 737 for xp12! The question concerns ixeg 737 under xp11 will work be continued in the direction of eliminating minor flaws for the xp11 model?
    1 point
  11. Hello and congratulations for this exceptional aircraft that I have owned since 2019 and which for me is the best addon in the range. What was my surprise to see that you are not making a simple port, but a global overhaul of this monument... I can't wait to test this new version and introduce it to my subscribers during a live. It's going to be an exceptional evening.
    1 point
  12. 15 bucks, an extremely reasonable upgrade price to this excellent aircraft.
    1 point
  13. Yes, just as it is now. It's honestly irrelevant since had the IXEG even been feature complete in our eyes, it would not have worked in 12 at all. Literally not flyable. As it stands, because we felt things weren't feature complete where we wanted them, this mostly worked in your favor here. Had we considered things fully feature complete, this upgrade price would be much higher. We took that into account when thinking about the pricing. It really was a gesture, because what you're really paying for here is the port to 12 cost. Think $34.95 or more had it been the other way around. So, you can be sour if you want, but my personal opinion (and it's only mine), is that's rather petty given the situation and development cost involved.
    1 point
  14. I do have my limits Bulva no flushing toilets and opening luggage bins. I'm not modeling the lavatory interior either (yet). Us flight sim folks are a diverse bunch and we each gain our own individual pleasures from elements of the simulation in differing areas. Some folks just like being in and around planes/cockpits and how it pleases their eye, some like "button pushing", some like the cognitive elements of navigation, some like the "visual pleasure" of being at altitude and looking down and others the sounds. There is one particular youTube reviewer who likes to get the camera about 5cm from objects and if the textures aren't high-rez at that distance, he laments it as some kind of product deficiency...so there's all types of consumer prefs. It has always been my philosophy to "evolve towards reality in all areas", except that all areas can't be achieved at once, hence the prioritization based on our experiences with customer feedback. As you point out, adding more and more possibly eats into performance and until we push the limit, we don't know how far we can go. We don't want to leave 'money on the table', if we don't have to, thats comes with risk of falling into obsolescence as others push forward. But we do go into these areas with strategies to address 'what ifs'. Using preferences to kill heavy FPS suckers is one option.....downsampling the textures yet another...providing alternative, low resolution objects another, etc. You can be sure that good performance is high on my list, and we'll have strategies in place to manage that. I'm a huge fan of configuration preferences...and hence one reason we're moving to imGUI. it will allow us to more quickly and easily impelement interface options for users to manage all that stuff. -tkyler
    1 point
  15. Nope. We gave the X-Plane 11 upgrade for free. There's been zero financial gain since initial release in 2016 till now.
    1 point
  16. Performance is still something kept in the mind, and the kill object feature will still be in use in scenarios where you're not actively in an area with high detail. You can still expect good performance going forward.
    1 point
  17. I think 15 USD is more than fair for an update to X-Plane 12. I paid a similar price for the ToLiss A321 upgrade and it was worth it. Lets face it, 15 USD is more or less the cost of a lunch meal and this plane will provide me lots of enjoyable hours.
    1 point
  18. That depends, but the more complex planes need a lot of changes and that requires a lot of work, and that is why for the 733 its not an issue. I suppose you could go to your car dealer and ask if he can upgrade your 5 year old car for free.
    1 point
  19. I'm afraid this will again be very inconvenient for VR users. And wouldn't it be possible to put all these functions in the iPad (as in other planes) ???
    1 point
  20. The plan going forward will be to make all functions available in the X-Plane pull down menus. Some code changes have been worked on for this, but I'm not sure if it will make it into the initial release yet or not. As a whole, the GUI is getting re-worked to new, modern XP standards though.
    1 point
  21. It's either the viable path, or no path. We chose the viable one. Should you change your spending habits over a less than $15 charge, I don't know what to really say. Farewell, I guess? Considering the upgrade costs many other developers on a certain other store charge, I don't find this a major issue. We kept the pricing low and in check for a reason. I'm also not really sure which promise you're referencing, but Jan has always had a very open and honest topic about what's not in the IXEG 737 at each patch. His message has always contained the following words: "We are trying to be as upfront about the shortcomings of our model as possible. I have myself bought many aircraft for flight-simulations boasting great things, only to be disappointed. I want to avoid that for everyone, so if you find a "must have" feature on this list, I encourage you to hold off on purchase until we added your feature in a later patch." The X-Plane 12 work alone is hundreds of man hours due to major changes in the code interaction with 12, so the upgrade fee would have come about one way or another (and probably much more expensive) had we considered IXEG a feature complete and done package in X-Plane 11 before this upgrade. It will be available at release of the update. All current customers will receive a discount code.
    1 point
  22. Nice Darren,, I didn’t see this for the DH8D - have just added I think it does finish an acft nicely. I take it you are enjoying the Challenger? Have you been doing some rw flying - we have had a few 788 from ML up to the GC. ‘’Scott
    1 point
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