REX Sky Force Very First look

[Tokitaumelie 164]

8 minutes ago, J van E said:

Well, I hardly take any screenshots but here is a recent one I found: rather simple and nothing extraordinary but good enough for me. I like this more than some of those over the top REX clouds. If I come across a few nice skies the coming days I will take some more screenshots. 

Now I understand. Thank you J.

I apologise for being rude.

 

Kind regards

[pete_auau 1,157]

Edit

[CFIJose 5,485]

If we look back just a few weeks ago you will find lots of confusion with weather addons for P3D. Let's add even more confusion to a confused community of simmers.

ASP4: One of a few weather engines. A standard of excellence and by what others are measured.

ASCA: This fantastic addons creates amazing structures dynamically injects sky textures and was developed to work with ASP4. Wait, there's more. You can even create your own themes and install them manually.

ENVEX: Another addon that is compatible with ASP4 and even ASCA. This one is similar to REX TD, but because it integrates with ASCA, simmers decided to embrace this one and recommend it to the community.

PTA: If you love to tweak you sim's shaders this is the addon to buy.

Finally, we get REX Skyforce 3D. I (maybe we) expected this one to be a combination of all the things we love about ASP4, ASCA, ENVEX, REX TD & Soft Clouds, and PTA. All done for us with the press of a button. What we really wanted was to open SF load the flight plan and while in the sim see the weather & textures smoothly change throughout our flights. Some wanted to do this with historic weather.

Did you get all that?

[carlito777 712]

50 minutes ago, ErichB said:

So, before I do that - can anyone confirm,  one way or the other,  whether cloud changes are dynamic (intelligent) - if I use AS16 with REX SF textures?

 

No user can confirm this just from looking at their screen and seeing some nice clouds. This alone doesn't tell you how the weather engine has chosen the textures and structures. Only the devs can tell. And for me to believe that it really dynamically selects structures and textures (as ASCA certainly does), I would like to get some explanation how Sky Force interacts with Active Sky to enable this dynamic process.

[ErichB 3,640]

Just now, carlito777 said:

No user can confirm this just from looking at their screen and seeing some nice clouds. This alone doesn't tell you how the weather engine has chosen the textures and structures. Only the devs can tell. And for me to believe that it really dynamically selects structures and textures (as ASCA certainly does), I would like to get some explanation how Sky Force interacts with Active Sky to enable this dynamic process.

Right, I just thought I'd missed it.  So the confusion still exists.  thanks

 

[ckyliu 1,749]

Given what a public relations/marketing disaster this launch has been for REX they should've called it SkyFarce

[JoeFackel 760]

1 hour ago, J van E said:

Yes, well, so nothing new here... Although I have to add that the SkyForce site talks about "redoing the 3D cloud model structure"... Odd, I had the impression it was something completely new...?

Don't forget the rain shafts down to the ground and the CB clouds up to FL700, just to name two new cloud models.

[aktorsyl 93]

4 minutes ago, JoeFackel said:

Don't forget the rain shafts down to the ground and the CB clouds up to FL700, just to name two new cloud models.

Agreed - to be fair, those towering CB's in thunderstorms are very, very well done. Personally I'd like the CB's to flare a bit more at the top, but the advances already made in the CB structure is really worth mentioning here. It also has to be said that a CB is accompanied by LOTS of lower-level cumulus now too, like it should be (and like it is in real life), unlike the "isolated" cumulonimbus formations that we saw so often.

 

 

[Guest]

58 minutes ago, Tokitaumelie said:

Now I understand. Thank you J.

I apologise for being rude.

Haha, it's okay, I didn't even regard your post as being rude.

[Joseph29 225]

39 minutes ago, DJJose said:

If we look back just a few weeks ago you will find lots of confusion with weather addons for P3D. Let's add even more confusion to a confused community of simmers.

ASP4: One of a few weather engines. A standard of excellence and by what others are measured.

ASCA: This fantastic addons creates amazing structures dynamically injects sky textures and was developed to work with ASP4. Wait, there's more. You can even create your own themes and install them manually.

ENVEX: Another addon that is compatible with ASP4 and even ASCA. This one is similar to REX TD, but because it integrates with ASCA, simmers decided to embrace this one and recommend it to the community.

PTA: If you love to tweak you sim's shaders this is the addon to buy.

Finally, we get REX Skyforce 3D. I (maybe we) expected this one to be a combination of all the things we love about ASP4, ASCA, ENVEX, REX TD & Soft Clouds, and PTA. All done for us with the press of a button. What we really wanted was to open SF load the flight plan and while in the sim see the weather & textures smoothly change throughout our flights. Some wanted to do this with historic weather.

Did you get all that?

As a relative new P3D user (I had P3D v4 for about 4 months) I don't have any sky or cloud textures and I don't have a weather engine yet. With the different combos of weather engine, sky textures, and cloud textures it is a little hard for me to choose which combo to go with!

[cgentil 1]

Hi,

I have AS 2016 + ASCA and REX 4 TD.

SkyForce replaces REX4 TD?

It's meant to use all together, AS 2016, ASCA REX4 TD and SkyForce?

Thanks.

[Guest]

33 minutes ago, cgentil said:

Hi,

I have AS 2016 + ASCA and REX 4 TD.

SkyForce replaces REX4 TD?

It's meant to use all together, AS 2016, ASCA REX4 TD and SkyForce?

Thanks.

Well... yes, no, maybe... AS2016 is a weather engine: you will defenitely need to keep on using that one because the weather engine of SkyForce isn't that good. SkyForce is similar to ASCA, not to REX4. REX4 give you sky textures, cloud textures, water textures, runway textures, etc. SkyForce, just like ASCA, is only about skies and clouds. So SkyForce doesn't replace REX4 but it can replaces parts of it: the skies and clouds.

So although SkyForce could replace ASCA you may keep on using them altogether: you can use for instance the skies from ASCA, REX4 for runway textures and water and then SkyForce for clouds... All kinds of possibilites are possible!

Obviously a setup like this won't make a simmers life easier: you will have to turn various settings on all addons on and off to prevent one addon overwriting textures from another. Things would become even more complicated if you also had ENVTEX (which is similar to REX4). I'd try to keep it simple and use as little addons as possible. But the choice is yours.

[cgentil 1]

Thanks for clarifying. So what should be the best setup? Play with them together maybe?

[sanh 823]

I have been reading every post and I am not sure it represents the wider flight sim community view. I just see a small number of noisy people over and over posting the same thing (i say that with respect). 

Plus it seems quite clear what to do. Fire up AS2016 and run SF in the background. Simple. 

Everything has to be so complicated these days.

If you like the clouds like me. Buy. You don't, then don't buy. Be nice to read something here that is new rather than the same thing over and over....

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, cgentil said:

Thanks for clarifying. So what should be the best setup? Play with them together maybe?

You're welcome. Be sure to read my post once again because I made some mistakes in the initial version and edited completely LOL

The best setup? There is only one best setup and that's the one you like.  I personally don't like to use too many addons for similar options: as it is now I only use Active Sky and ONE freeware cumulus file for ALL my skies (and things look perfectly fine with me) but that's just my personal preference. Your skies may as well look beautiful already with your current setup so ask yourself if you really need more cloud and sky textures. Or try to figure out if SkyForce actually offers something new. Or think about how complicated you want to make things. No one can make this decision for you!