Couple of things about GSX level 2

[Nicrative]

Hello,

I will say straight away that this post is going to include some criticism about the upcoming GSX level two and everything bases on what I have seen so far on previews. Especially this one released just 30 minutes ago:

It’s nice that FSDT is trying to tackle one of the issues some simmers have had for a long time by adding actual passengers now walking into their aircraft from the bus and actually seeing the boarding happening instead of just bus coming to the plane and then leaving. I do appreciate you coming up with this idea and having a go at it. Also it makes sense to add it on GSX as an expansion given what GSX already does to simulate boarding/deboarding and ground handling.

There is however few things that are really bugging on me right now and will most likely make me not to buy the product at this point. FSDT team, please feel free to correct me on any of these statements if they are not true. As I said I base them on what I have seen so far on previews and surely you know better.

1) The empty gaps between passengers.
Right.. so lets figure out how planes are boarded and deboarded in real life. It’s outright chaos, isn’t it. During boarding people trying to find their seat, letting passengers go by on a narrow aisle, boarding from the wrong door (usually back row passenger boarding from the front door), people trying to find empty overhead bin for their hand baggage etc.. etc.. what does this all cause. Queues.. usually the queue is all the way to the bottom of the stairs depending on how the boarding is managed from the boarding manager in the terminal. But still there will be queues. Not a smooth flow of passengers just walking in from the bus and dissapearing in the cabin. Same with deboarding. People jump off from their seats even before the plane has stopped, try to get their hand luggage from the overhead bins and form a queue on the main aisle before the doors are even opened. Once door is opened they all come out in one single continoius line with few gaps here and there. Now the main problem is that there is no queues and massive gaps between individual passengers boarding/deboarding the plane. It’s way too ”civilized”

2) The animations..
I really hope this is still big work in progress. Right now they look way too unnatural. Like they all just lost their ability to walk normally because of sitting 20 hours on the same position or something. Especially on the case where flight attendants walked onto the bus.

3) Lack of hand luggage.
Now we get into the smaller issues but something that still has to be adressed.
Maybe the boarding is so smooth because no-one really carries hand luggage.. so that has to be added. Suitcases, normal luggage, handbags, backbags etc... also on the video pointed earlier one of the pilots just drags his flight bag (with wheels) down the stairs without any care in the world instead of carrying it.. so yeah...

4) different types of passengers.
Not sure if this is something in the plans to be added. But so far I haven’t seen for example any families where parents hold the hand of their kids so they don’t start running off on the ramp randomly. Or maybe someone taking a pet on the flight, or business group all walking up to the plane in their suits as one group etc.. not really that big of a dead but still, would add into the realism.

Those are the main things I can find right now that will overall stop me purchasing the product at least making the decision on what I have seen so far on the previews. Hopefully you have some answers. All in all it’s way too generic. It will work for one or two flights. But after that it really loses the purpose with realism seeing everything happen the same pretty much every time. I know you said that you will take seasons into account which is a nice touch though.

Lets see what you have in store.

Best Regards,
Nic

[avantime]

I agree with much of what you say, however for me the biggest issue is the lack of hand luggage. When was the last time you see passengers on an airline flight not have any hand luggage? 99% of passengers & crew will have some form of hand luggage and/or some kind of handbag. Even children should have backpacks.

From the flight crew animations FSDT has certainly modeled hand luggage, now they need to make almost all the passengers carry them.

[virtuali]

1) The empty gaps between passengers.

This has been already asked and answered. It's made for obvious performance reasons, to keep the number of animated passengers that are visible at any given time as predictable as possible and under control.

2) The animations..
I really hope this is still big work in progress. Right now they look way too unnatural. Like they all just lost their ability to walk normally because of sitting 20 hours on the same position or something. Especially on the case where flight attendants walked onto the bus.

These animations are procedural, which is the only way those passengers could walk and climb/descend everywhere. You cannot compare them to canned animations that work on a specific place. Even games like GTA 5, which had a budget of almost 500M$, is still not entirely "perfect" and, if WE had 1/10th of that budget, we could redo a whole simulator from scratch...

The issue is, doing a decent human animation takes effort. Doing a good human animation takes 10 times more effort and doing a good PROCEDURAL (= not motion captured, because we need flexibility) animation is almost impossible, even with budgets much higher than anything any flight sim developer can dream of.

