REX Sky Force Very First look

[Denco 48]

I'm still not sure if I should buy this. All I see is people arguing about SF3D's weather engine, but I'm pretty sure no one was going to buy this for the weather engine part of the package.

 

So, is this better then ASCA?

[pscharff 56]

I'm back on AS16/ASCA, because I don't want to give up the dynamic texture replacement for sky- and cloud textures offered by ASCA. 

Patric

[ErichB 3,637]

5 hours ago, kingm56 said:

Sir, there's nothing clear about your message or advertising methodologies, which have been heavily scrutinized over the last few days. Perhaps you should review your own site before chastising those critiquing your product.  Here's what your site states:

"Integrated within Sky Force 3D is a powerful and robust weather engine (used bold font on your website) that takes full advantage of all the new features to give the best experience of our new weather system. The IWX (Intelligent Weather) Engine focuses on two simple, but powerful things: Accurate Data and Accurate Experience, which sets the bar when it comes to data and experience in ONE integrated system."

My questions are the following:  If your weather engine is as "powerful" as you tout, why is there is a need to use another engine?  Upon reading this description, do you really think its unreasonable for customers to believe we're getting the most accurate weather engine on the market? Does this sound like the weather engine isn't a "core" element of this product? Does it sound like you're advocating for the use of different weather engines?  Moreover, you state REX set the "bar when it comes to Accurate Data and Accurate Experience"  However, it appears the weather injected fails to correlate with reported METARs.  Concerning the latter claim (Accurate Experience), how does the abrupt climate changes correlate with this feature?  In all your hype, where do you mention SDK/simconnect limitations? Reviewing your advertisement page, I see phrases like "BREAKS THIS BARRIER," overcomes "constraints of the simulator SDK." In fact, here's a direct quote: "Even with costly similar (italicized on your website) aftermarket products installed, weather systems severely lack due to the constraints of the simulator SDK. SKY FORCE 3D BREAKS THIS BARRIER." I'm sorry, how are you making it clear that SF3D's weather engine is not a core feature of SkyForce 3D again? 

Now we get the following explanation:

"The abrupt updates are because we are using the standard simconnect process.  No way to smooth out without hooking the system memory.  We are working on Weather Force which will provide us a means to do much more.  It is not ready though so it will be coming later."

So, we have to buy another product to ensure this "revolutionary" product works as advertised on YOUR webpage?  Where was that stated clearly, prior to release?  BTW, the requiremnt to buy a new application adds to the aggregate SF3D cost, which nullifies the assertion quoted above (e.g. your product is better and cheaper than competing products). 

I'll close by saying I think SF3D is a solid, but hardly a "revolutionary" product that "breaks the barrier."  In short, like almost every other REX product, it doesn't live up the advertisement hyperbole littered throughout the manual and/or website.  To that point, I would not 'attack' (did someone really tell a poster 'good luck with their own weather engine') the overwhelming critical comments within this thread, as they're based on REX's performance to date (obviously doesn't apply to your textures, which are second to none).  I know my comments seem overly critical; however, I think they're justified based on the claims made regarding SF3D capabilities, coupled with my past experiences with REX products (e.g Latitude, WORLDWIDE AIRPORTS HD and Overdrive).  IMO, these product also failed to live up to the hype you helped generate.  To be fair, I'm only one customer; I know you have plenty of die-hard customers that love your work.  Therefore, speaking for myself only, you have some work to do earn my dollar back; then again, you could also 'wish me good luck on creating my own weather engine.'  Nevertheless, I wouldn't dismiss these critiques...

 

Very well articulated.  That is exactly the position on all counts

[mj73 1]

1 hour ago, aktorsyl said:

Test flight from KIAD to KSEA done. My experience:

....

The big issue though was that the clouds stopped at the draw distance until SkyForce redraws them on the next injection update (I believe every 15mins?). Here is an example:

 

Another example.. it appears as if the overcast cover stops here. But after about another minute, it was all completely overcast again with no sign of the gap in cloud cover that you see here:

 

Is that injection interval configurable in the program? That 'end of the weather' effect you highlight puts me off a bit too but surely if you could make fresh injections more frequent then it would alleviate the issue somewhat?

[TheDanger 182]

Ditch the weather engine, half the price and sell it as a texture package only.

