X-Plane 11.25 Beta 1 went live while we were in Las Vegas this weekend. To get it, run the installer, update, and make sure “get betas” is checked. We do not auto-notify you for betas when you are flying a release build. We’ll have a Steam build up soon.

X-Plane 11.25 updates X-Plane’s Las Vegas landmarks to include a much more detailed version of the strip, and also includes landmarks in Chicago and 645 new 3-d airports from the X-Plane Scenery gateway.

Besides these headline features, we have something for authors too:

Petr has updated the art definitions for our lines and added a lot of new line types. Apt.dat support for the lines will come in WED 1.7.1 and beta 2, both on their way; beta 1 contains the lines as .lin files in the library. 11.25 also fixes a long-standing bug where line markings would become trapezoidal and skewed at inappropriate times.

Please do not build “lines” by using small pieces of the ground-marking .pol files (e.g. a small yellow bit) with long polygons. Use these new lines instead. They are meant for the job and are more efficiently handled inside X-Plane.

About Ben Supnik

Ben is a software engineer who works on X-Plane; he spends most of his days drinking coffee and swearing at the computer -- sometimes at the same time.

32 comments on “X-Plane 11.25 Beta 1 Available

  1. Fantastic!! Thank you so much for these long awaited lines. This will take the scenery gateway even further.

  2. Really looking forward to all the new features etc that is coming over the next months. XP is the future in flightsim!

  3. Hi Ben! I can’t update the X-plane, the installer shows “Couldn’t connect to server” error, although my internet works just fine. I downloaded the latest installer and the problem persists. Could you please point me where I could report this problem?

  4. I thought I would never see this happening! Great
    But still sometimes need to draw a more squared polygon in yellow or black (far from being a line). Can I use the ground signs textures as an alternative?
    It would be impossible to draw it placing lines side by side

    1. We are making other .pol files for fills – ones that have a ‘scaled’ texture. When you stretch a bit of taxi sign, the paint is uneven because of UV distortion.

      1. Awesome that you are working on this. I hope it’s in “very soon” stage. So far everything I did with those signs looks great on the sim so I suspect this can cause an issue with the VR guys or Mac users maybe.
        Let me suggest for the new .pol textures to be few shades of grey (white to black) and all basic colors. 12 total would be enough IMO.
        Thanks

  5. Those really add to the “feel” of the airport, especially in large concrete paved areas.
    Good job.

  6. That looks like the transition from stone tools to metal ones. It’s terrific feelings. To say thanks is just insufficiently.

    1. They’re going in to – Petr did them about four hours after I took that picture…basically on his flight home from Vegas he saw them in real life and added them. 🙂

      1. And what about half red half white? I have already seen that here and there…

  7. Hi, how are you?
    Some things I think should be corrected :
    1. the black contrails from jet engines or turboprop!
    2. Water render, because at all places in the world the water is the same, and we don’t have difference from sea water to fresh water!
    3. The aircraft handling on the ground is very different from the real, the tire hangs a lot and turns are terrible at small aircrafts like C172, the real is much more easier!
    4. Cloud textures should be improved.

    Thank you, and I really love X-Plane and congratulations to the team!

    I would like to suggest include a 787, if possible with a study level!

  8. Pleas dont forget the white passenger walkway markings. Doing them with concrete polygons is messy and cant help. be nice to do them with one poly like the safety area ones.

    1. There is also a “white line” safety area polygon that you can use for that purpose. Just orient the lines with the correct “set heading” value…

      1. I not sure if i thought of that but they would not be as wide, Have a play tonight. Should do.

        TA

  9. Hi Ben;
    Watched the “non official” presentation. Most notably were two things that did not meet my expectations:

    1) When you asked how many VR’rs were in the audience a very small number put up their hands. I would have expected 90% hands up. From where the video was shot it looked like two or three people put up their hands.

    2) Unless I missed something, the presentation did not talk about future of x-plane VR .

    Are you able to comment about the VR future of X-plane? I can crank up OTT to 2.5 in IL2 BOS vs 1.5 in XP. When can we expect IL2 level VR performance in XP?

    All that said. XP to me is the most enjoyable immersive GA sim ever. I’ve been a subscriber since XP 8. The XP staff’s efforts are immeasurable in bringing the flightsim community nothing but the best.

    Brad Walsh

    1. The percent of users who raised their hands was higher than the percent of users using VR from our anonymous opt-in hardware analytics. It’s not surprising that there wasn’t a big VR announcement at the show given that we just finished 11.20, a massive release focused only on VR.

      I expect VR performance to improve incrementally as we do our porting to Vulkan.

    2. I believe, for everyone who is flying in VR for some time, it is hard to imagine anyone could still enjoy XP on screen. But there are some good reasons for not going for VR now or even never:
      + cost for VR hardware
      + cost for a new VR capable computer
      + waiting for next generation of VR (field of view, resolution, etc.)
      + having put tons of money and time into a hardware cockpit
      + some might find the total immersion somehow scary (I know a few people who don’t even like to put on headphones for feeling too much cut off from the outside)
      + etc.
      So, I’m sure even in a few years there will always be a good number of non-VR users and for that reason, LR will always try to find a good balance for the development of dedicated VR and dedicated non-VR features. (Most features are for both worlds anyway.)
      Of course regarding not only the number of users, but also that VR probably is the future of simming and gaming. (Until holodecks get affordable for home use….)

