As someone who has used ASCA exlusively up until now, I can tell you it has nothing on SkyForce. Before SF there were only 4 cloud classifications being used! SF has added thousands!

And obviously you are never going to see the kind of variety that's going to "convince" you because it all depends on the weather! Beats me how people don't seem to understand that.

If you have the time, watch this interview with REX from way back in 2016 about SF and what it's all about.

 

6 hours ago, RancidViper said:

As someone who has used ASCA exlusively up until now, I can tell you it has nothing on SkyForce. Before SF there were only 4 cloud classifications being used! SF has added thousands!

4 cloud classifications...? Don't have the exact numbers at hand but P3D comes with some 150 or so cloud structures already. Long before SF ASCA already added new cloud structures, around 400 or so. REX adds 1160 structures. (I know they say thousands but I haven't seen them yet.) Anyway, it's not that SF has us going from 4 to thousand structures, which sounds as if SF is offering thousand times more structures. It's more something like THREE times more structures.

For me personally this long story has one short conclusion:

I have not seen any screenshots that would impress me so much that I spend 45€ to replace AS16/ASCA.

On 1/12/2018 at 9:11 PM, pracines said:

ASP4 + Cloud Art in P3Dv4 looks just as good.

Can anybody show us anything different/groundbreaking/revolutionary/totally transforming about skyforce....

I was skeptic and moaned that it probably will not do much too until I bought SF3 and put it in play with AS16 +ASCA+ENVTEX. Overcast depiction was my pet peeve for many years and I can honestly say I am finally satisfied. The OP's pictures are depicting a lot of improvements, but it doesn't do justice until you're actually flying. You should give it a shot. 

17 minutes ago, Drumcode said:

I was skeptic and moaned that it probably will not do much too until I bought SF3 and put it in play with AS16 +ASCA+ENVTEX. Overcast depiction was my pet peeve for many years and I can honestly say I am finally satisfied. The OP's pictures are depicting a lot of improvements, but it doesn't do justice until you're actually flying. You should give it a shot. 

Agreed with you Drumcode. I was also sceptical about SF until I've tried it myself. Unfortunately it's often there is a gap between what you see on screenshots and what you see on your screen during live flight. For me the sky has become much more interesting and more closer to reality. But one thing I'm really missing is the cloud passing effect, hope the will improve it in the future.

5 minutes ago, aeromaks said:

Agreed with you Drumcode. I was also sceptical about SF until I've tried it myself. Unfortunately it's often there is a gap between what you see on screenshots and what you see on your screen during live flight. For me the sky has become much more interesting and more closer to reality. But one thing I'm really missing is the cloud passing effect, hope the will improve it in the future.

You still get that with AS as the weather engine. Everything you and Jacek say I totally agree with but if people want to judge from screenshots then that's fine. We know now the difference as we can see it 

A tip for seeing AS16+SF in action - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/219534014?t=01h01m54s

Guys, anybody experiencing very slow SF3D's GUI? To some reason it's sickly slow here, something is not right, because it is a Win10 with ASPv4, Envtex, ASCA running just fine. I'm investigating this problem now, but I thought somebody could shed some light on it.

Thanks.

Do you have Network Mode enabled than it's a known bug. Simply disable it.

25 minutes ago, Dirk98 said:

Guys, anybody experiencing very slow SF3D's GUI? To some reason it's sickly slow here, something is not right, because it is a Win10 with ASPv4, Envtex, ASCA running just fine. I'm investigating this problem now, but I thought somebody could shed some light on it.

Thanks.

My GUI is fine, I am however getting the .NET error still when I arrive at my destination late at night for example and leave P3D running until the following morning, something happens at night that triggers the .NET error, but the GUI doesn't shut down or anything.

On 13/01/2018 at 11:39 AM, sbs9 said:

REX says that "Current weather engines on the market are forced to synthesize multiple overcast layers to try and mask holes present within their flawed overcast model system.

Says the company that has never managed to produce a decent weather engine in a decade of trying.

6 minutes ago, Glynn said:

Says the company that has never managed to produce a decent weather engine in a decade of trying.

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/528352-rex-sky-force-3d-hifi-as16-after-ten-routine-flights/?do=findComment&comment=3785891

 

11 minutes ago, sbs9 said:

A tip for seeing AS16+SF in action - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/219534014?t=01h01m54s

Hi Roman,

I totally agree that the scenes in this vid are excellent, and the host was great.

My scenes look just as good with ASP4 +ASCA. Now that we have a 64 bit P3D and OOM is not an issue for me, I set very high settings in ASP4, i.e. 12 cloud layers, 199 mile surface & upper visibility plus 199 mile cloud radius, because I fly at FL400 often. This results in a very full sky when called for or expected, and with the full dynamics setting, the skies never look the same. With all that, I can still achieve a stutter free 20 FPS, going in and out of major add-on hubs, after 16 hour flights in the PMDG 777LR, with lots of AI and other utilities running. FSX would OOM in less than a second. :-)

When all is said and done, if rex did not greatly exaggerate their marketing, just be honest about how the skyforce weather generation system falls short, and in turn the price would reflect the features/benefits, then I would not have any problem. Money is being charged and we all need to expect to get what we are being told we are getting. Years ago I spent money on rex essential in the belief that it was a great solution to weather generation in FSX. I was impressed with the textures, but them excellent textures kept disappearing and suddenly reappearing, to the point I did not care how beautiful the textures were. I learned a lesson that rex deceived me by telling me that the smooth transition problems were solved. Plenty of other flight simmers agree with me on this. The rex co. seemed to be doing well by going just textures with texture direct (I bought it) and soft clouds, and I was pleased with this. The thing is, rex is at it again with skyforce ("essential version 2"!!!) charging money for a weather generator that falls short in the same way essential did. If anybody disagrees with this, there is nothing more I can say because the concepts of honesty and integrity are extremely important and yet very simple.

As a parenthesis, how is an average, for example, 8 to 14 year old child going to convince dad and/or mom and/or guardian to sustain the flight simulation/aviation interest, when prices for "junk" (X-plane has lots of examples of this IMObservation) are sky high? Dads and moms who are wise will say no....another potential flight simmer stifled/disheartened. Quality, honesty, and integrity are more important than any of us can fully realize. High prices for quality, honesty, and integrity is fine. We all need more of this because when honesty/integrity are part of the equation, the price may be high, but it will be fair for what the product offers. Wise parents will see the quality, and agree with the benefits for their child.

My advice to rex stands from many years ago, please just stick with textures, you do them excellently. I would now add, please do not force us to register personally with rex; proof of purchase is fine, but personal registration should be an option not a requirement.

SF really ups the ante on cloud realism.  Haze, cloud classes and actually felling like you are flying through clouds.  Great stuff.  A Wx engine can wait because I do my own Wx.

Cheers
bs

Roman --Can you confirm that this is ASP16 and not ASP4 you're using?