Ventura Sky Beta 3 is here for everyone to try.

[pilot12345678 0]

 

 

Just to get a perspective, here's a face-off. Please not that if you want to precisely duplicate this, you need Maxx FX with the Ventura Sky settings. Other than that, it's just X-Plane 10.50, the required plug-ins and HD Mesh.

 

The only thing that makes it look even better for my liking is to turn down the maxx fx noise to 0. Then it is crystal clear. Just my preference. 

Beta 4 is very nice!

One more comment about beta 4. I have now moved ventura sky to my main xplane 10.50. This is my xplane copy on which I have tons of plugins and g2xpl photo scenery. Still working great and no problems so far. Thought this would be helpful to those with many plugins. 

[Nkmsw8 13]

It's in the manual how to deactivate it. It's broadcasted to the X-Plane dev console (Special > Show Dev Console). You have something else installed that makes it this annoying overlay.

 

 

OK thanks, I'll check it out. Thanks for this script.

[Colonel X 1,428]

The only thing that makes it look even better for my liking is to turn down the maxx fx noise to 0. Then it is crystal clear. Just my preference. 

Beta 4 is very nice!

One more comment about beta 4. I have now moved ventura sky to my main xplane 10.50. This is my xplane copy on which I have tons of plugins and g2xpl photo scenery. Still working great and no problems so far. Thought this would be helpful to those with many plugins. 

 

Noise is of course a thing of personal preference. I can't do without.

 

Great to hear that it plays well with your other stuff.

[RJC68 820]

Had a chance today to do some testing and I'm amazed, just did a fantastic approach into Glasgow (EGPF) cloud base was around 1,100 feet. Beautiful transition all the way down

 

Would anyone who has a similar system to myself care to share their SMP settings. According to the manual when flying at higher altitudes the suggestion is a cloud draw distance of around 10,000 km. I don't seem to be able to get anywhere near that. I am running 8XSSAA+ FXAA. Even at this setting I still have plenty of VRAM left. I seem to settle around 5,000km

 

Is there a suggested cloud draw distance to use with Ventura Sky?

 

Cannot wait for my next flight, I was getting a little disappointed with SMP on its own and had been running default tweaked clouds. I even find the turbulence much more accurate with this combination.

 

To the delevoper, if you ever come to Toronto then Sir I will gladly buy you a beer.

[Colonel X 1,428]

I don't seem to be able to get anywhere near that. I am running 8XSSAA+ FXAA. Even at this setting I still have plenty of VRAM left. I seem to settle around 5,000km

 

Generally speaking, 8XSSAA is a killer with SMP, the step up from 4X is massive (but we all know 4X is not enough, and it's also sort of a bad joke, because it's the clouds that take up all that extra fillrate at 8X, but they don't look ANY better compared to 4X). It's not VRAM though, it's pure fillrate. There's no way to get significant gains here at high resolutions. What you can try if you have a 1080p display, set res to 1280 x 720. With a 980ti you can easily run up to 15000km then, also with 8XAA or even better (via datarefs).

 

Playing games in 1280x720 with high AA is sort of a school, many people do it. On my Sony W905 55" display, 720p looks absolutely stunning. It's a matter of how good a display is in displaying 720p.

 

Edit: I see you are also using a TV - you should try!

 

 

 

Some misc Beta 4 shots before I sign off. Night lighting in Manhattan.

 

 

 

 

Midday takeoff at KLGA

 

 

 

 

Hollywood & Downtown L.A.

 

[CFIJose 5,485]

Nice!  :wub:

[Scramjet333 39]

Dang, these shots look beautiful. I will absolutely have to try Ventura Sky when I get home from my army camp later today. Luckily enough, I have the required plug-ins already...

[Colonel X 1,428]

To all who test Beta 4, there is a bug within the scattering algorithm in low visibility situations (line 306). I fixed it already.

[jcomm 5,882]

If with a bug it already looks beautiful, just imagine how it'll look with no bugs at all :-)  

[Colonel X 1,428]

Here's the high altitude scattering in action 25000ft above Bear Lake and San Jacinto Peak. I calibrate the scattering to never show a border on the horizon to make the atmosphere appear seamless. Therefore it might not as blue as some users wish. The screen also shows the Ventura Sky water color when sky reflection is disabled.

 

 

[RobdeVries 28]

Hi Robert, what does this message mean?

 

[Colonel X 1,428]

Hi Robert, what does this message mean?

 

 

That's a bug in the Beta 4 WIP build.

[RobdeVries 28]

So revert to...? Or change to...?

[Colonel X 1,428]

This low angle shows how the scattering in low altitude mode visually separates the airport, the hill (look for the desaturation and blue tint of the trees) and downtown Los Angeles. This happens on a much smaller scale as in standard X-Plane (as we optimize for 16nm), and thus adds more depth to scenery rendering. 

 

 

So revert to...? Or change to...?

 

Sent you an update.

[Gearbox 1]

While Beta 3 was working great for me, Beta 4 seems to cause some trouble on my machine. The visibility always gets reduced to the absolute minimum.

 

Looking at the PythonInterfaceLog.txt I see the same error gets traced over and over again:

 

Script 'PI_noaaWeather.py' successfully loaded.
TypeError: rget_cb() takes exactly 5 arguments (2 given)
TypeError: rget_cb() takes exactly 5 arguments (2 given)
TypeError: rget_cb() takes exactly 5 arguments (2 given)
TypeError: rget_cb() takes exactly 5 arguments (2 given)
TypeError: rget_cb() takes exactly 5 arguments (2 given)
TypeError: rget_cb() takes exactly 5 arguments (2 given)
[...]

I will check if this also happens with the tweaked official NOAA version.