Sky Force and integration with other apps

[jothanon 7]

Hi.I have Sky Force, Active Sky,ASCA,PTA .Rex TD with soft clouds and Envtex..Have people reached a conclusion as to the  best way to integrate each program that works.Obviously peoples themes will be different  but its the actual dovetailing that confuses me .Reed at Rex has said that it is strongly NOT recommended to use another texture product with Sky Force.That has completely floored me I hope what  I'm asking is clear but I'm really confused now.

At the moment I'm running active sky-I have deleted asca-havent toched Rex TD and soft clouds for a whilel ,a PTA set and Envtex with all cloud boxes off.

I try to use google and you tube for answers but I cant seem to find anything appropriate

Help!

[CharlieDont5urf 17]

Same question here runing Active Sky, ASCA, Envtex and Enshade and having no clue after reading the manual/s. I for sure want to stay with Active Sky weather engine but like to try the new textures.

[jothanon 7]

Definitely want to keep Sky Force and Active sky too.Just completed a flight into LEPA overcast and the clouds looked tremendous .Left EGKK in fogging conditions and that look good too.I just feel something is missing

 

[Nyxx 6,993]

OK Guys.

I own them all and here is how I use them all together.

SF, turn off the in built weather engine.

I use AS + SF , start AS then start SF minimize SF.

Within ASCA make sure to only have Sky colores ticked. Make sure you have ENVTEX sky colors installed within ASCA.

That's it.

So you're now running the best weather engine with the new amazing cloud structures and textures from SF with ENVTEX working with ASCA giving you the right coloured skies.

Before you start the sim I would suggest you to knock all these of running on your core 0&1.

As for PTA i use Matts but have tweaked it to my liking.

Please also note: I don't find the SF textures etc give more FPS but seem to me to put far less demand of my sim. Within AS I can now set min cloud draw to 140 and max to 250 nm. That bring a new level of detail that is another world than flying on a 90 or 110 mile moving carpet. 

 

 

[flyblueskies 142]

Thank you David as I had the same question. Several more questions:

1. On your system, is ASCA set to DYNAMIC?

2. On your system, is SF set to auto synchronize (I can't remember the exact wording)?

Would it be possible to see some screen shots of your SF settings?

Thank you,

Jeff

[CharlieDont5urf 17]

Thank you so much @Nyxx for the hints. I will try this later the day. 

Last question for me is if SF can be installed and run on another/networked PC because there i run AS + ASCA already?

Solution: i found in official forum: https://www.realenvironmentxtreme.com/forums/index.php?/topic/46342-sky-force-3d-networked-setup/

[Guest]

2 hours ago, jothanon said:

Reed at Rex has said that it is strongly NOT recommended to use another texture product with Sky Force.That has completely floored me I hope what  I'm asking is clear but I'm really confused now.

I do it the same as David does, AS for weather, ENVTEX skies running dynamically through ASCA and SF clouds. What Reed does NOT recommend only concern the clouds! SF structures should be used with SF textures!

SF textures offers double the amount of samples and only the SF structures know where to apply what sample. So ASCA clouds textures (or ENVTEX cloud textures and even old REX textures) may give weird/ugly/unwanted effects on SF structures. That's it. Only SF structures and clouds know how to properly work together. For skies and other textures you can use whatever you like! 

[B777ER 2,475]

1 hour ago, Nyxx said:

OK Guys.

I own them all and here is how I use them all together.

SF, turn off the in built weather engine.

I use AS + SF , start AS then start SF minimize SF.

Within ASCA make sure to only have Sky colores ticked. Make sure you have ENVTEX sky colors installed within ASCA.

That's it.

So you're now running the best weather engine with the new amazing cloud structures and textures from SF with ENVTEX working with ASCA giving you the right coloured skies.

Before you start the sim I would suggest you to knock all these of running on your core 0&1.

As for PTA i use Matts but have tweaked it to my liking.

Please also note: I don't find the SF textures etc give more FPS but seem to me to put far less demand of my sim. Within AS I can now set min cloud draw to 140 and max to 250 nm. That bring a new level of detail that is another world than flying on a 90 or 110 mile moving carpet. 

 

 

I have found if enhanced overcast is on in SF and you have a large area of overcast it really taxes your system, even at 512 resolution. In ASCA they have a specific slider for overcast and it works much better IMO than SF overcast performance wise.

