8 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Ever flown in Australia, New Zealand or Alaska in daytime? If so the sim is depicting night-time weather for a daytime flight. Realistic? Hmmm.

Is it? It's using real time Information. Are you referring to the effect of the sun or what? I've not seen much grumbling from folks from Aus on here re the terribly bad weather depiction? (Cue hundreds of people from Aus grumbling about the weather!😃.)

The thing is this. In XP11 when I used AS, it was a massive, huge, enormous improvement for real time weather. (Transitions for a start.)  If they managed to get it into MSFS this would not be the case. There might be the odd small additional feature such as historical weather but it ain't going to be the game changer that it was in XP..

I dread to think how much I spent on weather and cloud addons for XP. AS worked. But the rest were awful and even when they sort of worked dragged my PC down on its knees. I have not had to spend a farthing on a weather addon for MSFS.

For sure, I'd like to see improvements. More cloud variety for one. But AS for XP used the default 2D XP clouds as far as I remember (you could tweak the resolution)  so AS won't help in that department. It did add some cirrus but that was not based on any real world data. You set it manually with a slider. And the clouds still blew away to the side as you got near.

Edited March 10, 20233 yr by jarmstro

7 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

How much did your graphics card cost? 😉

better still how  much  for  a  carton  of  beer 🙂

9 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

We don't need yet another program hogging system resources, running besides MSFS.

Yep, such as all those pesky aircraft add-ons and scenery add-ons, glad they are not allowed either.

8 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

MSFS has been out for 2.5 years now and they still haven’t done it. It’s baffling why not.

Have you tried the weather in MSFS? 

At any rate, there is no indication that MSFS will open the weather api to third-party developers, so why are we beating this dead horse?

9 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

We don't need yet another program hogging system resources, running besides MSFS.

In a world where CPUs with 16+ physical cores is growing commonplace, that's really not a worry, not to mention that the processing required is orders of magnitude lower than doing manipulations of thousands of objects in 3D space for eye candy far less consequential than weather (like AI traffic).

A flight simulator platform with a weather system that doesn't allow control of something as basic as visibility is incomplete and functionally impaired.

After all this time, it still seems there is a small yet vocal part of the community that remains of the opinion that there is nothing but negatives if a proper weather API is allowed...  that despite any other add-on being the same kind of opportunity, extending one or several aspects of the simulation or content (aircraft, scenery, any other utility), only weather should be "banned".

There's also this belief that having ANY weather add-on allowed would compromise and ruin the weather experience for everyone in the long run.  That somehow allowing an API would prevent any further weather improvement in the default experience.  

It's my opinion that these ideas are misguided, and absolutely hurting the long run experience in many areas, not only weather.  Of course, it's been very hard for us, to be at the top of weather technology in every sim platform including MSFS (I'd say at least part of what we did was actually earned over 20+ years of efforts) to be suddenly shut out and not allowed to participate while nearly the entire market embraced a new platform that we didn't have access to.  While it seemed the general community supported this and wanted us gone, under the guise of the risk that we pose to enabling a decent default weather experience.  All very hard for a very small development team that got in this business, and only stays in this business, because of the reward that making great software and getting great results and hearing about great customer experiences gives us.  Until MSFS2020, every sim engine developer we've worked with has been great, we've had a great relationship built on trust and mutual benefit, and they truly WANTED US on that platform.  MSFS2020 and at least a very vocal part of the community clearly DOES NOT WANT US and that is the main reason we aren't on the platform.  Maybe things will change.  We're open to reconsidering and actively still working on MSFS2020 for quite some time now.

Today, we focus where we're wanted, and where we're encouraged to innovate new features and technologies.  Speaking of which, several things that are in MSFS2020, we debuted many of them, many years ago.  Perhaps, some of our efforts, innovations, and offerings, all enabled by having an open API, isn't really a bad thing.  

 

Edited March 10, 20233 yr by Damian Clark

51 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

Is it? It's using real time Information. Are you referring to the effect of the sun or what?

No he's not.  

This summer I might want to do some cargo runs out of KMEM.  If I fly in the day, as in real-time day, it's gonna be hot, like 95 degrees fahrenheit.  In the sim I can set time-of-day to night, that's great, but it doesn't change the weather -- it could be set to 2:00 am but it will still be an unrealistic-for-night-KMEM 95degF.  I can't simulate the 75degF weather on a typical night cargo run unless I wait to fly in the real-time evening when I'm tired, or turn off real-time weather and manually set it.  But why would I turn off real-time weather?  I enjoy the realistic changes over time that real-time weather brings...that's one of the strengths of the real-time MeteoBlue information!

5 minutes ago, Mace said:

No he's not.  

This summer I might want to do some cargo runs out of KMEM.  If I fly in the day, as in real-time day, it's gonna be hot, like 95 degrees fahrenheit.  In the sim I can set time-of-day to night, that's great, but it doesn't change the weather -- it could be set to 2:00 am but it will still be an unrealistic-for-night-KMEM 95degF.  I can't simulate the 75degF weather on a typical night cargo run unless I wait to fly in the real-time evening when I'm tired, or turn off real-time weather and manually set it.  But why would I turn off real-time weather?  I enjoy the realistic changes over time that real-time weather brings...that's one of the strengths of the real-time MeteoBlue information!

