How to Save Weather in FSX?

[MDF86 123]

Hi Guys

 

I've used the Advanced Weather tool in FSX to create a weather theme I like - but unless I'm being incredibly stupid (very possible!) I can't see any way to save it as a weather theme?

Is this possible?

 

Thanks

[Rocky_53 1,606]

Hiya, no you can't save just a weather theme. What you need to do is save a flight. So create your weather theme, and in the free flight panel, when selecting your flight, save the flight and name it something like 'My Weather Theme' (or whatever you like) You will have to then start that particular flight and once it has started you can then choose your aircraft and airport.

[MDF86 123]

Hiya, no you can't save just a weather theme. What you need to do is save a flight. So create your weather theme, and in the free flight panel, when selecting your flight, save the flight and name it something like 'My Weather Theme' (or whatever you like) You will have to then start that particular flight and once it has started you can then choose your aircraft and airport.

 

Ah OK thanks Howard.

 

I thought I'd be able to create it and then use the "Save Current Weather as Weather Theme" option from Opus, but alas that only works for "live" weather, if you want to save the current conditions!

[Rocky_53 1,606]

Ah OK thanks Howard.

 

I thought I'd be able to create it and then use the "Save Current Weather as Weather Theme" option from Opus, but alas that only works for "live" weather, if you want to save the current conditions!

 

Sure, that is my understanding of things also.

[MDF86 123]

Bumping this just in case.

 

Thinking about it, ORBX bundle weather themes with their products. How do they manage to do this? There must be some way of saving a weather theme and have it appear in the list of themes in FSX.

[fs4fun 366]

FSX has no built-in way to save weather as a theme.

 

Some payware weather engines can save the weather as a theme, because theme files are the format most of them use to load downloaded weather into FSX. For example supposedly OpusFSX can do it, though I've never tried it.

 

Another way to make themes is to use the SDK: http://fsdeveloper.com/forum/resources/weather-themes-sdk.42/

[odourboy 1,292]

FSX has no built-in way to save weather as a theme.

 

Some payware weather engines can save the weather as a theme, because theme files are the format most of them use to load downloaded weather into FSX. For example supposedly OpusFSX can do it, though I've never tried it.

 

Another way to make themes is to use the SDK: http://fsdeveloper.com/forum/resources/weather-themes-sdk.42/

Have you tried the weather themes SDK Barry? That page indicates it's part of the FS2004 SDK - does it still work for FSX? If so, is it reasonably straight forward to use?

 

Thanks!

[fs4fun 366]

I've only played with the weather SDK a little, but AFAIK it's fully compatible with FSX. It's like a paint program, where you "paint" weather layers onto a grid with a size of your choosing. Probably best to start with small grids for practice and check your results. The document that comes with the SDK seems pretty good and well worth reading.

 

There's also a simple example theme in the SDK that I found helpful to open up and look at. Try exporting the sample and loading it in FSX.

 

It does seem to be a little tricky to use, because of the number of properties and different layers, and also because you're trying to make a 3D system in a 2D paint program. Other than for the surface layer you don't need to fill in every cell. The FSX weather engine will interpolate the weather for cells that don't have any layers.

 

I'll try to make a theme and see if I get anywhere.  :smile:

[odourboy 1,292]

Please let me know if you can get this to work. I installed the Weather Theme's app and putzed around with it for quite a while. I was able to build a theme (some trial and error involved because I couldn't find any documentation for the app) but I could not get FSX to recognize the .WTD file type (My theme would not show up in the weather themes list. For grins I changed the file extension to WTB and FSX included my theme title and picture in the list, but when I tried to actually load the theme, it complained. :(

[fs4fun 366]

The WTD file is your project's "source" file. Use the file menu Export command to create the files FSX will use. Give a name for the theme and it will create a .WT and .WTB file. Edit the .WT file with notepad and fill in the description and then copy the WT and WTB files to your weather themes folder. You can also add a .bmp file with the same name as your theme to get an image for your theme (280x332 pixel, 24 bit color).

 

Look for ThemesSDK.doc for the documentation.

 

I made a small theme as well and will try it in FSX later today.

[odourboy 1,292]

Cool! That sounds very promising. Wrapped up for tonight but I'll try that tomorrow. Thanks for your help!

[fs4fun 366]

Tried my little test theme in FSX, seems to work OK so the SDK I linked to above works in FSX. See the pic below.

 

I'll try making a bigger theme area. If I come up with anything decent I'll upload it.

 

[Rocky_53 1,606]

That looks really interesting!

[odourboy 1,292]

I had some success with this this morning. I've managed to create a fairly simple theme and install it on FSX and select it for my flight. I need to consult the documentation on how to use the tool properly (apparently I've made some mistakes in how I defined my cloud layers - they don't move as I fly and I had to re-select my theme to get them to even appear in the sim... but I believe that's simply user error). Excellent! Now I know how Orbx (may have) managed it.

 

Barry - if you can get a decent theme, I'd like to look at your source file - maybe it will show me what I've doing wrong.

 

EDIT to add: Reading the documentation helps!

[fs4fun 366]

For moving clouds, make sure to have dynamic weather enabled in FSX. Some weather engines require you disable dynamic weather, so I use a separate FSX.cfg for use with weather themes, with weather change rate set to Moderate (DynamicWeather=2).

 

Note that the SDK uses the metric system. Heights are in meters, not feet. I realized that when my wind and cloud layers ended up way higher than I expected.  :blush: . Base altitudes for cloud layers are AGL. Don't let layers overlap.

 

I found a bug in the palette window. If you type in an invalid value (eg. I tried to type 22000 as the base height of a cirrus layer), then the application pops up an error message and will not let me dismiss it.  :(