Rex Weather

[MrBitstFlyer 3,901]

Something puzzles me about Rex Weather.  It is Metar Based, so one should expect the sky in all directions to look similar but to morph globally as a new metar area is entered.  I tried a preset called 'approaching cold front'.  I just sat on the ground to observe the weather.  One direction had a completely blue sky, but the other clearly showed a cloudscape with falling rain.  The 'front' got closer over time and the visibility dropped as the rain approached - no morphing of weather was observed.  I took off and flew into the rain, did a one eighty and flew out of the rain to see a blue sky in the distance.  How is Rex doing this when I always thought the only way to see weather in the distance was with live weather?  If this effect can be achieved in a preset, why not when transiting between wx stations.

Not a criticism of the software, just interested how they manage to get a different looking sky in different directions but only in a preset?

[Eclex 102]

I noticed a new REX update this morning. I flew from Tokyo to Mount Fuji in the new Kodiak using REX weather force. The mountain was enclosed in clouds as I flew in at around 9000+ feet.  I wanted to actually land near the top, but the winds got spooky strong and my ground speed was near 50 knots. I turned around and headed back down east and put that adventure off until another day. All the while, the weather appeared real, and Tokyo was fairly clear. I really like this REX WX program. I was using live REX weather too 🙂

 

Edited January 1, 2022 by Eclex

[Soulflight 97]

I got and tested REX weather force in the last few days. IMHO its live weather mode is as close as we currently get to what we are used to from Active Sky etc. Is far as i notice its a bit more basic than that though: the weather changes to the current METAR close to your position, but there are no "virtual stations" created in the "holes" in between. So either the existing METARS are used to fill those gaps or they simply have a clear sky. I cant test that because so far I didnt do any long range flights in MSFS.

btw. Whats this aerosol injection option about? I enabled it in the beginning but it makes the sun look like it became a supernova, making it impossible to watch actual sunsets instead of a nuclear blast. So whats the point of this option other than bringing my VRAM to its knees? The exaggerated bloom seems to be linked to air humidity but i visited plenty of tropical high-dewpoint regions in my life and it never looked like that in the evening.

Edited January 9, 2022 by Soulflight

[AnkH 2,282]

On 1/2/2022 at 12:13 AM, MrBitstFlyer said:

 

Not a criticism of the software, just interested how they manage to get a different looking sky in different directions but only in a preset?

A very good question, because the absence of such weather diversity in the REX live weather is THE reason I still did not buy it. It also seems strange to me that it is possible in a preset, but not in live weather. Only explanation I have: as REX live weather is METAR based, it simply lacks the relevant info to display for example an approaching cold front, while in a preset, this can be defined easily...

[flieger28 34]

For me REX is a step back. 
The great plus of MSFS Live weather (when it is working) is, that it is dynamic. REX instead is more or less static and have the active sky like transitions, and for me at least, that kills the immersion. 
For the last 2 weeks for me Live Weather (Europe) was spot on. When i look at the Winds in the Simbrief Flightplan, than the actual data in the sim matches most of the time. 
The only part where Rex is superior in my point of view is in the rendering of the clouds. In MSFS it seems 70% of the Time cumulus. 
For the last 2 weeks the Live Weather of MSFS only didn't work during the outage during new year. Other then that it was okay for me. 
I could see a front with rain which was shown in Volanta 1:1 in the sim.  

 

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by flieger28
typos

[David Mills 4,774]

I've been very impressed lately with the performance of MSFS's Live Weather. Last Wednesday, for example, the skies were clear and the ground was dry in my hometown of Huntington, West Virginia. MSFS reflected this identical condition. Thursday the skies were full of snow and the ground was covered. MSFS also showed these identical winter conditions. Friday the skies were clear but snow was still covering the ground here in Huntington. MSFS again nailed this real-world weather perfectly. Saturday rain was falling locally on the already-snow-covered ground. MSFS got it right. Today the snow is mostly gone and the sky is overcast and drizzly. MSFS also displayed this real-world weather scenario accurately. I know that Live Weather has suffered problems in the past. But, for me, Live Weather is now working surprisingly well.

[March Hare 720]

2 hours ago, flieger28 said:

The only part where Rex is superior in my point of view is in the rendering of the clouds. In MSFS it seems 70% of the Time cumulus. 

Except REX isn't rendering the clouds, Asobo's weather engine is. Clouds are more diverse in user-defined or preset mode in the sim, which is what REX is ostensibly tapping into/manipulating. An overabundance of cumulonimbus in MSFS live weather mode seems, therefore, to be a symptom of the data received from Meteoblue, potentially regional in its quality. I could be wrong, but it's one logical conclusion.

For me, however, in the few flights I've done since the update, I've seen varied cloud cover, including overcast, and only cumulonimbus once, compared to pre-patch.