REX Environment Force

[ErichB 3,638]

'Environment Force breaks the paradigm as no other weather, texture, environment or shader enhancer on the market is able to accomplish full living environment control in real-time, on-the-fly (in-sim) while giving you instant visual feedback! In the past all these elements had to be modified outside of the simulator. Environment Force allows a new and different approach to the environmental factors that cannot be accomplished any other way, providing full immersion'.

Not sure if this is a shader utility , a weather utility or a texture utility, but it sounds like its all of them combined.  Haven't read any more details but it sounds good

 

 

[Sethos 4,266]

The most interesting part, for me, was this;

"To all those who fly with shader enhancers! With Environment Force, we have given you a powerful feature: Recompile shaders on-the-fly without the need to close and re-open the simulator! This is a great feature for users of PTA and similar shader product."

On-the-fly shader tweaking would be absolutely amazing. Right now, tweaking shaders through PTA, TomatoShade or otherwise, is a test of patience in tweaking, shutting down the sim, doing your tweaks, starting up and waiting for the load and the shader cache to rebuild, then wonder what you did because you have such poor comparison grounds. Especially if this also extends (which I believe it does) to function per-weather. So instead of a one-size-fits-all tweak, you can find the perfect settings for a rainy setting, sunny setting etc.

[ErichB 3,638]

I didn't see that - but that is brilliant

[B777ER 2,483]

Based on past personal experiences, I'm just gonna pull off the taxiway and run my engine at idle and see how the weather looks (pun intended, waiting on the reviews). 

[Victoroos 205]

what i really want aRw godrays..!! Hope they can provide that.

Even though they use so many superlatives and marketing language, I lost track of wgat it really does.

[Greggy_D 935]

5 hours ago, ErichB said:

Haven't read any more details but it sounds good

The hype always sounds good (great even!) with REX.  That is, until you actually use the product.

[kingm56 1,023]

1 hour ago, Greggy_D said:

The hype always sounds good (great even!) with REX.  That is, until you actually use the product.

Exactly, Greg!  When it comes to REX, I suggest you temper your enthusiasm; to that point, they seem to have a liberal marketing policy, which I believe is designed to explicitly mislead people.  In short, their reputation for failing to deliver on their overhyped, superlative-laced marketing strategies is well earned.  For myself, I choose not support a company with questionable ethics.  I do, however, hope they'll learn from past fallacies; maybe this next product will meet expectations; yet, it appears they simply can't help themselves. 

[dal330200 216]

I have to agree that their marketing tends to over-rate some of their products, but I for one am delighted with Skyforce, even if I need to use AS for the weather engine.  It adds so much to weather that makes flying a bit more challenging and enjoyable.  I'll buy environment force just to be able to play with shaders on the fly if nothing else.  That capability alone will be worth its weight in gold.  I just hope that it will be sooner than later before it comes out, considering how long they took to tease us with Skyforce.  If it's going to be just as long, I hope someone designs a shader tweak utility that can be used on the fly:-)

John

[Guest]

Here you will find the complete press release:

https://fselite.net/news/flight-sim-expo-2018-introducing-rex-environment-force/

Sounds nice. As usual with REX. Let's see if they can deliver the goods. I won't be buying this on release day, that's for sure.

[kand 205]

They talk about seeing clouds building in front of you..... FSX could do that anyway with dynamic changes to wx as they fade/grow in out, not sure this is anything new just the usual hyper-marketing. To really see clouds building would take some incredible texture resolution, i dont think P3d can handle this level of detail, the skyforce high res textures bring my 1080ti to its knees and thats not even running any heavy aircraft addon. 

I wont be buying this at launch thats for sure, but the cloud models skyforce brought to the party have made a significant improvement to my wx 

Edited June 18, 2018 by kand

[sbague1 10]

I feel that there really isn't anything wrong with skyforce personally, sure the hype was to much and we all were expecting something different. But for what it actually does it does it well.

[ErichB 3,638]

I share views on the REX marketing hype.  They are very good at it. 

