[DISCUSSION] REX Sky Force 3D with Active Sky, ASCA, ENVTEX: tutorial

[flyblueskies 142]

Excellent Tutorial Jeroen!

Thank you!

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Moderators Note:  Split from the Original Topic.  The Tutorial has been moved to the Prepar3D Tips and Tricks Forum below

 

Edited January 13, 2018 by Poppet
Original Topic moved to the Prepar3D Tips and Tricks Forum

[pmb 5,137]

Wow, that would give 3 hearts, if possible. Thank you! Hopefully this can be made sticky.

Kind regards, Michael

 

[Baptista 49]

Great contribution, very well explained. thank you.

Baptista

[troyboy66 66]

Great job Jeroen! Thanks.

[Nyxx 6,993]

I just wasted 40 mins did not see this LOL

[pmb 5,137]

4 minutes ago, Nyxx said:

I just wasted 40 mins did not see this LOL

Not wasted, yours is done well, too.

Kind regards, Michael

[Nemo 1,304]

Perfect, contains all what has to be in.

[FalconAF 213]

REX is researching an issue I discovered which may cause a problem with the above instructions.

It appears that Sky Force will return the weather engine status to "Disconnected" instead of "Disabled" whenever you shutdown your flight sim OR whenever you shutdown Sky Force itself.  So for now you need to check Sky Force EVERY TIME you start it to see if the weather engine status is "Disconnected" or "Disabled".  Note that even though the setting button to turn off the weather engine can be in the "Weather Engine Off" position, the Sky Force GUI can still show "Disconnected" when restarting Sky Force, so you need to "cycle" the weather engine button between On and Off again until it changes from "Disconnected" to "Disabled".

The above would apply to every instance of where J van E says...

When you want to fly:
- start REX Sky Force 3D

For now, your Sky Force will have probably returned to "Disconnected" when you restart it.  So you need to go make sure you turn the weather engine button On and Off again until it switches to "Disabled" again.

THEN start your other weather engine (like Active Sky), and THEN start your flight sim.  That's the only way for now to make sure Sky Force is in weather engine "Disabled" mode instead of "Disconnected" mode. 

(See the table on page 23 of the Users Manual to see what the difference between "Disconnected" vs "Disabled" is SUPPOSED to be in Sky Force).  

[Guest]

59 minutes ago, Nyxx said:

I just wasted 40 mins did not see this LOL

LOL Sorryyyyyyyyy, David! But your time certainly isn’t wasted: for a lot of people pictures say more than words so I am sure a lot of people will like your post on ENVTEX and ASCA extremely helpful! 

43 minutes ago, FalconAF said:

For now, your Sky Force will have probably returned to "Disconnected" when you restart it.  So you need to go make sure you turn the weather engine button On and Off again until it switches to "Disabled" again.

Thanks for that! I actually didn’t know that! I do know that I always see Disconnected indeed so I will do this everytime until REX has fixed this. I wonder what kind of unknown problems this has caused to everyone..! 

[Nemo 1,304]

43 minutes ago, FalconAF said:

REX is researching an issue I discovered which may cause a problem with the above instructions.

It appears that Sky Force will return the weather engine status to "Disconnected" instead of "Disabled" whenever you shutdown your flight sim OR whenever you shutdown Sky Force itself.  So for now you need to check Sky Force EVERY TIME you start it to see if the weather engine status is "Disconnected" or "Disabled".  Note that even though the setting button to turn off the weather engine can be in the "Weather Engine Off" position, the Sky Force GUI can still show "Disconnected" when restarting Sky Force, so you need to "cycle" the weather engine button between On and Off again until it changes from "Disconnected" to "Disabled".

The above would apply to every instance of where J van E says...

When you want to fly:
- start REX Sky Force 3D

For now, your Sky Force will have probably returned to "Disconnected" when you restart it.  So you need to go make sure you turn the weather engine button On and Off again until it switches to "Disabled" again.

THEN start your other weather engine (like Active Sky), and THEN start your flight sim.  That's the only way for now to make sure Sky Force is in weather engine "Disabled" mode instead of "Disconnected" mode. 

(See the table on page 23 of the Users Manual to see what the difference between "Disconnected" vs "Disabled" is SUPPOSED to be in Sky Force).  

I've used it SF3D with weather disabled/disconnected for some time now and you are right. But what is the difference? Does this mean that there is now cloud model - weather sync with ASP4?

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Nemo said:

I've used it SF3D with weather disabled/disconnected for some time now and you are right. But what is the difference? Does this mean that there is now cloud model - weather sync with ASP4?

I think this means that two weather engines may have been working at the same time and that’s never a good thing: one can make a mess of the other, skies may not look as they should look, weather may change unrealistically, etc. The cloud models and textures will all work regardless and perfectly but the weather may be totally wrong. 

[FalconAF 213]

What's the difference?  Well, according to the chart on page 23 of the User's Manual:

"Disabled" means the weather ENGINE is totally OFF and Sky Force isn't "connected" to any flight sim.

"Disconnected" means the weather ENGINE is ON, but it isn't CONNECTED to any flight sim "right now" (as in you haven't started your P3Dv4 yet).

