... to the recently published REX Environment Force? 

Many of us are using ASP4 weather + SF3D/ASCA or other textures and shader mods (EnvShade, PTA, TS, ...). Now EF is available. For me it seems very likely that HiFi will come up with related products. With ASCA they were the first who introduced fully dynamic sky textures. Other developers followed soon to provide more and more dynamic and weather dependent environment.. My guess, we will get a surprising product from Hifi this year.

Speculations/Expectations opened ...

I think most of the developers that have anything to do with weather / shaders will start to use this new 'on-the-fly' refresh of shaders. Like Matt Davis posted in the PTA forum; "I will have some pretty major news regarding PTA & it's future in the coming weeks. P3D v4.5 brings a wealth of new things for us to utilize, that mixed with hiring a developer from the games industry that understands shader technology, let's just say that the future is very bright for PTA"

Sounds like there's a lot of interesting opportunities to be found in its function.

I just hope that someone makes a complete shader program that actually works on the fly.  EF is great- fantastic, but it's not complete.  PTA and Tomato are more in-depth but even with the refresh option, it's still a tedious process to get things right.  Even in x-plane, x-enviro has been teasing a major overhaul for months.  In my opinion, shader tweak sliders should have been included as a stock feature...

 

Edited May 3, 20197 yr by dal330200

2 hours ago, Sethos1988 said:

I think most of the developers that have anything to do with weather / shaders will start to use this new 'on-the-fly' refresh of shaders. Like Matt Davis posted in the PTA forum; "I will have some pretty major news regarding PTA & it's future in the coming weeks. P3D v4.5 brings a wealth of new things for us to utilize, that mixed with hiring a developer from the games industry that understands shader technology, let's just say that the future is very bright for PTA"

Sounds like there's a lot of interesting opportunities to be found in its function.

Looking forward to finding out what the future of PTA will bring to the table...

I think that what separates REX products from the pack is that Reed is a student of the Cloud Atlas (the technical manual not the novel). His cloud textures are IMO the most natural looking. Active Sky has been the top dog for weather injection for a long time now, but its UI looks dated and it hasn't really added any key features recently. That has given REX a chance to take what they've learned from other products and create a unified weather suite that is innovative. I remember when OPUS dominated the weather injector market and where are they now?

HiFi have been busy developing their XP weather engine. I'm sure they got some great things planned for us and, pardon the pun, this is just the calm before the storm. I've been extremely happy using ASP4 with ASCA and Envtex/Envshade for a while now. It does what it says on the tin, is stable and reliable and just works. I personally don't mind a "dated UI" that is structured and clear, rather than having a pretty looking modern one that has so many sliders, dials and options that I need to spend half a day just trying to understand what half of them do.

REX on the other hand, in my opinion, keep pushing things out accompanied by a bunch of Marketing hyperbole and some buzzwords and then don't deliver on what's promised. To be fair, I don't even fully understand half of their products thanks to all the Marketing talk and convoluted product portfolio. I used to enjoy REX products back in the day, but for me they have somehow lost credibility and instead of focusing on one area and getting that right they try to cover it all, don't get it right and then brush over it with some pretty screenshots and empty marketing promises. Feel free to disagree, just my two cents.

Edited May 3, 20197 yr by Speedbird 217

1 hour ago, Speedbird 217 said:

HiFi have been busy developing their XP weather engine. I'm sure they got some great things planned for us and, pardon the pun, this is just the calm before the storm. I've been extremely happy using ASP4 with ASCA and Envtex/Envshade for a while now. It does what it says on the tin, is stable and reliable and just works. I personally don't mind a "dated UI" that is structured and clear, rather than having a pretty looking modern one that has so many sliders, dials and options that I need to spend half a day just trying to understand what half of them do.

