PMDG + REX Weather Architect

[Airline2Sim 489]

@Everyone - Thank you for your comments here, I have contacted Robert at PMDG and I hope we can setup a time to talk about things.  I know both companies aim to please their customers.

 

@Ben - Thank you for posting the video.  Excellent explanation of REX Weather Architect.

 

Let me address a couple of things you mentioned or I noticed in the video.

 

1.) As you stated you thought it was for real weather originally.  That is a common mistake.  REX Weather Architect is ONLY custom created weather.   REX Weather Direct will be our real / time weather engine when it is released.

 

2.) In the flight plan when you create the weather theme, we actually do download the real time temperatures and pressure.  This is  so we can match a theme that is created in  a certain region of the world with its current seasonal temperatures.  So some aspects do use real weather.  The only time this is fixed is when it comes to using the snow cells.

 

3.) I noticed in the video the stark line. This is an issue originally with default FSX textures. There is one that is used for haze and there is an option within REX Weather Architect to repair this. Go to the Settings Window "Enable Haze" under Global Weather Settings. Click enable and then disable the "Enable Haze" option. This will remove that stark line effect. Make sure to do this with the simulator closed.

 

Thanks for the clarification Reed, that all makes sense! I'll add a footnote to the video and correct it in our next VLOG. 

 

Ben

[77west 139]

Since the specific topic of pleasing customers was brought up,

 

Dear people at PMDG,

 

Speaking for myself as a long standing PMDG customer and former rex customer, I hope that any endeavor with rex does not even come close to messing with ASN compatibility with PMDG. Updates or future enhancements/versions of ASN or PMDG are bound to happen, and this possible complication with rex leads to concern. As a long time Hi Fi Technologies customer as well, I would rather see rex not able to comply with PMDG requirements, than for ASN to have a new set of  requirements and complications with PMDG because of rex.

 

To be clear: I did not say there would be complications, I'm saying I don't want to see complications between *my* ASN and PMDG products because of rex for *any* reason.

 

I hope countless other PMDG and ASN supporters feel the same and express this as well, so that PMDG and ASN customers can remain pleased.  

 

I don't believe PMDG would EVER do something like that - the user backlash would be monumental in nature.

 

Ideally PMDG would have some sort of interface that any weather program can talk to in order to provide the required data but reading between the lines it appears said interface was actually developed more by HiFi...

 

That's just my 2c without knowing all the details, mind you.

[wolke85 150]

Since the specific topic of pleasing customers was brought up,

 

Dear people at PMDG,

 

Speaking for myself as a long standing PMDG customer and former rex customer, I hope that any endeavor with rex does not even come close to messing with ASN compatibility with PMDG. Updates or future enhancements/versions of ASN or PMDG are bound to happen, and this possible complication with rex leads to concern. As a long time Hi Fi Technologies customer as well, I would rather see rex not able to comply with PMDG requirements, than for ASN to have a new set of  requirements and complications with PMDG because of rex.

 

To be clear: I did not say there would be complications, I'm saying I don't want to see complications between *my* ASN and PMDG products because of rex for *any* reason.

 

I hope countless other PMDG and ASN supporters feel the same and express this as well, so that PMDG and ASN customers can remain pleased.  

 

 

I don't believe PMDG would EVER do something like that - the user backlash would be monumental in nature.

 

Ideally PMDG would have some sort of interface that any weather program can talk to in order to provide the required data but reading between the lines it appears said interface was actually developed more by HiFi...

 

That's just my 2c without knowing all the details, mind you.

 

I am not concerned here at all either as i also think that there will "just simply" be some kind of interface or so to choose from - or that PMDG's weather radar will "simply" use any active weather engine in use, when loading up the sim.

So if there is ASN running, ASN wil be chosen as the prime source for the weather radar - however:

If it is OPUS, REX or FSGRW being the prime weather engine and user's choice (or any other weather engine), then this one will be delivering all the info needed for the weather radar to work correctly.

No more no less.

Or at least this is how i also think that it will all work out in the end somehow.

So that's why i don't see no reason to be concerned here at all either.