[pegruder 65]

Long time supporter of both HiFi and Rex here, this is just my .02, not trying to bash anyone. I just think it seems most people are upset because the marketing hype doesn't meet the product.  As others stated a lot of bold/italicized fonts, fancy wording ect.  Then as the product seems to fail to deliver and to boot, the devs kinda acknowledge it and say you need another product.  If the weather engine portion of the marketing was left out I think everyone would be quite impressed.  Again - visuals are all in the individual but SF3d in my opinion sure does look good!

[Ephedrin 418]

What do you guys mean with re-draw?

[Pastaiolo 1,686]

14 minutes ago, Ephedrin said:

What do you guys mean with re-draw?

I think what they mean is that every 10mins or so the program download an updated weather situation from internet, all clouds are removed and the new weather situation is loaded again (so clouds first disappear and then appear again in a different form)

[Nyxx 6,993]

1 minute ago, france89 said:

I think what they mean is that every 10mins or so the program download an updated weather situation from internet, all clouds are removed and the new weather situation is loaded again (so clouds first disappear and then appear again in a different form)

Correct. (or close enough)

1 hour ago, Denco said:

I'm still not sure if I should buy this. All I see is people arguing about SF3D's weather engine, but I'm pretty sure no one was going to buy this for the weather engine part of the package.

 

So, is this better then ASCA?

Think of SF as ASCA on steroids. 

 

[aktorsyl 93]

EDIT: I made a mistake with the model installation for the SkyForce screenshots in this post. The 2x ASCA screenshots are correct, for the comparative SkyForce screenshots, please refer to the post at the link below:

 

Alright, I went to compare apples with apples this time. ActiveSky+SkyForce vs ActiveSky+ASCA. In search of a thunderstorm I went, and came back with this.

This was at FCBB (Brazzaville). 

These two are ActiveSky+ASCA, same location, same time, same altitudes (more or less anyway):

 

 

[roi1862 589]

2 minutes ago, Nyxx said:

Think of SF as ASCA on steroids. 

David, if i understood correctly it does not inject sky texture like ASCA...

[aktorsyl 93]

3 minutes ago, roi1862 said:

David, if i understood correctly it does not inject sky texture like ASCA...

The 3D Cloud Sync feature of SkyForce is supposed to do just that. See my post above yours though, I don't think it's working as intended at the moment. Also not sure how exactly it works.. does ActiveSky write the weather to the sim, and SkyForce then read the weather from the sim in order to determine which textures to inject?

EDIT: Sorry, misread your question, you were talking about sky textures, not cloud textures. I'm not sure if it does that.

 

 

[ryanbatc 12,770]

1 hour ago, TheDanger said:

Ditch the weather engine, half the price and sell it as a texture package only.

But this is what provides the new clouds.... the virga (they call it rain shafts etc), mesocylones (I think they call it supercells), etc etc.  Anyway I just bought this.  Lord willing, if I have time I'll do some screenshots, below and above the clouds, different types etc.

[joseg175 33]

 You cannot fly longer than 10 minuites without the REX IWX weather engine completely stutter and change completely the current weather condition. i.e i was flying a test flight KIAD- KEYW one minute i had complete overcast FL 360 and the next after the REX IWX synced i had clear conditions.  I have done 10 test flights.  The cloud structures are not 3d.  Yes you do get a variety of cloud TEXTURES during a single flight but you do not get true 3d formations.  When flying through "TOWERING CUMULUS STRUCTURES" which from 50 nm away look amazing, you will see 2d textures of random cloud structures racing towards your windshield which have no business being there. The PTA presets and sky textures are just okay i tried several of them and i feel they made my setup look dark or grim which caused me to resort back to REX4TD textures and presets which present a more realistic brighter and colorful image when for example flying over Caribbean seas.  I don't like the Skyforce interface.  I have been repeatedly faced with many pauses when switching between options and numerous .NET errors.  I do understand the variety that skyforce has presented in terms of cloud structures.  I just want to stress REX is a fantastic company that creates fantastic products.  Their textures are a million times better than that garbage of Active Sky Cloud Art.  The Active sky weather engine is however much better than IWX REX provides.  

Edited January 2, 2018 by vgbaron
removed offensive language

[timest 472]

5 minutes ago, aktorsyl said:

Alright, I went to compare apples with apples this time. ActiveSky+SkyForce vs ActiveSky+ASCA. In search of a thunderstorm I went, and came back with this.

This was at FCBB (Brazzaville). The first two pics are ActiveSky+SkyForce (one on the ground, one at approx 7000ft):

Your test is flawed. The cloud models in SF were not installed at the time you conducted the test with SF.