Now we get into the smaller issues but something that still has to be adressed. Maybe the boarding is so smooth because no-one really carries hand luggage.. so that has to be added. Suitcases, normal luggage, handbags, backbags etc... also on the video pointed earlier one of the pilots just drags his flight bag (with wheels) down the stairs without any care in the world instead of carrying it.. so yeah...

We'll add some hand baggage.

But don't expect the pilot/passengers will do something like taking the trolley in hand when climbing the stairs and putting it back on wheels when going on ground. This would require more complex skeletons, and we are exactly at the maximum limit of bones that FSX can handle and, while we strongly suggest to use P3D4 anyway, we decided to stay compatible with FSX for the time being.

Not sure if this is something in the plans to be added. But so far I haven’t seen for example any families where parents hold the hand of their kids so they don’t start running off on the ramp randomly. Or maybe someone taking a pet on the flight, or business group all walking up to the plane in their suits as one group etc.. not really that big of a dead but still, would add into the realism.

Passengers are not aware of each other. Creating logic groups like you are suggesting here, is really out of the scope of the product and would increase the complexity to a level that it won't make it commercially feasible anymore. As I've said, human animations, and especially animations of crowds, is something with a very diminishing returns: it takes A LOT of effort/time/money, to increase realism just a bit. I'll remind you this is still supposed to be a FLIGHT simulator, not a dedicated crowd simulator.

Those are the main things I can find right now that will overall stop me purchasing the product at least making the decision on what I have seen so far on the previews.

Then simply don't purchase it, and stay with the non-existant passengers created by your imagination. Those are surely perfect, I guess.

I also remind you that animated passengers are only half of what this product is about.

[Eisbahn]

Quote from Nicrative: "There is however few things that are really bugging on me right now and will most likely make me not to buy the product at this point".

Some people are never satisfied. You could go on forever. What about passengers in wheelchairs, or on crutches, or with only one leg. The list is endless.
If you are true to your word you will never buy the product, because what you want is perfection, and perfection does not exist, even in the real world.
In my opinion the example shown is much better than I expected.

[Nicrative]

Thank you for your response virtuali. Appreciate it. I do understand performance limitations. At this point it's not that big of a thing for me to see passengers load the aircraft or not that I would spend my money on it at the state the product is now. In the end I mostly care about the actual operational side of simulating a flight. Passengers moving to the aircraft is just eye candy for me that is no really necessary. But of course you have other people who are willing to buy it at it's state so guess you have to find a good median there and I understand that. I just wanted to point out what I thought of it, what keeps me from buying it and how it could be improved more into the direction I think would make it worth a buy for me. I can't be the only one thinking this way but then there must also be people who are satisfied with the current state of the product.

Eisbahn, isn't it beautiful. If you are satisfied how will you keep evolving and getting better. There is a reason why people suggest you to get out from your comfort zone etc. The list is endless and somewhere the cut has to be made. In my opinion the cut has been made too soon. However, that is my opinion. Your opinion is that it's much better than you expected, and I respect that opinion. I have never said that I will never buy the product. I have said "will most likely make me not buy the product at this point". I might buy the product if I find the use for it later, or I see it evolving to level that is worth the purchase for me. As of now I don't see it that way. It's like you are saying no-one should never be critical towards anything because everything has their problems and nothing in this world is perfect. It's very cynical view you have there unfortunately.

[Captain Kevin]

For me personally, the passengers aren't really so much of a concern as much as it is the SODE jetways, so I'd definitely get it just for the ability to replace the jetways.

[Richard McDonald Woods]

I don't understand the concern about having visible passenger boarding. As Kevin says, better SODE is a much greater requirement.
I much prefer, as a pilot, to have the real-world delays involved in preparing for departure than actually seeing all the activities modelled.
Sitting in the cockpit, I am neither interested in viewing the passengers nor having my cockpit preparation procedures interrupted by gawping out of the window and external views.
I don't want to see too much developer resource taken up for what I view as 'plane spotter' rubber-necking
But then that's just my view

[virtuali]

7I don't want to see too much developer resource taken up for what I view as 'plane spotter' rubber-necking

I assure you that most of the development time were the jetways: both the editor and the time to model so many variations.

Passengers weren't really that hard, because we already had the basics in place when we made the wingwalker, which was further extended with the crew pushing cargo in/out the warehouse at the special KSDF UPS stands, which then lead to visible passengers.

But, I also assure you that it's the passengers that will initially sell the product, at least until people will realize the power of the jetway editor, and how many problems will solve to scenery authors.