Active Sky for X-Plane

[steve310002 1,198]

43 minutes ago, Anders Bermann said:

It will be interesting to see, what Hifi Sim, gets out of X-Plane... but, well - how can you not fall in love with these shots?
(this is xEnviro 1.10)

I have been following this for a while. As an owner of Xenviro and a lot of unfulfilled promises associated with that add-on, I will believe when I see it on my own PC. I am not sure how much longer we are expected to wait. 

[Cargostorm 151]

I do not understand why people think that Hifi ASXP should come with own cloud textures. It is a weather engine that is able to depict real weather in the simulator. In P3D as well, ASP4 or AS16 does not come with own cloud textures. One needs ASCA or REX to exchange textures.

I will be happy if the ground handling (crosswind / variable wind) is improved. So far we need lua scripts to attenuate the exaggerated crosswind and variable wind effects in XP11.

 

[leinsters 42]

Out of all the visual clouds for X-Plane I have always reverted to what came out of the box. Like you all, I wish there was something uniformly better, but there isn't. That aside I can easily live without new clouds for another year, it's the weather that matters the most to the aspect of simulated flying. And for me, HiFi are in their own league. This is the same situation we / they were in back in 2004(?) for Flight Simulator. Active Sky's weather engine came out without clouds and it was a complete game changer, so much so that I was never able to fly without it. I am looking forward to that reliability in X-Plane and to enjoying the road of constant development that will come along with it.

[Paraffin 2,197]

1 hour ago, Anders Bermann said:

It will be interesting to see, what Hifi Sim, gets out of X-Plane... but, well - how can you not fall in love with these shots?
(this is xEnviro 1.10)

Looks amazing...

I know xEnviro works for many XP pilots, especially those flying airliners that can shrug off most severe weather. But real weather without adjustment just doesn't work for some areas, and some types of planes. The weather report for my area last night triggered a High Wind alert on my phone, predicting sustained 30-40 mph winds with gusts to 55 mph. And sure enough, it's blowing like crazy outside my window now. Typical Winter weather in November out here on the edge of the USA Pacific Northwest, where I like to fly.

I enjoy a challenge, but I often need to back down the winds or raise the cloud base to complete an assignment in FSEconomy. As I understand it, XEnviro will never allow full manual control, due to the way the weather is built on the remote server and then downloaded. I know historical weather has been mentioned as a possible future option for xEnviro, but I don't want historical weather. I want the weather right now, with some adjustment.

As long as Active Sky allows that degree of manual control, I'll take a look at it, while waiting for a truly revolutionary improvement in 3D weather, which I think may have to come from Laminar. 

[Pugilist2 878]

As long as there is an option to create your own weather and an offline mode, I will but it.

Have used since FS2004 and am quite sure it will be a solid product.

[kristolz 26]

I also have FSGSRW, and use it, with XVision clouds etc with X-Plane 11.30. It beats the built in weather engine without breaking a sweat. Probably due to better METAR coverage in Europe, than XPs built in one, Im not sure.  The only niggle is that FSGSRW sometimes injects rain at 36 000 feet. I have more than once found my airplane crashed in the ground due to icing after stepping away from the computer for a while.. Its awesome that XP actually simulates icing on the airframe, and the effects of it, but it should not be necessary to fly with anti ice always turned on, in case the weather suddenly changes, and rain appear out of nowhere above FL360..

Now - I know that rain at higher alititudes occur, and if not dealt with properly, could result i disaster (AF 447 anyone?), but i don't occur as often as every flight where there are some rain below 10k;) Hopefully HiFi have solved these issues, that coulid lie within the X-plane weather engine, or in other applications interpretation of the METARs.

Anyway you put it: Competition is always a good thing! It drives development. We'll end up with 3 different providers - probably. We used to have one-ish. Thats brilliant!:)

I have all the other weather add-ons for XP - why not this one too. I'm in - for the long haul!

regards

[CarlosF 1,235]

Its HI-FI's v1 for heaven's sake, if you want the whole "enchilada" then wait a couple of years, but stop criticizing something that is not even out yet, instead focus on the positive side of another developer coming on-board.

If for one will buy it (great or decent) as I did with SkyMaxx and xEnviro just to support their affords.