[scandinavian13 5,192]

Since the specific topic of pleasing customers was brought up,

 

Dear people at PMDG,

 

Speaking for myself as a long standing PMDG customer and former rex customer, I hope that any endeavor with rex does not even come close to messing with ASN compatibility with PMDG. Updates or future enhancements/versions of ASN or PMDG are bound to happen, and this possible complication with rex leads to concern. As a long time Hi Fi Technologies customer as well, I would rather see rex not able to comply with PMDG requirements, than for ASN to have a new set of  requirements and complications with PMDG because of rex.

 

To be clear: I did not say there would be complications, I'm saying I don't want to see complications between *my* ASN and PMDG products because of rex for *any* reason.

 

I hope countless other PMDG and ASN supporters feel the same and express this as well, so that PMDG and ASN customers can remain pleased.  

 

As a long time customer of PMDG, I'm hoping you would know that we usually aren't in the practice of hacking any of our products up to add new functionality at the cost of another.

[warbirds 555]

I use ASN and do not see any loading problems or glitches. I also find it interesting that as most flight sim users seek to have real time weather then why would you want to implant custom weather except maybe for practice, screenshots or maybe a movie. 

 

I will be very interested when REX comes out with Weather Direct and might have to give that a try.

[scandinavian13 5,192]

except maybe for practice, screenshots or maybe a movie. 

 

I could imagine using such a feature at the Sim Center to really be able to pinpoint some unique weather scenarios for some interesting sim sessions. Being able to pinpoint where exactly the weather is going to hit the student/enthusiast, and can be sure that it will. I can nearly guarantee someone out there would enjoy having to fly the DC-NY-BOS shuttle and be forced into some non-standard ops due to weather.

 

Also, full names - first and last - in the forum, please.

[787flyer 633]

@Paul:

 

I understand where you are coming from, but I think you need to trust the developers.

PMDG and Rex have a quality reputation to keep up, so I think they will find a good, working solution for us all.

 

Let´s see what transpires.

 

Best Regards,

[rstough 523]

Just an update here.  I had a great conversation with Robert at PMDG and we discussed the next steps in regards to the weather radar integration.

 

Right now the ball is in REX's court as to reviewing what we would need to do to provide to PMDG to make the radar work.   

 

So after we finish the core API of our new weather engine then this is something we will approach PMDG on.

[Berike 13]

So glad the topic I started just for a question became a healthy relation between 2 great developers

 

To be honest I just didn't move to REX engine yet because it's not real time, when it is, I'll buy it and use it!

 

\o/

[hasse29 41]

Robert, why are you worrying about PMDG products? They're perfect - nothing wrong with them and no need to worry about them!

 

Life as a programmer and software developer is not that easy. I will explain why, and note, I am not pointing at any company or product.

 

PMDG develops very good and nice airplanes. They have very skilled programmers that develops very complex system, and they develop a SDK, allowing other products to interact with their. Sometimes they must contact other companies, because they want to interact with their products.

 

In this example we take an imaginary company, FsxRUs. FsxRUs have one very good product, and they also have very excellent programmers. They start to integrate their product with PMDG. Problem here is that PMDG use one part of FSX engine code, while FsxRUs use another part. That means FsxRUs developer are exploring new codes they haven't worked with before. It means it will be a lot of try-and-error before they understand it. After some time FsxRUs decide their product is ready to be sold.

 

Soon several users discover that if they activate a function in FsxRUs product, it accidentally disconnect the autopilot in your airplane. Lets say that it is happening when you press Ctrl+alt+6. The first thing users will do is to contact PMDG and say their software has a bug. PMDG start to test it. Maybe 3-4 people start to testing it for 8 hours. That's 32 working hour, each hour is costing PMDG $100 at least. They can't reproduce the problem.

 

User gets frustrated and starts to write in different forum that PMDG products are bad. Some people maybe believe what that user is writing, and avoid PMDG's products for wrong reason. After some time, they discover that the problem is in FsxRUs product. But PMDG already got the badwill and a great cost for something they are not involved in.

 

I am not involved with PMDG in any way, besides being a long time customer, and I don't have knowledge about their internal operations. This example above is very general, but I think that anyone who is a programmer know what I am talking about. I would also like more products to be integrated in FSX and P3D world, but companies like PMDG need to be careful and restrictive with their cooperations, like they are today. After all, it's because they are so picky, their products are so appretiated.

 

And to clarify again, this has nothing to do with REX or any other specific vendors.

[instigator 1]

REX make quality products, so hopefully that can tie up with the PMDG product line up too! Never been a fan of ASN, so hopefully the NEW relationship works out...