REX on the other hand, in my opinion, keep pushing things out accompanied by a bunch of Marketing hyperbole and some buzzwords and then don't deliver on what's promised. To be fair, I don't even fully understand half of their products thanks to all the Marketing talk and convoluted product portfolio. I used to enjoy REX products back in the day, but for me they have somehow lost credibility and instead of focusing on one area and getting that right they try to cover it all, don't get it right and then brush over it with some pretty screenshots and empty marketing promises. Feel free to disagree, just my two cents.

I do, and did.......

 

 

 

3 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

 Active Sky has been the top dog for weather injection for a long time now, but its UI looks dated and it hasn't really added any key features recently. That has given REX a chance to take what they've learned from other products and create a unified weather suite that is innovative. I remember when OPUS dominated the weather injector market and where are they now?

This...

Looking at what they are doing now, I really think they are pushing weather for P3D. Rex's UI is phenomenal and I really believe they are pushing the envelope with the newer P3D APIs and their next product will complete it. They are innovating and not trying to be safe, I admire that. I suspect before the year's ends we will have HiFi vs Rex camps just like the other cliques around here. 

3 hours ago, Speedbird 217 said:

HiFi have been busy developing their XP weather engine. I'm sure they got some great things planned for us and, pardon the pun, this is just the calm before the storm. I've been extremely happy using ASP4 with ASCA and Envtex/Envshade for a while now. It does what it says on the tin, is stable and reliable and just works. I personally don't mind a "dated UI" that is structured and clear, rather than having a pretty looking modern one that has so many sliders, dials and options that I need to spend half a day just trying to understand what half of them do.

REX on the other hand, in my opinion, keep pushing things out accompanied by a bunch of Marketing hyperbole and some buzzwords and then don't deliver on what's promised. To be fair, I don't even fully understand half of their products thanks to all the Marketing talk and convoluted product portfolio. I used to enjoy REX products back in the day, but for me they have somehow lost credibility and instead of focusing on one area and getting that right they try to cover it all, don't get it right and then brush over it with some pretty screenshots and empty marketing promises. Feel free to disagree, just my two cents.

+1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000...…..to eternity😵🤯

Max, you explained the correct and undeniable truth excellently. You say its your opinion, but I call it truthful facts, proven over and over for years. 🔍 🧐👨‍🏫👨‍🎓

I'm glad we have ASP4, ASCA, ENVTEX, ENVSHADE; my P3D4.5 skies look and act just as good as anybody else's P3Dv4 skies, all done automatically, so I can fly, not fiddle.😁👨‍✈️🛫

Disagreeing with me is not going to change anything for me.

I really love ASP4 and do not find their UI outdated at all. Easy to use and not redundant.

I prefer SkyForce clouds, structures, and sky color textures over ASCA, but it's still a nice add-on if you add ENVTEX.

HiFi has had the go to weather engine for years, but their clouds and sky color textures have always left much to be desired. That's a void REX filled in nicely!

I haven't jumped on any of REX's latest offerings for this very reason. I want to see what HiFi brings to the table, compare them side to side and then decide which is best for me. I'm excited to see what's in the pipeline. But until then, I'm quite content to hold on to the current ASP4/ASCA/Envtex/Tomato solution.

I'm personally tired of senseless weather software (or similar) releases that aren't bringing any jaw dropping results, mostly due to P3D being P3D. I'm sticking with essentials and pretty content with it too, unless there's a major leap in technology I'll probably stay unimpressed for a while.

I may be wrong but I don't see EF as a "competitor" to HiFi at this time. I see it in competition with Envshade, PTA and Tomatoshade.  If I understand the product correctly, when Weather Force is released, THAT will be in competition with ASP4.

Vic

The competition is to see who has the best suite. How they match up:

Weather Injector                    HiFi: Active Sky, REX- SkyForce (soon to be augmented with WeatherForce as a free upgrade)

Cloud models, sky colors      HiFi: ASCA, REX - SkyForce

Dynamic Shaders                 HiFi: ?, REX - EnvironmentForce

 

8 hours ago, kowen said:

I suspect before the year's ends we will have HiFi vs Rex camps just like the other cliques around here. 

 

Well, that's been looming around here for years.