Hi,I've pretty much got my new install of ActiveSky sorted and I have to say it's a great improvement over the default FS2004 cloudscape. At last I can fly VFR to a gap in the clouds and not find myself suddenly immersed within a cloud. I wish I'd bought AS years ago.I have experienced a couple of anomalies I'd like to ask about, though.First I had a flight in scattered cloud to 10000 ft at about 9 am FS-time, and shortly after I took off the orange post-sunrise colour of the sky and clouds suddenly changed to a bluish cast. Then a few seconds later it changed back to orange. Then back to blue. These rapid orange-blue-orange changes continued every few seconds until I got to about 5000 ft, when it stablised to a blue cast. When I descended below 5000 ft the colour changing resumed again for a short while until again it stabilised with a blue colour cast. I assume the colour change was related to dawn colours changing to bluer daylight colours, but the repeated shifting back and forth was pretty unnatural. Any idea what could be causing this?The second anomaly was a situation where distant clouds were drawn in front of nearby clouds. I saw elsewhere in the forum that others have had this problem after they installed thermal scenery, but I haven't knowingly installed any thermals - although I can't be 100 percent certain that none of my many downloaded scenery add-ons haven't included thermals. I just want to check if you know of anything else that could cause this.Phil WrightBrisbane, Australia

Hi Phil,My first suggestion would be to reinstall your video drivers. Then make sure everything is set to run in 32bit color.For the clouds, make sure #D clouds are at 100% and cloud draw distance is set at 30 or 40.Please let us know,Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://www.fseconomy.com/

One more suggestion: Make sure that Dawn/Dusk Smoothing is checked On in FS.Thanks,Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://www.fseconomy.com/

Jim,Thanks for the quick response.I already had all of those settings in FS2004 - 3D clouds @ 100%, draw distance 30 miles, dawn/dusk texture blending, 32 bit colour. I'm only running the FS at 1024 x 768 with the framerate capped at 25 fps, so it shouldn't be stressing the video card too much, even if it is a few years old.I haven't seen the problems again so far, but I decided to install more recent video drivers anyway (Nvidia driver 93.71 on 6800 GT card).I'll try to work out the exact time and location in FS that I got these problems and redo the flight to check if they happen again. Phil WrightBrisbane, Australia

Jim,I went back to the area in FS where I got the cloud-layering problem, and I soon found another example of distant clouds being drawn in front of nearby clouds.I've attached a screenshot in case you're curious as to what it looks like - there is a darker nearby cloud behind the higher white distant cloud layer. In FS, the darker cloud moves past quickly while the white cloud layer barely moves.I've only been able to get this in the same general area near SWFJ in Brazil. I spent hours trying different locations without being able to find this problem elsewhere until it occurred to me that if it took that much effort to find the problem then it probably wasn't worth worrying about. Unless this recurs more frequently or there's an obvious solution I won't get too concerned about it.I haven't tried to recreate the dawn colour change flickering yet. I'll do another early morning flight and see what happens.Phil WrightBrisbane, Australia

Hi Phil,From the screen shot it looks like 2 layers of clouds, a fairly low layer, and an upper cirrus layer. They can use different textures so that can explain the color difference. The wind speed and altitude can explain the movement differences. From that one shot, things look normal/good to me!Thanks,Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://www.fseconomy.com/

Hi Jim,"From that one shot, things look normal/good to me!"... except for the fact that the lower layer is moving behind the upper layer, which is hard to see in a still image. Anyway, it's only happened in one location so far, and as I'm on a (FS) world tour I probably won't be flying there again for a while . I tried another dawn flight, but the flickering colour changes did not happen again. The colour of the sky depends on the direction of view, and I wondered if a slight change in the direction of flight could have resulted in the sky colour changing suddenly from orange to blue and back - although I would expect the 'Dawn/Dusk Texture Blending' option in FS should have prevented sudden shifts. Again, there has only been one occurrence of this anomaly, so I'm not going to get stressed about it.I'm still impressed by the quality of the weather from ActiveSky every time I fly. I like flying VFR, and being able to skirt around clouds without them instantaneously appearing and disappearing around me makes it much more enjoyable.Thanks,Phil WrightBrisbane, Australia