Edited November 27, 2018 by CarlosF

[deetee 164]

First screenshots of Active Sky XP

https://www.thresholdx.net/news/asxphf

[Paraffin 2,197]

9 hours ago, deetee said:

First screenshots of Active Sky XP

https://www.thresholdx.net/news/asxphf

As expected, nothing exciting in the cloud depiction until they get their own version done later on. I'm more interested in this from the feature list:

"terrain-based wind effects"

One of the big challenges in low-level mountain flying is the way wind funnels through valleys, and the way you can get strong downslope airflow as a front moves over a ridge line. Other than "thermals" (which isn't the same thing), XP ignores this completely, so it will be interesting to see if any of these effects are noticeable in some of the small mountain valley airstrips. Mountain flying in XP is a little too easy and predictable. 

The only thing that would be a deal-breaker for me is if I can't download real weather and then fine-tune the wind and cloud base to complete a flight in FSEconomy. There are no "diversions for weather" in that game.

[Longranger 148]

On 11/27/2018 at 12:07 PM, kristolz said:

I also have FSGSRW, and use it, with XVision clouds etc with X-Plane 11.30. It beats the built in weather engine without breaking a sweat. Probably due to better METAR coverage in Europe, than XPs built in one, Im not sure.

Not quite. The METAR system is in fact in no condition to simulate real weather. It only collects data in a radius of 3 km around and above the airport. Everything outside of this circle doesn't matter. And even inside of this circle there are huge gaps if you want to simulate the weather: You don't even know what kind of clouds are in this circle.

If you want to simulate the clouds you need more data and then you have to integrate these informations in a single weather model. There will still be huge gaps in local and timely resolution in these data sets. So in a way they have to run their own weather simulation that even allows them a ,low quality, weather forecast.

[jcomm 5,890]

Actually, METAR data, just as TAF, have about 8km worth radius, and depending on sector altitude, in the case of USA usually 18,000', and in Canada ( up to 25,000 feet there !!! ) even higher, but usually rather low in Europe, in the vertical, unless you're in mountainous areas.

In the USA, for instance, cloud coverage up to that level can be reported, while in Europe your flight captain can report no clouds, and you land in Paris with an OVC @ FL100 🙂

But of course the best weather injectors go much further in getting their data to complement the limited area METAR / SPECI observations and TAF forecasts with some more ( aloft ) data.

SIGMET can be used too ( GAMET would be a great addition... ), and AS has actually been using such data in their products, and can do even best if based on access to finer FIR characterization, and of course even fine tuning it ( talking here about the products for FSX / P3D, but one can assume the same will apply to XP... ) if we add a flightplan to it, so that the weather along the route can receive further detail...

Up in the "aloft areas", other kind of data is used, resulting from Global Weather Models. A basic description of such models can be found --> here <---, and at many other sources. Good weather injectors, flight planners, do their best to also integrate all of this data. Actually XP already uses GRIB data to populate winds and temperatures aloft, but at a rather course level ( 3 levels only, if I'm not wrong... ). Good weather programs will make it a lot finer, and interpolate these aloft data with the observations, and forecasts at the aerodromes or other reporting stations. It's sometimes quite a complex task... 

Naturally, not being observed, but rather - FORECAST - data, they are subject to not being absolutely accurate, and vary in time, depending on how many runs a day a model receives. Where I work we use 3hr interval outputs. Also, a good weather injector should add a bias to the GRIB data before adding it to the sim, otherwise it's use will come out extremely unrealistic according to real world operations. The data an OFP offers the crew preparing their flight, and even the UPLINK wind & temp forecasts along the flight / route, will be based on FORECAST not ACTUAL data, so, if an injector injects exactly that, it is making the life to simple - I would call it arcade weather injection 🙂

Hardy Heinlin, the Genius behind that Mighty Boeing 747-400 PSX simulator decided to do it on he's own, less the METAR, and developed he's own Global Weather engine, based on the Jetstream constellations on our Planet, and varying along the year as theoretically happens, or even allowing for the manual editing of those jetstreams !  but since in a future update we will also be able to inject weather forecasts from OFPs, he's now finding the best way to merge that data with he's standalone Earth Weather System.

Edited December 2, 2018 by jcomm