Weather can be so drastically different from one's perception of "how it should look" ... I live near a Mountain with regular micro climates along with SF/Bay Area fog that can roll-in all the way back to Mt. Diablo.

I do A LOT of hiking and biking to about 4000 ft and every time I take some pictures of the weather it's never the same ... like a finger print, unique every time. What some call "wrong" I've seen very similar real world, and what some call "right", I've never seen real world.

But out of all that, my strongest desire for clouds is to avoid repetition ... although I have seen repetition in the real world also along with popcorn clouds. ASN "as is" has done a good job (with room to improve) at avoiding repetition, if AS16 and ASCA improves on that, it would be a big benefit for my day to day flights.

Understanding current day and future hardware limitations of true volumetric clouds, I think the compromises I've seen here are viable options.

Keep up the great work and look forward to release.

Cheers, Rob.

 

Yeah, I've been looking at the pictures and thinking that.  About 1 in 5 have the weird bunching of clouds.  The rest, I'd say are fairly plausible.  The trick, I think, is to get an understanding how much the pictures might have been selected as the best...how many were passed by with not as good effect.  That's when we'll know.  But the smaller cumulus (smaller than TCU) and the stratus do look predominantly good in the pics I've seen thus far. 

Thank you Diana. This looks good now. Can't wait to buy AS16 and try ASCA. 

 

Will there be a 7-day testversion for both products, like for ASN?

Thank you Diana. This looks good now. Can't wait to buy AS16 and try ASCA. 

 

Will there be a 7-day testversion for both products, like for ASN?

Yes there will.  EDIT:  The trial period will be for AS16 only - not ASCA. 

 

@gregg - in my case, I just snapped the shots during a flight and posted.

 

I think the 7 day trial will give a better opportunity to see the whole gamut of textures .

 

Vic

I think so too.

In his interview with AirDailyX, Damian had mentioned that you had managed to achieve a visual effect of cloud passing by the windshield which adds to the illusion of speed during cloud penetration. Is that effect a function of the weather engine or ASCA? I assume the former.

 

I will probably stick with what I have done for the last number of years combining HiFi's weather engine with the new REX textures. (I'll probably still buy ASCA) The new pics do look alot better at first glance.

No cloud set from either REX or FEX should perform any differently as long as they are the same size and compression.

That is what you'd think, and I understand the reasons why they should be the same but for some reason they are not.

 

Regardless of texture size or compression format the REX clouds outperform the FEX clouds, and I can A/B this all day and get the same result.

 

The images below (in spoilers so I don't clutter the page with too much OT) are at 4096/32bit with 2xAA and FXAA. At 1024/DXT5 the frame rates are higher, but the percentage difference remains the same. Its a shame as I prefer the FEX clouds.

 

FEX

 

 

 

REX

 

 

 

Just for comparison, here are a few screenshots that I've taken using P3D and FSX:

Some of those do look very good, and better than those previously posted.

I want to see this in the new version !!!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/07/05/pilot-captures-incredible-nighttime-thunderstorm-photo-over-the-pacific-ocean/

 

 

I want to see this in the new version !!!
https://www.washingt...-pacific-ocean/

 

I wouldn't hold my breath for that.  But I surely am looking forward to AS16

I want to see this in the new version !!!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/07/05/pilot-captures-incredible-nighttime-thunderstorm-photo-over-the-pacific-ocean/

 

I would too, but sometimes we must be realistic, and not forget about the fact that there is a platform over which these weather injector / cloud art application work... The platform itself imposes limitations, of various kinds, not allowing for some aspects, either graphical or physical of the modeling of weather phenomena to represented. Unless a completely reworked core system is designed, this is probably as far as we can go with what we have, and IMO, it is already very good, plausible, realistic for a PC-based flight simulation.

 

I believe AS has been able to stretch to the limit the capabilities of the various base MSFS incarnations, and AS16, together with ASCA are, again, offering new features in these areas, but still necessarily limited by running over FSX and P3D.

 

I'm naturaly suspect in my claims, but still, I have to say that AS16 and ASCA are simply astounding. I use it, and P3D, just for the visuals because as most know, I am mostly an Aerowinx PSX user in as far as civil simming goes, and the perfect match between AS16, ASCA, P3D and PSX has brought me, during the last months, some really rewarding moments of flight simulation :-)

Someone should make a video. I guess we would understand what's going on instead of looking at pictures which show things we've all seen before one way or another.

 

Present us with a video, THEN i believe we'll be truly amazed.

 

Thank you!

Hi Nuno,

 

we can probably start with:  

 

Yeah, i've seen that but i have to say it's hardly impressive. Looks like a regular flight with current weather engines.

 

I mean something that REALLY shows off the new engine capabilities, if it's not too hard?

than how about   when the trial version comes  out   you  can  be  the  test case  

That'll work for me

Glad to see that there are some cloud textures with sharper edges and more definition. Diana and everyone else, thanks for posting the shots. I'm looking forward to trying AS16.

 

 

Ted