  10. As a Gateway artist, I’m excited about the updated lines coming soon in 11.25B2/WED 1.7.1. I watched the Vegas video and think the updated North American industrial scenery looks great and excited we will get access to those objects. My question is related to where this new Autogen will populate. The area around the Gateway airport I have been working on (KJAX – Jacksonville, FL) is a great example. The area has a huge big box store shopping center and lots of industrial warehouses on the approach to Runway 32. Most of those have existed since well before the last scenery recut. A lot of the area is vacant or incorrectly shows up residential. Will we see any improvement to where the industrial/commercial Autogen shows up in 11.30? Will there be art assets like big box stores to help bridge the gap between downtown high-rises and suburban residential lots?
    Thanks!

  11. Hi Ben, without beating a dead horse. I watched the presentation from Vegas, as well as the latest videos. What I find missing completely, was any mention of networking and network improvements. I know you guys hired a full-time network specialist. So I would like to know where we are in terms of multiplayer availability without the use of a third-party VPN?, nnd where we are with regards to network synchronization for multiplayer flight ? As multiplayer stands right now, it is still the weakest link to the software and really needs a revamping to be on par with the other simulators out there . On another note, are there any plans to include some kind a flight and/or mission editor,? I think you know are going with this. 🙂 I fly primarily as you know, close formation and unlimited aerobatics. I’ve never touched an airliner nor ever intend to LOL. (Don’t tar and feather me everybody) . We would like the ability to program an aircraft to follow a predetermined , aerobatic flight regime in order to do formation practice. Is this possible? Once again, thank you for terrific job. There are so, so many of us wanting and waiting to move from the flight simulators We currently use, and are far too restrictive to develop for , to move to Xplane, but we need to be able to create our custom aircraft for aerobatics and formation work, but we just can’t pull the trigger at this time. With the current state of networking affairs.

    1. Hi Jim,

      Networking work is on-going and running without VPN is a design goal. We didn’t talk about it at the show because it’s on-going, not mostly-or-all-done, and we had a lot of other stuff to cover.

      Our mission system doesn’t have scripted AI flight formations right now. We may do an editor someday but we haven’t had time for it.

  12. Hi Ben,

    Is it possible to create rain drops windows or wet runways with new particle effects? can´t wait for the summer update! Cheers.

  13. The planned updates look fantastic, and although I am a new X-Plane user still learning the ropes, I’m very happy to see how the platform is evolving even further.

    I have one request, though, which is related to the ground markings. I am currently living in Japan, and especially in the northern parts of the country many of the civilian airports have the runway markings in yellow/orange (RWY numbers, landing zone/center line markings etc.). Would it possible for X-Plane to support non-white runway markings in the future?

  14. Have seen the demo video exhibiting the new particle system.

    My assertion is :: i wish the same engine to be used as well to represent the whole visual aspects of the weather engine.
    For example the smoke coming out of the burnt engine – looks realistic enough and the same technology can be adapted to present a more plausible clouds visuals.

    Neutrally speaking, So far, i am not as convinced with the default presentation of clouds in either of x-plane or fsx/prepared,,

    The addons are trying to address that, such as skymaxx/rex simulations/xenviro

    So far, all platforms fail to show how a wing cuts bleed through a cloud, but clearly the new particle system of x-plane is having the potential to finally make this a reality and top the competition.

    Even Rex Skyforce 3d cannot come close.
    relatively speaking, thus far, i give my best ratings for ACTIVE SKY 2016 + ASCA” irrespective of the simulator platform.

    To summarize, this is what i dont like about all the weather presentation artifacts:
    ——
    1) rotating clouds that always face the camera
    2) lack of GPU utilization for volumetric 3d cloud presentation,
    3) aircraft does not affect cloud formation as it cuts through it.
    4) while flying through clouds, if looking at wing from aircraft window, you can see the wing very vividly, whereas it should partially fade through the sweeping myst!!

    I have guts feeling, the new particle engine has potential to change all that…

    Keep up the good work
    Mustafa

  15. I’d really like to know how the night-time red & blue ‘X-Plane’ sign animations on top of some of the tall buildings in downtown Chicago were done. They look really complex. The sign even correctly illuminates the rooftop as it switches!

    1. I think it’s a mix of:
      – Animated spill lights near the sign cast the light – you can ‘fake’ an emissive source affecting its surroundings that way.
      – If you make your LIT texture an RGBA you can have a transparent (alpha = 0) day texture and use the A of the lit texture to make the sign become opaque only at night.
      – Combine this with ATTR_lit_level and several polygons and you can bring in several translucent glowing layers on top of one piece of geometry, creating the appearance of animation.

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