So as J van E said...do I have TWO weather engines running at the same time?  Heck if I know.  But if the GUI says, "Disconnected" when I start P3D4, I'm assuming it COULD be happening.

In either case, I would think that if you had manually turned the Options/Settings button to OFF for the weather engine, which makes the GUI show "Disabled", Sky Force should not be returning to "Disconnected" status AND leaving the button STILL in the OFF position for the weather engine.  If the button STAYS OFF, I would expect Sky Force to STAY in "Disabled" status also.  Not return to "Disconnected" when you close your flight sim or Sky Force.  And NOT leave the GUI button STILL in OFF when it does.

I have no idea in the above cases if the Sky Force weather injection system is actually working correctly then or not.  Would you know for sure? 

[Guest]

Well, come to think of it, I did read posts on the REX forum about people accidentally using both weather engines at the same time and this always caused problems like the weather suddenly and instantly changing. I never had those problems even though SF shows Disconnected on my PC. So after reading the manual about I think that even though that Disconnected is wrong the SF weather engine isn’t actually doing anything. But of course this is something that isn’t right and I hope REX will fix this quickly. Because as you say we can’t know for sure what is happening. But as it is now things seem fine and I won’t worry too much about it.

[jkeye 150]

14 hours ago, J van E said:

Here are all the steps you need to take to get REX Sky Force 3D and the three most popular combinations with other related addons working in your sim.
All the numbered steps only have to be done once: after that you only have to actually do something in REX Sky Force 3D or ASCA or ENVTEX when you want to install new textures.

REX Sky Force 3D only
1. Start REX Sky Force 3D
2. Set all options to your liking
3. Install all the textures you want

When you want to fly:
- start REX Sky Force 3D
- start your sim

REX Sky Force 3D and Active Sky
1. Start REX Sky Force 3D
2. Go to Global Settings > Engine and disable all options on that page to disable the REX Sky Force 3D weather engine
3. Set all other options to your liking
4. Install all the textures you want

When you want to fly:
- start REX Sky Force 3D
- start Active Sky
- start your sim

REX Sky Force 3D and Active Sky plus ASCA for dynamic skies
1. Start REX Sky Force 3D
2. Go to Global Settings > Engine and disable all options on that page to disable the REX Sky Force 3D weather engine
3. Go to Global Settings > Install and disable all 5 Sky Textures entries on that page
4. Set all other options to your liking
5. Install all the textures you want (no need to install sky textures)
6. Start ASCA
7. Go to Settings and untick Cirrus, Cloud Textures and Cloud Structures so only Sky Colors is ticked
8. Install the Full Dynamics (or Global Automatic) theme

When you want to fly:
- start REX Sky Force 3D
- start Active Sky, which will automatically load ASCA
- start your sim

REX Sky Force 3D and Active Sky plus ASCA for dynamic skies with ENVTEX sky textures
1. Start REX Sky Force 3D
2. Go to Global Settings > Engine and disable all options on that page to disable the REX Sky Force 3D weather engine
3. Go to Global Settings > Install and disable all 5 Sky Textures entries on that page
4. Set all other options to your liking
5. Install all the textures you want (no need to install sky textures)
6. Start ENVTEX
7. Go to Application Settings and disable all options on the right apart from Sky
8. Set the path to the ASCA folder and set ASCA Integration to ENVTEX textures only (or ASCA and ENVTEX textures)
9. Click on Install to sim (no need to select a set on the Customization page)
10. Start ASCA
11. Go to Settings and untick Cirrus, Cloud Textures and Cloud Structures so only Sky Colors is ticked
12. Install the Full Dynamics (or Global Automatic) theme

When you want to fly:
- start REX Sky Force 3D
- start Active Sky, which will automatically load ASCA: no need to run ENVTEX
- start your sim

Of course there are other combinations possible with all available texture addons: you might want to skip ASCA completely and use ENVTEX for skies but also for Grass and Water etc. Or you might want to use REX Texture Direct for Water and Runways and ENVTEX for a few others... Everything is possible and the rule is simple: if you want to use specific options from a specific addon, enable those options in that specific addon and disable similar options in all other addons.
Some combinations are not possible though: for instance the dynamic skies need Active Sky to run so you can't get dynamic skies with the REX Sky Force 3D weather engine because you can't use two weather engines at the same time.
But well, with a bit of logic you should be able to work it all out... 

Important note concerning REX Sky Force 3D's PTA integration!
If you are using REX Sky Force 3D's integrated PTA function be aware that when you install one of the PTA presets an appropriate REX Sky Force 3D sky texture will also be installed automatically! This means that you can't really use the PTA integration if you also want to use skies from ASCA/ENVTEX! Either REX Sky Force 3D will overwrite the ASCA/ENVTEX sky texture or ASCA/ENVTEX will overwrite the REX Sky Force 3D sky texture and things will probably not look as REX has intended.

Thank you

 With AS4 and SF running together,what does adding ASCA provide that SF doesn't?

[Nyxx 6,993]

30 minutes ago, jkeye said:

Thank you

 With AS4 and SF running together,what does adding ASCA provide that SF doesn't?

It lets you use ASCA with Envtex for Dynamic sky colours.