REX Sky Force Very First look

[Tokitaumelie 164]

3 minutes ago, aktorsyl said:

Some amazing cloudscapes there.

 

Yeah, was moving between the Captain and FO's seat to look outside. Missed the Approach Fix and had to double-back for a visual :-)

Sorry the pics aren't in order though. The departure ones are right at the bottom with the arrival and approach up top.

Will try with ASP4 and the PMDG/FSL-birds tomorrow (lol, later today)!

 

Kind regards

[Valiant1974 0]

21 minutes ago, aktorsyl said:

I hear ya - from what I've seen so far it looks alright. Much more testing is needed, obviously. The negatives I've discovered so far:

1. The cloud redraws, as stated
2. The fact that the weather tab in SkyForce says it's overcast in KPHX (and the METAR says it too), but the depiction is about 2/8. It correctly shows overcast in KDFW though. Weird.
3. The weather tab doesn't seem to show the weather where YOU're at currently (like the current conditions tab in ActiveSky does).
4. Probably just a temporary server-related issue, but the map doesn't work for me at all. Just a black screen.
5. Cumulonimbus looks meh. I understand this is due to sim limitations, but from the advertising one kinda expected close-to-real anvils. Not really the case - they are anvils, but they look very artificial from a distance.
6. No wx radar compatibility with PMDG (yet).
7. No cloud motion effect as with ActiveSky.
8. Still the same "blue sky ribbon" below an overcast layer (sim limitation though, can't really fairly be blamed on SkyForce).

The positives so far:

1. Framerates seem okay. Certainly not better than ActiveSky+ASCA, but about the same. At least not lower.
2. Cumulus clouds look AMAZING. Just absolutely fantastic.
3. The base of clouds look more... rugged? Less flat than ASCA anyway. Same goes for the tops.

I will do a couple of flights later to test it in action as opposed to just jumping to different airports to see the weather conditions.

So far, it's probably on par with AS+ASCA. Cumulus clouds look much much better, but it doesn't completely negate the negatives. I will agree that the advertisements and previews told a different story than reality, yes. Does that make it a bad product? I don't think so, but it's a bit early to tell. I'm definitely not going to write it off yet at this stage.

I wanted to test more thunderstorms and shelf clouds, but there doesn't seem to be many thunderstorms in the world at this particular moment :P (I specifically want to test the weather engine's depiction from real-world weather for thunderstorms, so I didn't artificially "create" any storms)

Hi and many tanks for your test. I buy Force3D this morning and i hope to test it this afthernoon... 

If you want to test the thunderstorm or rain, go to LIRI (Salerno Pontecagnano) in Italy. It's near my home. The weather this morning around the 8.00 AM local time was very bad

EDIT:

the wx radar in PMDG work fine but only with clouds with rain and Not with other clouds

Sorry for my bad english

[kurtb 121]

lol what a debacle

[aktorsyl 93]

For my next test I'm doing a cross-country from Washington DC to Seattle. Cruising alt will be FL340. No storms on the route, but it'll pass through both low-pressure and high-pressure systems, and there will be some clouds. Will report back when done with some screenshots.

 

[urgeflaske 1]

So whats recommended? REX SF alone, or use AS16 with it? Does SF provide real time weather?

[Heavy Metal 83]

Done my first test flight from EDDM to EDDF and I really liked what I have seen so far for a first impression!! The clouds look much better than ASCA or the combination with Soft Clouds in my opinion. However, it was just one flight so not enough to give any final verdict.

The weather transitions were not as bad as expected or at least they did not disturb me that much. At half of the flight, I switched off the REX engine (I think you need to close and restart the program to take effect) and instead started AS16 without ASCA using SF3D. And the results looked almost as great and from a first perspective better than my previous setup. I have kept the simulator running in the background and kept watching AS16/SF3D for a while and it still looks fascinating.

So far, I think it is an improvement for my needs but I would not (yet?) call it revolutionary. It is a nice addition and for approx. 35 EUR (AUD 50 after 15% at Flightsimstore) I do not regret the purchase. 

I will do more flights under different conditions next days and let you know my thoughts.

Oh, one more thing: AS16 GUI and customization options within the weather engine clearly win for me at the moment. But maybe I just need to toy around a bit more with REX options...

[anden145 2,285]

15 minutes ago, urgeflaske said:

So whats recommended? REX SF alone, or use AS16 with it? Does SF provide real time weather?

Yes it does. But to be honest, after REX has confirmed, that storm fronts, cloud streets etc works without the built-in weather engine, I'll try it out with AS16 + SF3D. 

Maybe someone could post some screenshots as a comparison.

