From what I understand these two products is in many aspects doing the same things. Therefore I wonder if there is any point in getting both and which one is the best option to spend money on?Also could some one tell meWhat Flight Enviroment offers that we won't have in Active Environment? What Active Enviroment will offer that we don't have in Flight Environment? How long will we have to wait for Active Environment and what will the price be?

Hi there good question; not really a simple answer at this time?Active Sky is mainly a weather engine and a very good one and is competing with other very good engines like FS Metar Freeware and FS Meteo Payware and the Weather-Marker Professional which is soon to be released and looks very promising.Because there is competion a development team in the class of Active Sky will always look for an edge and the edge is a better more advanced weather engine promised in version 5 and also the addition of an "Active Environment" for this up and coming version.Active Sky like other weahter engines makes clouds look much better than the defult weather engine will draw them.Active Environment; thought still not released also looks like it has some really excting potential to further enhance Active Sky with a cloud/sky environment that can be much more varied than simpley having one set of default FS9 clouds and sky.Active environment is being done by Chris Wills of the Freeware package for FS Skyworld which is very popular. We don't know at this time if there will be improved clouds compared to the Freeware clouds or not and we also don't know if they want to improve them as a lot of people prefer them to either the default or to Flight Environment and the clouds are very different to each other as the artistic interpretation of what looks good is like beauty; in the eyes of the beholder.Flight Environment is focused at this time on just cloud texturing and representaion of sky and water also.The flight environment team has talked at length to other weather engine developers and they all want to provide options to work with Flight Environment with the exception of Active Sky who have not replied to any emails and seem to want to go it alone.So regarding the manipluation of clouds and working with a weahter engine Active Environment will be alble to to this working with Acitve Sky and Flight Enviroment will be working with everyone one else to this end. So give it a few months and both products will be doing similar things in the end.Flight Environment has the addtion of water so it may be comparable to Active Sky/Environment in the future but right now they are really very different products.What I can say is Flight Environment is focused very much focused with eveyone; developers and customers to bring the best solutions for us all.Also, Flight Environment are also working on a new weather engine that is going to do some pretty radical things and work with Flight Environment in ways up to now have not been possible. It will have the advantage of also working with the water to present a calmer or more active look depending on conditions.And I'm sure Acitve Sky will do some more interesting things in the future and I'm quiet sure there is plently of room for both products to co-exist and meet the demands of their customers and I'm sure also many people will have both products and that there will be advantages in doing so.Peter

Peter,I currently own both FE and AS2004.5 and think they have both added a great deal to my simming experience. Since ASV is expected quite soon, and there will be upgrade pricing announced, do you know when details of your weather engine product will be available? I'm not asking for release dates, but rather feature details and comparisons, and a maybe a rough timeframe. Thanks,-Neil

Hi Peter, all!We never received an e-mail, it may have got lost in the shuffle? You can contact me directly at [email protected]... We are more than willing to work together!Any and all versions of ActiveSky (incl. ASV) will work fine with other cloud/environment add-ons.. FE will be no exception! FWIW we don't consider ASV and FE to be competing products... And many of our beta testers have been using both without problems!Best,

I use the current version of Active Sky and FE and the two products produce the best effects that I have ever seen in a sim. I would highly recommend getting both, if you are into sky, water, and cloud effects that are truly realistic.

That's great news Damian;I think it's important that our customers, and lets' face it lots of us/simmers will end up with both our producuts; that we should do everything we can to make our products work in a compatible way with each other.I'm sure the sum of our parts will exceed even our own expectations and that eveyone will be happy.I'll contact you directly after this response. Thanks for the friendly offer to work together.Peter

Hi Damian, I certainly sent you a message. I am glad to see, that you are open to suggestions, as i was a little bit left in the dark, without a response of my email. Well, it could have gone wrong anyway.I have attached the original email i sent.Many thanks,regards,- Anthonyhttp://members.home.nl/vos69/logofe.jpg

I'm definitely buying ASV as well as already owning FE and AS2004.5...

Hi Anthony,Yes you did send an e-mail to the support address and I did process it. Just wanted to let you know! Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Sales and Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

BTW a little off topic, how do we get around the 9999 visibility problem in europe, the weather.dll transforms it to 9.99 sm and as of now there is no one which has really solved that problem...thanks in advance,- Anthonyhttp://members.home.nl/vos69/logofe.jpg[email protected]

Besides, maybe activesky does work around, but i'm not sure...http://members.home.nl/vos69/logofe.jpg

Hi Anthony,It is treated as 10SM and then is processed as 10SM.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Sales and Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

>What Flight Enviroment offers that we won't have in Active>Environment? Water effects.>What Active Enviroment will offer that we don't have in Flight>Environment? Weather generation.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/747400.jpg

is the new active sky gonna include sky textures?you know, sunset/sunrise, day sky, night, ect?

Hi Anthony,Sorry about no reply to your e-mail, it was forwarded but I have been a little swamped the past few weeks and I apparently misfiled it/can't find it. Peter has contacted me directly and it looks like we are all in tune with working towards a common goal, bringing products out that can work together and compliment the overall experience. As mentioned ASV was designed to be as open as possible and supports other cloud/environment add-ons including FE at this time. Thanks!!