But I agree with Vic who quite correctly warns against deciding based on mirroring some small slice of the sky in an actual photo. No program will do that except by accident.

 

I agree with that. I quit playing that game a few years ago trying to compare out the window shots of the weather vs. what was depicted in the sim. The problem with any of these weather programs that draw and simulate is that the METARs they download and inject into the sim could be an hour old depending on frequently the station updates. I used to load up weather from the closest station to my house then compare what I saw in sim vs. what I saw outside. Many times it was different, then I realized that the METAR that was downloaded was almost 45 minutes old. The weather can change so much between METAR updates that it will become almost impossible in ever changing conditions for it to match up in the sim, unless of course OVC is parked in the same place for hours on end.

 

For now i've decided to keep on with AS2012 since I dont have any depiction issues with it like other people have reported with incorrect winds at destinations, problems with solid overcasts, etc. Plus, even though I dont use the AS2012 graphics, I like the fact that I can import a route from FSBuild, have a map, get winds aloft for the FMC, use the sorter for finding certain conditions, historical weather, run on a client, and any other features that come in handy.

 

Someday OPUS might get to the point of having those type of features which is really the only thing I need from OPUS or a weather program. At that time I will take another look at it. In the mean time AS2012 is getting SP2 ready and already working on the next version weather program, so it will be interesting to see what it brings to the table.

Griphos

 

You certainly can use Opus without Camera Views, but you won't experience weather effects such as turbulence unless you create camera view/s.