[jimmy64 43]

May have missed it but has anyone tried ASN (Next) with Skyforce?

 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

3 hours ago, timest said:

Yes. The default models in-sim already are modeled in 3D space. We have just taken it to the next level.

First of all, as I said earlier in this thread, your cloud models are truly beautiful and realistic. There are aircraft nerds and weather nerds but it takes a cloud nerd to appreciate the variety that you have built into the product. So don't take this the wrong way. 

The RSF clouds are not true 3D, as doing so would drag any sim to its silicon knees. They do have volume but that's because they are built up from 2D textures applied to numerous flat planes. It's the exact 2.5D approach that the default sim uses for both its clouds and trees. Making the 2.5D cloud structure more complex is same approach that HiFi takes with ASCA, except the RSF clouds look closer to real cloud types IMO.

[aktorsyl 93]

Experiencing something very strange right now. Busy doing my test flight from KIAD to KSEA. Upon loading in KIAD, the sky was clear. The real-world METAR confirms this. No clouds. After SkyForce did it's next update, there were suddenly broken clouds with rain. The METAR still showed clear weather (and even the in-sim briefing indicated clear weather). I hit "reset" in SkyForce to resync with the sim, after which it was clear again. But after it's next update after that - broken clouds with rain again.

 

[anden145 2,285]

@timest - could you answer the following?

You say in your material, that you utilize 70.000 data-points for the weather depiction. I assume, that it's only the built-in weather engine, which does this and not something which, AS16 for instance, can take advantage of?

[aktorsyl 93]

10 minutes ago, aktorsyl said:

Experiencing something very strange right now. Busy doing my test flight from KIAD to KSEA. Upon loading in KIAD, the sky was clear. The real-world METAR confirms this. No clouds. After SkyForce did it's next update, there were suddenly broken clouds with rain. The METAR still showed clear weather (and even the in-sim briefing indicated clear weather). I hit "reset" in SkyForce to resync with the sim, after which it was clear again. But after it's next update after that - broken clouds with rain again.

 

I don't really think I can continue the test flight. At FL340, and I'm being thrown up into the air 600 feet in a split second. Few seconds later, 600 feet down. And so it goes on.

 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, ErichB said:

Although, I'm not happy about the cloud redraws - hope they get that sorted.

They won't: they hope that their next addon, Weather Force, will solve it.

I had a look at the screenshots (also those in the screenshot forum) and so far I can't say I am seeing anything new. Nothing that beats my free HDEv2 clouds anyway. Some screenshots do look better than what I've seen form ENVTEX or ASCA but I never liked the rather fake clouds of ENVTEX and ASCA. The SkyForce clouds look a bit over the top here and there though, like (over-)edited photographs. Well, just as the previous REX clouds looked imho (apart from the SoftClouds). So all in all I am not seeing anything new: I am only seeing DIFFERENT things.

I always wonder with addons like this and with topics like this if what people are seeing really is better or an improvement or if it is just DIFFERENT. Some report the skies look fuller: nice. But I don't care about fuller skies: I want them to look real. Did anyone check if those fuller skies are actually out there in real life right now? Perhaps the Active Sky clouds were closer to real life?

Anyway, I see nothing here right now (or anywhere else) that would justify me spending money on this: it's more of the same. But I am looking forward to a video review in which you can more clearly see what's actually happening in the sim with SkyForce: screenshots only tell a very small part of the story. And so do posts in a topic like this. Seeing is believing and nothing comes closer than a 1 hour video which shows everything that SkyForce does (or doesn't). 

If I am going to get it, it will be for use with ActiveSky (because of the redraws but mainly because SF lacks historic weather) so hopefully someone will do a video with that combination soon.

O, and after reading this entire topic (seriously) I still don't know if AS+SF will give me skies and clouds that are changed 'on the fly', like with ASCA. And, quite important, if those changes are realistic or random. (Although that last question also still hasn't been answered when it comes to ASCA...)

[olibarke 1]

12 hours ago, pracines said:

a better question is why are you advising people to buy something that does not work - or are you saying that the weather engine part of sky force is free? 

I harp about the 3000+ cloud types because we have only 3 cloud types in the flight sims - not 2000. We may have 2000 variations of cumulus clouds with different add-ons, but not 2000 cloud types. A huge difference.

We all need to harp about 3000 cloud types because that is the largest claim of the skyforce product, and until we see the evidence there is no sense in just believing it....its just too unbelievable without seeing it. 

You do understand there aren't even 1000 cloud types in the real world. 

[B777ER 2,484]

If using this with ASP4 I assume you lose the dynamic sky texture updates that ASCA has?