Environment Force Discussion Thread

[Cruachan 705]

59 minutes ago, Nemo said:

Although, it is not yet clear if SF needs to be open (running in sys tray) or not. Even REX members seem to have different opinions about this. See REX EF forum.

Hi Harry,

Logically the assumption is that there is no need to have SF3D running unless, of course, you have decided to use its weather engine instead of ASP4.

All EF seems to be doing is grabbing needed elements which are present on your SSD/HD by virtue of your having purchased and installed SF3D previously. Also this would reduce the size of the EF download. If you desire all the bells and whistles, as provided by EF, then perhaps SF3D should be mentioned as being a necessary prerequisite purchase?

Not sure how EF handles things if all that’s available to hand is a default P3D installation. I imagine there will be many users who have not purchased or may not want to purchase SF3D, preferring instead to use other 3rd Party solutions. Would this mean that EF cannot take advantage of changing cloud structures or are these elements in fact included as part of the EF installation? If the latter is true then that would allow EF to fully exploit the use of other 3rd Party clouds in ways similar to those provided by SF3D.

I must say I find this all very intriguing. Clearly it is still an evolving product and I’m quite sure all our feedback will be helping REX fine tune towards perfection.

Regards,

Mike

[CFIJose 5,485]

IMO, REX SkyForce & EF will be the "must have" weather add-ons, when they are finally completed. Weather engine improvement & full UI implementation should be an immediate priority for the REX team.

[CFIJose 5,485]

3 minutes ago, Cruachan said:

Hi Harry,

Logically the assumption is that there is no need to have SF3D running unless, of course, you have decided to use its weather engine instead of ASP4.

All EF seems to be doing is grabbing needed elements which are present on your SSD/HD by virtue of your having purchased and installed SF previously. Also this would reduce the size of the download of EF. If you desire all the bells and whistles, as provided by EF, then perhaps SF3D should be mentioned as being a necessary prerequisite purchase.

Not sure how EF handles things if all that’s available to hand is a default P3D installation. I imagine there will be many users who have not purchased or may not want to purchase SF3D, preferring instead to use other 3rd Party solutions. Would this mean that EF cannot take advantage of changing cloud structures or are these elements in fact included as part of the EF installation? If the latter is true then that would allow EF to fully exploit the use of other 3rd Party clouds in ways similar to those provided by SF3D.

I must say I find this all very intriguing. Clearly it is still an evolving product and I’m quite sure all our feedback will be helping REX fine tune towards perfection.

Regards,

Mike

You need SF if you want all the different variation of cloud & sky textures. I would say it's a requirement.

REX is just following the ASP4/ASCA route. However, because SF weather engine needs improvement, we chose ASP4 as the weather engine.

If we assume that the SF weather engine is as good ASP4, then we are left with REX SF/EV which together they are a lethal combination.

[GSalden 4,656]

17 minutes ago, earthdog said:

So that would mean that we will be able to use PTA for VC/Terrain and on top of that use also EF for the rest?

I suppose that with the upcoming hotfix this is possible, but you better ask the REX team ...

[Nyxx 6,993]

1 hour ago, simbol said:

David,

I understand your frustration, but somehow you found a bug that was unexpected.

As a developer I understand how these things can happen, before  I gave the first version of AI Lights Reborn Professional (BETA) to my Beta testers,  I tested it first myself for 3 months as much as I could with as many add-on's as I could, however the Beta testers used it in a way that I could have never foreseen and they found lots of bugs withing few hours. These bugs really took me by surprise to be honest, and many of them were due to 3rd party variables (3rd party add-on's, ways users configured their simulators, their operating system language, how they modify their AI traffic, etc.) all these variables would have been imposible for me to know in advance to anticipate and test.

I imagine REX problem is, injecting shaders while users are already using 3rd party products doing similar things.. and somehow the exact combination you and other have was not occurring inside their Beta tests.

I also understand why they wish to "Beta test" the fix first. This is not a bad approach if you think about it as it helps them to ensure when they release the update it will work as intended, now that they went LIVE and they have more data to understand what the causes of the problems are, they are expanding their tests to avoid further problems, so it is a good investment to let them be 100% sure everything will work.

