Ventura Sky Beta 3 is here for everyone to try.

[MarioDonick 752]

The visibility algorithm is not working when you're jumping to any altitudes above 10000ft. I think it's the only restriction of the script. Any other ways to start your flight should initialize Ventura Sky just fine.

 

So, does this mean I still can use the "3nm" and "10nm" approach settings at most airports?

 

Does your script work correctly when I start from airports like Telluride (9096 feet elevation)? (Maybe that was the reason why the visibility was so low on my Telluride photo I posted with beta 3).

[Colonel X 1,434]

So, does this mean I still can use the "3nm" and "10nm" approach settings at most airports?

 

Does your script work correctly when I start from airports like Telluride (9096 feet elevation)? (Maybe that was the reason why the visibility was so low on my Telluride photo I posted with beta 3).

Anything below 10000ft should be ok. When jumping above 10000ft (instead of climbing), the algorithm that calculates that visibility gain at altitude is lacking data to make it accurate. You could test Telluride again and see what the status report says. What happens though is that the visibility will increase based on altitude once you climb 1000 feet out of there.

 

 

However, I uninstalled SMP and RWC some months ago because I was not satisfied with the look of the cloud layer when flying at high altitude. It looked like a carpet with clear boundaries following aircraft movement.

 

SMP isn't perfect yet at high altitudes. But Sundog is working on it and I am pretty sure these things will improve (default clouds aren't much better in this respect). Let's see if they get this topic some attention in SkyMaxx 4.0, the next major release.

[deetee 164]

Just completed a flight with beta 4 and have to say this makes a huge difference.

The sky looked sublime and the visibility was nicely managed.

[Celis 24]

Couldn't find the link for Beta 4. Installed NOAA dev version mentioned, but that one doesn't work with Beta 3. Will revert, no problem.

About Skymaxx 4, pls keep compatibility with v3 pls...

 

Thanks Robert.

[pilot12345678 0]

I set up sim in an area with low visibility and storms. Then relocated airplane to kmia which was supposed to be good weather but the visibility was still very low. Had to restart xplane for accurate visibility. Is this noaa or ventura sky? Thanks

[Colonel X 1,434]

I set up sim in an area with low visibility and storms. Then relocated airplane to kmia which was supposed to be good weather but the visibility was still very low. Had to restart xplane for accurate visibility. Is this noaa or ventura sky? Thanks

 

If it happens again, reload Lua Scripts instead of restarting X-Plane.

 

Ventura Sky detects a new location by sim time, which gets reset on plane change or starting a flight in the quick start menu. Not sure about simple relocation. However, visibility should still interpolate to the NOAA report, just much slower compared to a restart (when all transitions are speed up).

 

How did you tell what weather was in Miami? If you looked that up elsewhere, it's possible that NOAA was still on an earlier report - that happens quite often.

 

If you'd like to test this, go to badbadweather.com, and switch back and forth between areas with high and low visibilities (there you will also notice that the reported visibilities often differ from what NOAA has).

[Denco 48]

I've read that the reduced visibility to 0 was fixed with the latest Beta 4 and dev NOAA release, if so I would like to try my luck again.

[Denco 48]

So after testing beta 4 here are my observations.

 

-It installed perfectly without any issues. Once I was in the game I reloaded all the scripts just in case, but I experienced no problems.

-It really does help with the performance, but keep in mind it can only do so much. Once I reached Frankfurt there were heavy clouds with rain in the area and my sim was struggling to keep 30 fps. Luckily once I reached lower altitudes, thanks to the script, the sim was maintaining 30 fps more easily.

-The visibility changes were very fluid and were not noticeable. I experienced only two instantaneous visibility changes, but I blame that mostly on Skymaxx since the clouds were redrawing at that point and it caused a small pause.

-The script is great and I can't imagine not using it anymore

 

Negative:

-I noticed that building or object fading was gone. This is very noticeable at high altitudes and it looks very distracting and ugly. Is it possible, pretty please, to give us the option to re-enable back that option? 

[Colonel X 1,434]

-The visibility changes were very fluid and were not noticeable. I experienced only two instantaneous visibility changes, but I blame that mostly on Skymaxx since the clouds were redrawing at that point and it caused a small pause.

 

What you observed here is that during a visibility change, at certain thresholds, X-Plane changes the sky color mix (Ventura Sky controls this) - this change always causes a stutter. The visibility itself did not change, I can assure you. I am still looking into this, but I think this is a hard coded behavior I can't suppress.

 

 

-The script is great and I can't imagine not using it anymore

 

Good to know!

 

 

-I noticed that building or object fading was gone. This is very noticeable at high altitudes and it looks very distracting and ugly. Is it possible, pretty please, to give us the option to re-enable back that option? 

 

This is an optional setting, many people appreciate it. Go into the Lua file, line 52, and change autogen_fade = 1.0 to 0.0 - done. You may also try integer values between those. The next Beta will manipulate that value depending on your altitude.

[pilot12345678 0]

 

 

If it happens again, reload Lua Scripts instead of restarting X-Plane.
 
Ventura Sky detects a new location by sim time, which gets reset on plane change or starting a flight in the quick start menu. Not sure about simple relocation. However, visibility should still interpolate to the NOAA report, just much slower compared to a restart (when all transitions are speed up).
 
How did you tell what weather was in Miami? If you looked that up elsewhere, it's possible that NOAA was still on an earlier report - that happens quite often.
 
If you'd like to test this, go to badbadweather.com, and switch back and forth between areas with high and low visibilities (there you will also notice that the reported visibilities often differ from what NOAA has).

Yes I used badweather.com to find bad weather. And skyvector was reporting cavok for kmia.  Did more test today and beta 4 is pretty amazing. The colors and fog layers worked really nice at all altitudes. 

I would post some amazing screen shot if I knew how to get them here on avsim. 

[Colonel X 1,434]

Yes I used badweather.com to find bad weather. And skyvector was reporting cavok for kmia.  Did more test today and beta 4 is pretty amazing. The colors and fog layers worked really nice at all altitudes. 

I would post some amazing screen shot if I knew how to get them here on avsim. 

 

Good to hear. I tweaked the settings while doing IFR flights to catch all cases.

[Secludedsfx 0]

Done a few flights with v3, definitely like it and I'd gladly help test v4.

[alessandro61 0]

Hello,

 

In X-Plane, go to Special > Show Dev Console to show the status report (updated once a second). Watch Ventura Sky deploy visibility after your flight has loaded, watch it transition between METAR visibility values inflight, or check your visibility gain at high altitude. You can deactivate the status report by editing the provided Ventura_Sky_Beta_3.lua file in line 117 and saving the file. Add two dashes so that the line reads:

—do_often(”status_report“) .

 

I don't understand how to solve screen script problem.

It is not clear in the manual.

Is it line 117 or 116? 

Where add the two dashes?

Someone else did solve it?

 

Thanks for replay and regards.

Alessandro

[alfamike 67]

Hello Alessandro,

putting two dashes in front of a line in a LUA script means that that line will no longer be executed, so find the line

 

do_often("status_report")

 

 

and change it as 

 

-- do_often("status_report")

 

then save the script, nothing more.

[alessandro61 0]

 

Hello Alessandro,

putting two dashes in front of a line in a LUA script means that that line will no longer be executed, so find the line

 

do_often("status_report")

 

 

and change it as 

 

-- do_often("status_report")

 

then save the script, nothing more.

 

Ecco, appunto.

Non era per niente chiaro come descritto e raffigurato sul manuale.

Ora funziona.

Grazie mille!

Aspetto con interesse il vostro MD80.

Ciao

 

Alessandro