Actually, if they didn't, I fear the weather area would stagnate. It's the competition between developers that drives innovation. ActiveSky tries to develop better clouds and REX tries to develop a better engine. Somewhere down the road each may succeed, meanwhile we get to benefit from their efforts.

Vic

17 minutes ago, vgbaron said:

Actually, if they didn't, I fear the weather area would stagnate. It's the competition between developers that drives innovation. ActiveSky tries to develop better clouds and REX tries to develop a better engine. Somewhere down the road each may succeed, meanwhile we get to benefit from their efforts.

Vic

With that I totally agree ... 

Now I would like the red dusk sunshine on both sides of the clouds , so the more competition, the faster we will see it 

1 hour ago, GSalden said:

With that I totally agree ... 

Now I would like the red dusk sunshine on both sides of the clouds , so the more competition, the faster we will see it 

Hey look, a grid like pattern like it is on my radar 😁😂

Thank you J van D for clarifying this  

On ‎09‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 9:26 PM, J van E said:

To prevent confusion (hoping I don’t just add confusion LOL) this should read ‘In total up to 16 different samples’. One regular TEXTURE contains 16 SAMPLES. We don’t want people start posting everywhere that ASCA Global works with 8 textures. ;) It works with 1 texture which offers the sim 8 samples. And a sample is a ‘picture’ of a specific piece of a cloud, like “stratus, wispy, solid areas of the cloud”. 

In Full dynamics 8 textures can be used offering the sim 128 samples to play with.

And btw although the textures are chosen depending on the weather the textures are applied rather randomly. I mean, METAR doesn’t tell us which cloud should be fluffy and which one not. It is all about the overall look that is being generated. 

No, the EXACT cloud formations are IMPOSSIBLE to get into the sim. Like in ‘this cloud belongs here and that cloud there’. METAR described the weather in a large area and so it’s always an impression of what is out there, never the real deal.

Thank you for clarifying this for me  

Something that has been confusing me a little about Active Sky is real dynamic weather. 
I want to depart from Amsterdam during stormy conditions, fly to Portugal for example and have the weather change to sunny conditions automatically. Assuming that these weather conditions are actually at that moment happening in real life.

Do I need ASCA for this, because of the dynamic insertion mechanic?

Am I correct to assume ASP4 only loads the weather for Amsterdam, but is then unable to change to a completely different weather type based on my destination? 

1 hour ago, mikeya said:

Am I correct to assume ASP4 only loads the weather for Amsterdam, but is then unable to change to a completely different weather type based on my destination? 

No. If you load a flight plan, ASP4 will get the starting and destination weather and also route weather, if the flight needs it. So you'll get correct weather at both locations. Even without a flight plan ASP4 will read and inject the weather as you fly.

Dynamic weather is something else - for that you need both ASCA and ASP4 - this will load and inject new cloud sets during the flight giving much more varied clouds and skies.

Think of it like this -  the old way was to select a set of clouds and skies and load them into the sim prior to starting. You pick something that you specifically like. Now, you are flying along and you feel the clouds just don't quite fit the weather. Your only option in the past was to shut down the sim and select a new set of clouds and skies and start over.

With dynamic weather from ASP4/ASCA combination after you take off, ASP4/ASCA will load new weather related clouds and skies while the sim is running. Currently you can select up to 8 different cloud/sky set combinations that ASP4/;ASCA will choose from.

HTH,

Vic

11 hours ago, vgbaron said:

Dynamic weather is something else - for that you need both ASCA and ASP4 - this will load and inject new cloud sets during the flight giving much more varied clouds and skies.

Hope you don't mind me saying so but I think the terminology is a wrong.  

- ASP4 offers dynamic weather, even without ASCA.

- ASCA, together with ASP4, offers dynamic textures.

Calling the dynamic change of textures for clouds and skies 'weather' is exactly what is confusing people. In your post you first describe what dynamic weather is ("Even without a flight plan ASP4 will read and inject the weather as you fly") but then you go on to say that this is NOT dynamic weather... while it is! Confusing! 

So my answer to mikeya would be:

13 hours ago, mikeya said:

I want to depart from Amsterdam during stormy conditions, fly to Portugal for example and have the weather change to sunny conditions automatically. Assuming that these weather conditions are actually at that moment happening in real life.

You ONLY need ASP4 for this. It will give you the weather change you want. That's exactly what dynamic weather is and ASP4 offers it all (including historic weather that also changes dynamically!).

13 hours ago, mikeya said:

Do I need ASCA for this, because of the dynamic insertion mechanic?

No, you do NOT need ASCA for this: ASCA only injects cloud and sky textures (if you choose the appropriate theme) so they are changed depending on the current weather. That's nice but not mandatory.

13 hours ago, mikeya said:

Am I correct to assume ASP4 only loads the weather for Amsterdam, but is then unable to change to a completely different weather type based on my destination? 

By now you should now this is NOT the case. ASP4 will change the weather wherever you go and all on its own.

7 hours ago, J van E said:

Hope you don't mind me saying so but I think the terminology is a wrong.  

- ASP4 offers dynamic weather, even without ASCA.

- ASCA, together with ASP4, offers dynamic textures.

You are absolutely correct Jeroen.  I need to pay more attention to my choice of words. That said, I have found that many people confuse textures with weather so I sort of lump them together. Shouldn't do that, my bad.

 

Vic

Hello everyone,

I was reading your posts but I don't understand a thing. 

I am using REX Sky Force for cloud textures and structures, not weather engine but Cloud sync activated. ASP4 as weather engine and ASCA with Global Automatic but only for skies. 

If I am not using REX weather engine does it have any effect having app open or not? Does Cloud Sync work even with no weather engine activated? 

