Aerosoft-published developer Omar Masroor has long been involved with X-Plane scenery, through titles such as Aerosoft’s Dallas Fort Worth (KDFW) and Geneva (LSGG) as well as personal titles before that. This is despite a 3-month silence spanning from September 2019 until now from one of Aerosoft’s only native X-Plane developers.

Today in posts on both Aerosoft and X-Plane.org’s forums, Masroor shed some light on his absence from the spotlight, and a new project on the horizon: Dubai Airport.

“Hello everyone! I've stayed very under the radar the past two years because I've been busy with school as well as some scenery conversion projects for Aerosoft. However, throughout this time, I've also been working on a project that I've kept totally secret from the community. Some community members had asked me if I've been developing anything, and I'm pleased to reveal it today.

“Dubai Next-Gen will be released for X-Plane 11 and next-gen simulators. So far, I've spent most of the development time optimizing my workflow, writing my own tools, and making the jump to physically based rendering. I've already overhauled the project twice, and what you see now is version 3. Now that I've finalized my workflow and tools, I can get on the fast track to finishing the scenery.”

Despite what the screenshots appear to show, Dubai Next-Gen is still a fair way off. Masroor predicts late 2020 as the earliest release date, though warns potential customers to expect delays.

Here’s the feature list:

• PBR materials.
• 30 cm/pixel orthoimagery.
• Animated passenger boarding bridges with aircraft door assignments.
• Animated Safedock T1 A-VDGS displays with RIDS.
• Animated ground service vehicles.
• Static aircraft displayed using X-Plane's 'Draw parked aircraft' checkbox.
• Compatibility with all major AI traffic plugins.
• Compatibility with Ortho4XP.

“In the meantime” he says, “check out these preview screenshots of the finished Concourse A with its twenty A380 gates. They've been captured in X-Plane 11 using stock shaders—only the shadows quality has been increased. I'll post more previews here as development moves forward.”

You can find more on the Aerosoft Forum here.