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Different opinion? My two cents on ASCA

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The first to flights I found the Blue of the skies to blue.

But then we got fair weather and that Blue had the same color and tone.

My favorite REX Sky was not Blue enough.

 

Keep in mind that bloom settings ( I use them ) and monitor settings also have their inuence.....

 

 

I can't say that I like ASCA's sky textures. Neither do I find REX Sky blue enough. The best I've seen were FSX HDEv2 sky textures, deep cold blue colour. I never let REX or others rewrite them. Still looking for similar ones for P3D.

 

Dirk.

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I have been using Hi-fi Simulations products since their original release and have purchased the latest 2016 version. I am a bit confused though as regards ASCA. The 2016 version has definitely made a big improvement and wondering what ASCA would add to my experience considering I'm not insterested in creating customised weather settings because all my flights are on Vatsim using real weather. I have always assumed that AS2016 on its own would be sufficient. Is there any reason for me to purchase ASCA? - Feedback appreciated.

 

Thanks

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I have been using Hi-fi Simulations products since their original release and have purchased the latest 2016 version. I am a bit confused though as regards ASCA. The 2016 version has definitely made a big improvement and wondering what ASCA would add to my experience considering I'm not insterested in creating customised weather settings because all my flights are on Vatsim using real weather. I have always assumed that AS2016 on its own would be sufficient. Is there any reason for me to purchase ASCA? - Feedback appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

You get new textures and an option to have dynamic change of textures as you fly.

 

Thats an hole new feature. Choose dynamic setting inside ASCA and AS2016 starts ASCA automatic before every flight and constant communicate between sim and ASCA.

 

Michael Moe


Michael Moe

 

fs2crew_747_banner1.png

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I'm definitely going to get AS2016 and will likely get ASCA as well.

 

In my experience, and I've owned most of HiFiSim's and REX's stuff over the years, HiFiSim has the best weather engines and REX has the best cloud textures.

 

I loved AS2012's automatic texture installation based on the weather conditions, but was never really impressed with their clouds.

 

I'll withold judgement on ASCA until I actually see the textures in my sim with my own eyes. I do hope they look good because the automatic texture injection based on weather conditions *while the sim is running* is a big leap forward in weather realism.

 

Dave


Simulator: P3Dv5.4

System Specs: Intel i7 13700K CPU, MSI Mag Z790 Tomahawk Motherboard, 32GB DDR5 6000MHz RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Video Card, 3x 1TB Samsung 980 Pro M.2 2280 SSDs, Windows 11 Home OS

 

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I picked up ASCA and it didn't really blow me away. It has some nice things going for it, especially the variety and how it does full overcast, that's a sight to behold. It does look better in motion, when you get the full palette, than it does in static screenshots. With that said, it still has some problems with lots of duplicate clouds within a small area, you often see 3-4 "puffs" that are copies of each other within a single view. It also has the problem of some select clouds looking extremely bad. Like, I was flying over this cloud that look extremely stretched on one axis, so the textures couldn't keep up either. It looked absolutely horrendous.

 

One of its biggest issues is that many clouds tend to look a bit cartoony, the overall cloud cover blend leaves a bit to be desired. If they could nice that soft cloud + solid cloud structure, bit like we see in the Sky Force video, then they would be on the right track.

 

They have the basis for something good but it needs quite a bit of work, in my opinion. As for their sky colours, I had to outright disable them. They are really unnatural looking, especially when it suddenly blends yellow ground, pink sunset and purple upper layer, it looks like a child's birthday cake.

 

So it has the variety, it has some potential but it also needs a lot of work.  

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Asus TUF X670E-PLUS | 7800X3D | G.Skill 32GB DDR @ CL30 6000MHz | RTX 4090 Founders Edition (Undervolted) | WD SNX 850X 2TB + 4TB + 4TB

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Yep, i'm in agreement with Sethos. It's a nice idea and has lots of potential, but there is simply too much obvious repetition in certain areas the the moment. I'm sure this is a bug of some sort. If they can get it looking a bit more random along with some refinements, it will work very well i think, but i'll be staying with my AS16/Soft Clouds combo for now.