However, I have never been completely disappointed with a product of theirs other than Airport HD Textures.. 

Their cloud texture sets really set a new benchmark for cloud visuals - especially soft clouds combined with the HD sets.  I love them.

 

10 hours ago, kand said:

They talk about seeing clouds building in front of you..... FSX could do that anyway with dynamic changes to wx as they fade/grow in out

This is what bothers me. 

Skyforce was hyped at 3D cloud models which created a wrong impression for some, (including me),  about what was being offered.  Whichever way they try to spin that, the clouds still appear as 2D sprites when you get close enough - although they look a darn sight better than the ACSA clouds - and overall I am very happy with SF.

But when they say 'clouds building in-front of you', I can't help think that they'll just be a collection of 2D sprites increasing in size. 

Although having said that, I'm MUCH more interested in the 'changing shader settings on the fly' feature.  I'd buy it for that alone.

 

THE TECHNOLOGY IN ENVIRONMENT FORCE ALLOWS FULL CONTROL AND VARIETY OVER KEY ELEMENTS OF YOUR FLIGHT ENVIRONMENT WHILE THE FLIGHT SIMULATOR IS RUNNING! IN REAL-TIME AND ON-THE-FLY, VIA A USER-CONTROLLED INTERFACE OR THE FULLY AUTOMATIC REAL-TIME DYNAMICS ENGINE.

Is that different from the 'weather engine'?  Do you have to use their weather engine to make use of the dynamics engine or can it be used like the current Real time sync feature which can be used with AS?

[SierraHotel 974]

16 hours ago, kingm56 said:

Exactly, Greg!  When it comes to REX, I suggest you temper your enthusiasm; to that point, they seem to have a liberal marketing policy, which I believe is designed to explicitly mislead people.  In short, their reputation for failing to deliver on their overhyped, superlative-laced marketing strategies is well earned.  For myself, I choose not support a company with questionable ethics.  I do, however, hope they'll learn from past fallacies; maybe this next product will meet expectations; yet, it appears they simply can't help themselves. 

Sorry, I have to disagree with you on this. I have and have used all of the current addons for creating a realistic weather environment to fly within P3D. And REX SkyForce is by far the very best of these, although the actual weather engine could do with some serious work, and, in my opinion comes no where near AS16 in terms of realistic presentation. I therefore use a combination of REX SF, AS16 and ENVTEX/ENVSHADE (which for those that don't know, also offers dynamic shading) REX cloud models are by far the best I have ever seen. So by and large their hype is on the ball.

[anden145 2,273]

In my honest opinion - no, their hype is not 'on the ball'. Actually far from it, in my opinion. Go back, and closely read all the marketing they released and descriptions of what SkyForce does and what it was supposed to do.

I really hate being negative - but I also have to maintain a realistic view, and my personal feeling is that REX has failed to deliver what they promised with SkyForce. In some areas, it works better than previous installments, but as far as I can see, the hype and marketing simply doesn't fulfill the gigantic expectations, they promised.
In many areas, their marketing description of SkyForce is filled with clear-cut claims, that this software was supposed to bring a revolution (or even evolution) to the weather environment and depiction in FSX/P3D. It's filled with grand promises and quite extreme claims, which wasn't delivered... 

I don't know, man... I fell - heads over heels, with their marketing and gave them the benefit of the doubt. I was exactly as hyped and excited (and perhaps naive?) as the rest of the community. My expectations was - however - short-lived... 

Sadly, I must admit that I'm not holding my breath for this new installment of the REX saga... Quite frankly, I I currently consider SkyForce a failed purchase and have stopped using it. 

We'll see if they can deliver. But I seriously doubt it, to be honest...

To quote a certain President - it's just sad...

Edited June 19, 2018 by Anders Bermann

[Egbert Drenth 250]

21 hours ago, Sethos1988 said:

 Recompile shaders on-the-fly without the need to close and re-open the simulator!

Just for my understanding.... Why would you like to have/do this?
I guess for shader development purposes only and not for regular flying purposes?