I was testing and I see no changes between having REX open or not during flight. As far as I see, after installing the selected cloud structures and textures from REX, I find no result so I could only open ASP4 (and ASCA that opens automatically) during flight?

Thanks very much and sorry if that was already explained but I didn't find it.

35 minutes ago, Xiropillo said:

I am using REX Sky Force for cloud textures and structures, not weather engine but Cloud sync activated. ASP4 as weather engine and ASCA with Global Automatic but only for skies. 

That's the setup I am using but with Envtex for the skies though ASCA

35 minutes ago, Xiropillo said:

If I am not using REX weather engine does it have any effect having app open or not? Does Cloud Sync work even with no weather engine activated? 

I was testing and I see no changes between having REX open or not during flight. As far as I see, after installing the selected cloud structures and textures from REX, I find no result so I could only open ASP4 (and ASCA that opens automatically) during flight

Many people ask and wonder if you need it open/running.

In my opinion you do, why?

For one,

Rex tells us we need it open for sync to work, why would they lie?

Secondly.

When I am doing a flight I sometimes get a SF .net error, I press continue and all is well. That "call" is SF talking to your sim so yes am sure it needs to be running to work fully. Will you still get great looking skies without it running ? yes because the cloud textures are  loaded and can be used. But will you get the full cloud structures working? properly not.

So with Rex saying you do and finding .net errors from SF talking to the sim my conclusion is yes you need it open.

 

15 minutes ago, Nyxx said:

Many people ask and wonder if you need it open/running.

In my opinion you do, why?

For one,

Rex tells us we need it open for sync to work, why would they lie?

Secondly.

When I am doing a flight I sometimes get a SF .net error, I press continue and all is well. That "call" is SF talking to your sim so yes am sure it needs to be running to work fully. Will you still get great looking skies without it running ? yes because the cloud textures are  loaded and can be used. But will you get the full cloud structures working? properly not.

So with Rex saying you do and finding .net errors from SF talking to the sim my conclusion is yes you need it open.

 

Thanks very much Nyxx.

I was wondering if I needed it to be open because I tested a full flight with it open and the same flight with it closed and I didn't see any difference. 

When I open or close ASP4 the difference is visible but opening and closing REX has no impact in the sim (or I can not see it)

It is true that is difficult to see differences once ASP4 is injecting weather and it is also true that I am far from being an expert. ; )

Mainly, I asked if it should be open for 2 reasons more. In the app, when selecting Could Sync, text says "enable to allow the REX Sky Force weather engine to sync 3D cloud models" so I thought, no weather engine activated, no sync. 

The other reason is that I have seen many posts reporting that weather engine is not working properly and that it would be fixed in upcoming hot fix so maybe cloud sync was not working properly until hot fix.

Once again thanks ; )

14 minutes ago, Xiropillo said:

Mainly, I asked if it should be open for 2 reasons more. In the app, when selecting Could Sync, text says "enable to allow the REX Sky Force weather engine to sync 3D cloud models" so I thought, no weather engine activated, no sync. 

The other reason is that I have seen many posts reporting that weather engine is not working properly and that it would be fixed in upcoming hot fix so maybe cloud sync was not working properly until hot fix.

Just forget the Rex weather engine. End of.

Rex have stated that when using another weather engine you need it open to sync. Like i have said to me the .net errors show SF is "talking" to the weather calls. You might do a flight and not see the difference. But I've done flights and seen cloud structures I have never seen the likes of before. Its stunning, no breath taking to see. But unless the weather is reporting some huge cloud formation/Cb etc, if its a "normal" day with normal clouds then the difference would be probably impossible to see. 

I did a flight to LOWI and turned and I saw a break in the clouds showing the ground and the clouds structures went from around 5000 ft up and past me to a crazy high all looking like real life and one huge cloud formation. In years with AS with rex soft clouds and then with AS+ASCA I have never seen nothing even close to what I see now. Is it every flight i do? no, but weather is weather its not always spectacular.

Well, as I posted before I also seriously wonder if the SF Cloud Sync option does anything... The fact that you get a .net error doesn't prove anything because I also got one when I had SF opened but the sim not running at all. The whole idea of syncing structures is nonsense imho because the structures are on disk and can be called up and loaded at anytime: it has worked like this forever. ASCA also came with some 400 new structures and that addon didn't need a sync option for that either. So why should SF need a sync option...? Imho and until I've been proven wrong I think that whole syncing option is just a marketing trick: after HiFi released ASCA with a truly and noticably sync option for textures REX had to come up with a sync thing too because syncing suddenly was big and so they came up with this.

Don't get me wrong: I absolutely LOVE SkyForce: I think the clouds look awesome and I clearly see the difference that SF makes! It is totally worth the money! But that doesn't mean I am buying that cloud sync stuff. Running SF in the background is a waste of recourses imho and the skies look awesome without it anyway.

Thanks again.

I understand what you mean but I agree with J van E that the clouds are installed in the Prepar3D folders and used depending on the weather injected by ASP4 in my case.

I am really happy with those clouds and I have just landed in EHAM from LEBB enjoying the outside views with the incredible REX clouds. Incredible! Nice!

But having no idea about sim inside procedures and with what I have seen, in my opinion (only in my opinion), REX install the clouds chosen in the themes menu and overwrites Prepar default clouds using them depending on the weather requests produced by ASP4 engine. As it does with the skies provided by ASCA. 

REX provides the ingredients and ASP4 gives the receipt to the sim for mixing them.

At last if Cloud Sync really works without weather engine, should be the same result than AS does because AS does not have any cloud structures to use (unless installed from ASCA settings) so by now I prefer closing REX to maybe save CPU usage, avoiding dupe tasks and waiting for next hot fix.

Best regards and enjoy winter at least for getting those great clouds in our sim. ; )