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Ok.... i'm back. So, i had been running in 'global dynamic' mode - more fool me.. i had read a bit more and decided to go back and try the 'Full dynamic' mode and wow, that's more like it! Ok, if you're cloud peeping, you can still see a little repetition sometimes, but it's completely minimised compared to the other modes and i also now understand they are aware of this and will be releasing a fix.

 

Anyways, i have to say this has been the best weather depictions i've seen so far in Prepar3D. Very very cool with some beautifully realised cloudscapes and cloud structures that morph and change as you fly through and on to your destination.

 

AS16 along with ASCA is indeed well worth a closer look and has been said before by the OP, do not simply go on some of the screenshots that may have been posted elsewhere. It really does deliver and it's only early days.

 

Oh and i should mention that i have the cloud scale set to 0.55 through PTA - i've not tried using a default setting yet, but i can certainly recommend that setting should you want to try.

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As a huge enthusiast of ASN I bought and installed AS16 and ASCA without a second thought. Boy, was I disappointed.

 

So, after several hours of uninstalling and reinstalling and googling and reading and fiddling, I concluded that the products were way below the HiFi standards and the results produced with REX textures + ASN.

 

Then I looked at the weather settings in FSX and realized that AS was not selected and thought that was the problem, all was forgiven (see my post elsewhere here). Oops, no. FSX defaults to clear skies when the weather settings panel is opened, and selecting anything doesn't change a thing when AS16 is running.

 

The latest hotfix notification came up during one restart and I thought, "Hooray, they figured it out, all will be fixed. Nope.

 

Not only were the textures just as bad, but on every subsequent launch I got a pop-up saying there was a new update and when I selected it was told it couldn't be done because of some process already underway. Uninstall and reinstall, yet again.

 

So I wasted more time trying to figure out how the clouds could look so terrible, what I could be doing wrong.

 

fsx%202016-07-15%2006-34-57-06.jpg

 

fsx%202016-07-23%2013-54-20-04.jpg

 

I even dug through the CFG file, changed textures from 1024 to 2048 and then even 4096. No joy. The clouds still looked like cartoons. So I tried to go back to ASN.

 

Seems AS16 and ASN require SimConnect settings that are not compatible, so that has to be done all over again. No switching back and forth. (Yes, I quit FSX first)

 

The good news is ASN is once again producing delicious clouds, and I can create screenshots that are often mistaken for real photos. (That's the Manfred Jahn/Jan Visser C-47V3 with the exquisite vintage VC that was released yesterday at Sim-Outhouse.com  http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/local_links.php?catid=34.

 

fsx%202016-07-04%2010-06-12-91.jpg

 

Yes, I like the ASCA cirrus, yes I like the AS16 effect of clouds wooshing past when I go IMC, yes I still think I might be doing something incorrectly to get such poor results.

 

But I'm feeling ripped off right now. Can anyone offer suggestions on what I may be doing wrong?

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But I'm feeling ripped off right now. Can anyone offer suggestions on what I may be doing wrong?

 

I don't run FSX anymore, and haven't touched it in the last 2+ years, but that doesn't look at all like what AS16+ASCA give me right now.  I hope someone with more current FSX knowledge can help, because that is not what you should see.


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Yes, I like the ASCA cirrus, yes I like the AS16 effect of clouds wooshing past when I go IMC, yes I still think I might be doing something incorrectly to get such poor results.

 

But I'm feeling ripped off right now. Can anyone offer suggestions on what I may be doing wrong?

 

Hi Tom,

 

Sorry to be reading that your experience isn't up to par.  I'll venture to say there isn't anything that you are doing wrong, it may something as simple as a third party texture set or the settings need to be looked at.  Can you submit a support ticket at your leisure so that direct help may be offered:

 

http://hifisupport.kayako.com/Tickets/Submit

 

Thank you,

 

Robert

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\Robert Hamlich/

 

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Much later...I did finally get AS16 and ASCA to work in FSX after they released an update or two.

And then a product called EaseUS trashed my systems while creating a clone for safety sake. Grrr.

So I started all over from scratch and decided if I was going to have to do that I'd do it with P3D4.

After adding ENVTEX textures and PTA tweaker to AS16 and ASCA updates I'm happy very happy with the results except I can't get rid of the damn jaggies on the aircraft. But I'm working on it.

Still, the clouds AS16 produces, boiling off that ridge in the background, are awesome!

2017-7-1_13-35-0-376.jpg

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