Stairport has announced Scenery Animation Manager V3 for X-Plane 11, along with a small update for the current version. SAM3 will feature a new UI, improved performance, a demo version and more.

The development team has also released version 2.2.5 of the current Scenery Animation Manager. This update fixes small issues with the Visual Docking Guidance System (VDGS).

Along with the announcement of SAM3 on the other hand, Stairport attached an initial draft of the changes they want to implement along with their progress shown below:

New UI

• We will implement a new modern UI engine offering plenty of possibilities in- and outside X-Plane, especially when talking about cross-platform development. Not only for windos, linux and mac but also android and ios

New Core

• SAM has grown over the years and the backend is pretty much messed up. We will create a new cleaned core engine and introduce new file formats in order to improve stability and performance

New Features

• There will be a handful of new features like the "always connect jetway" option to overwrite jetway limits and more extensions will come in the future

No Feature Cut

• Of course we will migrate all existing SAM features and extensions into the new core. It will keep its compatibility to older versions

Demo Airports

• Based on the success of our shadeX free demo mode we would like to introduce selected airports which run all SAM extensions in unlimited demo mode so you can test them out wihtout limits
  

Progress

• STAGE 1: New UI/New Core [done]
• STAGE 2: Migration of existing features/extensions [in progress]
• STAGE 3: Add new features [open]
  

While no images have been showcased of the product in the simulator, Stairport did show a rough sketch of what they plan the user interface to look like, shown below:

At the moment, no release date or pricing have been announced. In the meantime, you can check out the original post on the group’s Facebook Page.