[Dirk98 354]

9 minutes ago, B777ER said:

I have found if enhanced overcast is on in SF and you have a large area of overcast it really taxes your system, even at 512 resolution. In ASCA they have a specific slider for overcast and it works much better IMO than SF overcast performance wise.

Wow, and that was a buying point for me!

Can't get past Step 1 though, can't register it after purchase.. 

Things have always been somewhat unnecessarily complicated with REX to some reason, and I've had most of theirs.

 

[jothanon 7]

1 hour ago, Nyxx said:

OK Guys.

I own them all and here is how I use them all together.

SF, turn off the in built weather engine.

I use AS + SF , start AS then start SF minimize SF.

Within ASCA make sure to only have Sky colores ticked. Make sure you have ENVTEX sky colors installed within ASCA.

That's it.

So you're now running the best weather engine with the new amazing cloud structures and textures from SF with ENVTEX working with ASCA giving you the right coloured skies.

Before you start the sim I would suggest you to knock all these of running on your core 0&1.

As for PTA i use Matts but have tweaked it to my liking.

Please also note: I don't find the SF textures etc give more FPS but seem to me to put far less demand of my sim. Within AS I can now set min cloud draw to 140 and max to 250 nm. That bring a new level of detail that is another world than flying on a 90 or 110 mile moving carpet. 

 

 

Very helpful.Thx

 

[Nyxx 6,993]

1 hour ago, flyblueskies said:

Thank you David as I had the same question. Several more questions:

1. On your system, is ASCA set to DYNAMIC?

2. On your system, is SF set to auto synchronize (I can't remember the exact wording)?

Would it be possible to see some screen shots of your SF settings?

Thank you,

Jeff

As J has said above AS should be set to Dynamic. SF cloud sync ON

Also I have "Enhanced Overcast Clouds Bases" ON in SF options as it make the underside look dark and moody just like it looks IRL. I personally have no problems with performance at all but as alway it's down to your system and how well its configed and set up. Also your setting within the sim play a big part.

I also Run with textures set to DTX5 and 512.

Some of the ones I have posted.

If you look here you will see many more posts.

https://www.avsim.com/forums/forum/147-the-avsim-screen-shots-forum/

 

[jothanon 7]

41 minutes ago, J van E said:

I do it the same as David does, AS for weather, ENVTEX skies running dynamically through ASCA and SF clouds. What Reed does NOT recommend only concern the clouds! SF structures should be used with SF textures!

SF textures offers double the amount of samples and only the SF structures know where to apply what sample. So ASCA clouds textures (or ENVTEX cloud textures and even old REX textures) may give weird/ugly/unwanted effects on SF structures. That's it. Only SF structures and clouds know how to properly work together. For skies and other textures you can use whatever you like! 

Very clear thx

 

[kingm56 1,023]

It's frustrating that we have to use 4 weather programs to achieve the desired effect; my kingdom for an all inclusive weather program, which is what I was hoping SF would be....

[Victoroos 205]

1 hour ago, Nyxx said:

OK Guys.

I own them all and here is how I use them all together.

SF, turn off the in built weather engine.

I use AS + SF , start AS then start SF minimize SF.

Within ASCA make sure to only have Sky colores ticked. Make sure you have ENVTEX sky colors installed within ASCA.

That's it.

So you're now running the best weather engine with the new amazing cloud structures and textures from SF with ENVTEX working with ASCA giving you the right coloured skies.

Before you start the sim I would suggest you to knock all these of running on your core 0&1.

As for PTA i use Matts but have tweaked it to my liking.

Please also note: I don't find the SF textures etc give more FPS but seem to me to put far less demand of my sim. Within AS I can now set min cloud draw to 140 and max to 250 nm. That bring a new level of detail that is another world than flying on a 90 or 110 mile moving carpet. 

 

 

how do you "knock all these of running on your core 0&1."?

thanks for explaining!

[Nyxx 6,993]

2 minutes ago, kingm56 said:

It's frustrating that we have to use 4 weather programs to achieve the desired effect; my kingdom for an all inclusive weather program, which is what I was hoping SF would be....

When you/we see the amount of options within AS it's going to take a lot to just match it let alone better it.

The weather engine within SF works amazingly well and imo gives better looking skies than AS+SF. But the list of downside totally out way the gain. So unless HiFi can bring SF to ASCA or REX weather force can bring an weather engine like AS to us. We are stuck as both seem to be currently better at different things sadly Matt.

But I agree it would be great to just load one program for weather..end of.