No software is free of bugs, all ground breaking add-on's go thru this cycle when they are released the first time (some examples, GSX, FSLabs Airbus, Leonardo MadDog, etc.), and I am sure I will experience similar experiences during my releases as well despite all my efforts and intense tests my Beta team -which many of them you already know on this forums- have put towards it.

The important thing is knowing you are receiving the required support and they are working to get it sorted as fast as they can, we all know histories with software houses that release faulty products and never gets fixed.. but clearly this is not the case with REX.

My 2 cents,

Simbol

Yer I totally agree, I just wear my heart of my sleeve and after looking forward to EF and having half a day of work to enjoy it, it's all very frustrating.

 

[Michael Moe 494]

11 minutes ago, Nyxx said:

Yer I totally agree, I just wear my heart of my sleeve and after looking forward to EF and having half a day of work to enjoy it, it's all very frustrating.

 

Hi David , so is your trouble over and is it fixed (😉)

Thanks

Michael Moe

 

Edited May 3, 2019 by Michael Moe

[portanav 12]

I must report that EF is an excellent product and works perfectly on my system. I use Tomatoshade and not PTA, I also have REX TD, SF and WA; all working beautifully together. I am posting for all those who may be apprehensive about getting EF. Get it, you won't be sorry.

[Nyxx 6,993]

30 minutes ago, Michael Moe said:

Hi David , so is your trouble over and is it fixed (😉)

Thanks

Michael Moe

 

No Micheal waiting for the hotfix. 

[Wolkenschreck 269]

For the time being, I have removed Envshade and use the stock shaders with Environment Force. And the more I see, the more do I like it.

There are still some bits and pieces that could be polished (mainly HDR in my case) or that were user errors on my end (e.g., water detail needs to be at ultra).

But overall I am optimistic and I can see the huge potential it has. And as Simbol already pointed out, the REX guys are giving their best to address issues and they want to add more features in the future.

Christoph

Edited May 3, 2019 by Wolkenschreck

[earthdog 842]

1 hour ago, GSalden said:

I suppose that with the upcoming hotfix this is possible, but you better ask the REX team ...

Did that here:

https://www.realenvironmentxtreme.com/forums/index.php?/topic/50998-shaders-expressions-in-manual-mode/&tab=comments#comment-316240

[Pete Dowson 558]

I've purchased EF. I already have SF3D, ASCA and ASP4.

I will disuse ASCA because, as I understand it, it shouldn't be needed. However, it is loaded automatically by ASP4 and there doesn't appear to be an option to not load it in ASP4.

So, I want to just rename the folder it is in, or maybe the EXE, so it can't be loaded. I don't really want to uninstall it in case I want to re-enable it.

How are other EF users doing this?

Pete

 

[hollow1slo 246]

5 minutes ago, Pete Dowson said:

I've purchased EF. I already have SF3D, ASCA and ASP4.

I will disuse ASCA because, as I understand it, it shouldn't be needed. However, it is loaded automatically by ASP4 and there doesn't appear to be an option to not load it in ASP4.

So, I want to just rename the folder it is in, or maybe the EXE, so it can't be loaded. I don't really want to uninstall it in case I want to re-enable it.

How are other EF users doing this?

Pete

 

Just uninstall ASCA, that should do it...

[Cruachan 705]

14 minutes ago, hollow1slo said:

Just uninstall ASCA, that should do it...

Or, simply disable/deselect the various options via the ASCA GUI. That way ASCA still loads with ASP4 but it’s features are ignored.

Mike

[djbully 210]

How are people getting on with networked configs? 

I have ASP4 + ASCA + SF3D all on my networked machine, running in networked mode. EF however will not install on my networked machine, because it cant find the P3D folder. So I installed on my P3D machine and run the program. It's difficult to tell if EF knows that SF3D is running. 

It seems like its doing it's thing, but just maybe a little to bright. Even when overcast it seems like sunlight is shining brightly through my cockpit. I need to fiddle with some settings, running in full automation mode. 

How are your networked setups running this? 

 

Cheers,

 

[Nyxx 6,993]

19 minutes ago, hollow1slo said:

Just uninstall ASCA, that should do it...

He said he did not want to uninstall 🙂