Active Sky Weather Engine Preview

[Afterburner 374]

Is the claim that "FSXSE cleans up unused VAS during the session" actually substantiated?  On my tests, flying from one heavy default airport to another reveals that the VAS in FSX-SE piles up continually, while in P3D, the VAS consumption goes up much slower at comparable settings.

[tf51d 284]

Is the claim that "FSXSE cleans up unused VAS during the session" actually substantiated?  On my tests, flying from one heavy default airport to another reveals that the VAS in FSX-SE piles up continually, while in P3D, the VAS consumption goes up much slower at comparable settings

I just flew a flight from CYYZ to YHHH on the PMDG T7 and landed with 500MB+ VAS available at the gate. Bare in mind I'm running a 3Ghz C2D with Windows 32bit Vista, so that limits FSX to 3GB VAS not 4GB VAS  as would be the case with Win 64bit. That gives me an effective VAS usage during the flight of only 2.5GB. That's with scenery at extremely dense , Autogen at very dense and WOAI. Granted these are with freeware airport scenery, but I do use UTUSA, UTCanada and FTX Global.

[Damian Clark 1,260]

Hi,

 

Thanks for the interest in our upcoming products that were finally revealed in detail at FSCON this weekend!

 

To answer a few questions asked in this and related threads:

 

-FSX, FSX:SE and Prepar3D v3.2+ are supported (AS16 for FSX and AS16 for P3D are separate products due to tight weather integration/depiction in each sim platform)

 

-All features announced for AS16 and ASCA work in either sim, with the exception that the new P3D visibility smoothing and volumetric fog integration is specific to P3D (3.2+) - This brings full horizontal transition smoothing to P3D, something that FSX versions have had in the past but P3D did not due to volumetric fog feature/technology.  It also brings back in-cloud visibility reduction which was not possible earlier in P3D 3.0+ due to vis depiction changes.

 

-Performance has been our top priority in development, we've been testing for over a year, and we are very happy to report that performance is the same if not better than previous generation weather+graphics combinations.  Performance features in both AS16 and ASCA also exist in abundance to tweak your quality vs. performance balance as required.

 

-AS16 and ASCA are interchangeable and work stand-alone or together as an integrated package.  Any other graphics add-on works with AS16, and any other weather add-on/solution works with ASCA.  Using them together however allows certain new breakthrough features including full dynamic graphics reloading during simulation sessions (no need to restart simulator to experience many different graphics sets throughout a single flight, with smooth changes of graphics throughout).

 

-The teaser video shows instant texture reloads as requested by a user.  When using an automatic texture dynamic mode, changes are smoothed over approximately 5-10 minutes (for both sky color and cloud textures).  Since it takes so long to transition we didn't have time to put that in the very short teaser video but we are working on a time-lapse demonstration video to be posted soon.

 

-Both products are in late stage beta and release is imminent.

 

We have provided two new websites/pages for specific product information, and will be adding more information on these pages and our main website very soon.  Visit http://www.activesky16.com and http://www.activeskycloudart.com for more.

 

Thanks again for the interest and support! 

[GSalden 4,657]

Waiting for the release then ...

 

Damian, will ASCA work with Prosim like ASN does ?

[Sethos 4,336]

"-Both products are in late stage beta and release is imminent."

 

Damn, now Rex needs to get some information out on their new Sky Force, so we can decide.

[Prayog 3]

Again little skeptical. What happens when 64 bit versions are out ? (We would definitely be looking out these integrations, no matter what) Will it be another dead investment ?

(It is becoming increasing difficult to make decisions!)

 

Regards

Prayog

[B777ER 2,486]

Unless I missed the video somewhere I really don't see anything in those two websites that HiFi put up with regards to the weather engine behind the scenes information? I saw the video from FSCon from REX and what they have done with regards to the total rebuild of the weather engine from the ground up within the sim, be it FSX or P3D. If you haven't seen that video, this is it: https://youtu.be/DGHlieTBDgU

Start at the 9:00 minute mark. I see on the HiFi sites linked above that they have over 100 cloud types while the REX group have over 4,000 now. REX also have severity built in now, rain shafts, shelf clouds, etc.... Anyone have HiFi's presentation from FSCon? So far it's looking like REX may be the way to for me. The only bummer about REX is the non-PMDG integration.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Meanwhile back to the topic of the thread.

 

The ASCA cloud models appear to be true 3D in design:

 

instead of the default  approach which layered 2D textures in one plane. It's about time. Maybe LM will implement 3D autogen trees next. :wink:

[ryanbatc 12,857]

Fps impact I would guess though?

[Novation 534]

The ASCA cloud models appear to be true 3D in design:

 

Not sure they are. It still looks like front facing sprites, with each of those boxes receiving a texture. There maybe more sprites making up each cloud, allowing greater complexity, but I'm pretty sure it not a true 3D structure, though I'm happy to be proved wrong

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

That's about as close as one can come to 3D without making the clouds a SimObject. The default clouds are front facing sprites, but they are not staggered (as in the above picture), but rather they are all aligned like a series of successive  doors.

Fps impact I would guess though?

I have to think that a towering CB would really drag performance down if there were a lot of them. The more simple cloud types will probably not be as much of a factor.

[WotanUK 289]

Will this affect, or i suppose; will we lose compatibility with the PMDG weather radar?  

[fakeflyer737 992]

Can you fly a circle around a cloud with it staring back at you?

[Gregg_Seipp 568]

 

 

-All features announced for AS16 and ASCA work in either sim, with the exception that the new P3D visibility smoothing and volumetric fog integration is specific to P3D (3.2+) - This brings full horizontal transition smoothing to P3D, something that FSX versions have had in the past but P3D did not due to volumetric fog feature/technology. It also brings back in-cloud visibility reduction which was not possible earlier in P3D 3.0+ due to vis depiction changes.

 

So, solid overcast?  (Homer Simpson drool...)

 

 

The ASCA cloud models appear to be true 3D in design:

 

While I like the idea, I too would be worried about performance. 

[JRBarrett 3,071]

Does anyone know if AS16 will be a free upgrade for ASN users?? I think that'd allow be to spend $$ on ASCA right off the bat!!!

I have owned many versions of the Active Sky franchise, going back to AS6. When a brand new version is released, it normally is sold as a new product - however, HiFi has a good track record of rewarding customer loyalty, and there have always been substantial discounts for registered owners of previous products.

 

I'd assume that this will be the case with AS16 for those who already own ASN.

 

Not sure if this will apply to ASCA, since that is not a weather engine as such, but a completely new cloudscape and texture enhancement product.