Not only does this make ocean waves more realistic, but this 3D water interacts with the flight model. The monolith is surrounded by runway lights so we can make sure the approach and edge lights respond to fog appropriately as well. The monolith is a calibration target for tuning the simulator – based on a certain position on the runway and the right visibility settings, the monolith will be just barely visible.

To solve this problem, our art director Alex Unruh built…a monolith. Low visibility isn’t just about making X-Plane look nice – X-Plane is used as a training simulator, so we need to make sure that visibility is limited by just the right amount to train for instrument approaches. Low visibility daytime conditions in X-Plane 12 are naturally darker than sunny days, but also still lighter than night time flying. The new lighting engine also requires us to take a new approach to low visibility flying conditions. The intensities of these lights are calibrated using spec sheets from the FAA. approach lights, runway edge lights, PAPIs, etc.). We are finishing up a very careful pass over a wide variety of light sources – urban lights, street lights, and most importantly light sources that affect pilots (e.g. This includes updates to how we do night lighting and artificial light sources. X-Plane 12’s lighting engine is completely photometric and runs in true HDR at all times.

Here are some details on our recent development work. Once we make this transition, anyone who wishes to participate in Early Access will be able to purchase a license of X-Plane 12 and use the new sim right away. Once we complete all of the open development tasks, there are still plenty of bugs to fix.Īt some point during this bug fixing process, we will transition from the closed private alpha to an open “Early Access” beta program. There’s a lot more that is already completed, too – this is just a window into our current work.

X plane 11 video card