Ah! yes. If you change the time it's still using the current weather.  I see what Ray means now. 

7 hours ago, Mace said:

Ok, so then no addon -- Asobo really need to add the ability to have the past day's weather, so that when I get home from work in the evening, I don't have to always fly in nighttime visibility.

I'm so glad I do shift work when I hear stories like this. 

20 minutes ago, Damian Clark said:

After all this time, it still seems there is a small yet vocal part of the community that remains of the opinion that there is nothing but negatives if a proper weather API is allowed...  that despite any other add-on being the same kind of opportunity, extending one or several aspects of the simulation or content (aircraft, scenery, any other utility), only weather should be "banned".

There's also this belief that having ANY weather add-on allowed would compromise and ruin the weather experience for everyone in the long run.  That somehow allowing an API would prevent any further weather improvement in the default experience.  

It's my opinion that these ideas are misguided, and absolutely hurting the long run experience in many areas, not only weather.  Of course, it's been very hard for us, to be at the top of weather technology in every sim platform including MSFS (I'd say at least part of what we did was actually earned over 20+ years of efforts) to be suddenly shut out and not allowed to participate while nearly the entire market embraced a new platform that we didn't have access to.  While it seemed the general community supported this and wanted us gone, under the guise of the risk that we pose to enabling a decent default weather experience.  All very hard for a very small development team that got in this business, and only stays in this business, because of the reward that making great software and getting great results and hearing about great customer experiences gives us.  Until MSFS2020, every sim engine developer we've worked with has been great, we've had a great relationship built on trust and mutual benefit, and they truly WANTED US on that platform.  MSFS2020 and at least a very vocal part of the community clearly DOES NOT WANT US and that is the main reason we aren't on the platform.  Maybe things will change.  We're open to reconsidering and actively still working on MSFS2020 for quite some time now.

Today, we focus where we're wanted, and where we're encouraged to innovate new features and technologies.  Speaking of which, several things that are in MSFS2020, we debuted many of them, many years ago.  Perhaps, some of our efforts, innovations, and offerings, all enabled by having an open API, isn't really a bad thing.  

 

Brilliant post. 

24 minutes ago, Damian Clark said:

MSFS2020 and at least a very vocal part of the community clearly DOES NOT WANT US and that is the main reason we aren't on the platform.

I would help me to understand what I am missing out on if you would kindly specify exactly what you could bring to the party?

28 minutes ago, Damian Clark said:

After all this time, it still seems there is a small yet vocal part of the community that remains of the opinion that there is nothing but negatives if a proper weather API is allowed...  that despite any other add-on being the same kind of opportunity, extending one or several aspects of the simulation or content (aircraft, scenery, any other utility), only weather should be "banned".

There's also this belief that having ANY weather add-on allowed would compromise and ruin the weather experience for everyone in the long run.  That somehow allowing an API would prevent any further weather improvement in the default experience.  

It's my opinion that these ideas are misguided, and absolutely hurting the long run experience in many areas, not only weather.  Of course, it's been very hard for us, to be at the top of weather technology in every sim platform including MSFS (I'd say at least part of what we did was actually earned over 20+ years of efforts) to be suddenly shut out and not allowed to participate while nearly the entire market embraced a new platform that we didn't have access to.  While it seemed the general community supported this and wanted us gone, under the guise of the risk that we pose to enabling a decent default weather experience.  All very hard for a very small development team that got in this business, and only stays in this business, because of the reward that making great software and getting great results and hearing about great customer experiences gives us.  Until MSFS2020, every sim engine developer we've worked with has been great, we've had a great relationship built on trust and mutual benefit, and they truly WANTED US on that platform.  MSFS2020 and at least a very vocal part of the community clearly DOES NOT WANT US and that is the main reason we aren't on the platform.  Maybe things will change.  We're open to reconsidering and actively still working on MSFS2020 for quite some time now.

Today, we focus where we're wanted, and where we're encouraged to innovate new features and technologies.  Speaking of which, several things that are in MSFS2020, we debuted many of them, many years ago.  Perhaps, some of our efforts, innovations, and offerings, all enabled by having an open API, isn't really a bad thing.  

 

MSFS WX stinks...royally.  So please, work hard to find a way.  I'll buy it.

4 minutes ago, Dreamflight767 said:

MSFS WX stinks...royally.  So please, work hard to find a way.  I'll buy it.

What sim, in its default state, has better weather in your opinion?

20 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

What sim, in its default state, has better weather in your opinion?

That's not really the discussion though. The discussion is about whether and how to make MSFS weather better. The options are:

1. Nothing needs to be done; it's perfect.

2. There's no need for a 3rd party injection/depiction because MS/Asobo will figure it out over time.

3. Allow 3rd party options that people can add/purchase if they choose to and which use an API to access the underlying weather system.

I really don't see why there are so many people hell bent on keeping the sim at its purest form and not allow #3. I certainly wouldn't agree with #1 as I find the weather depiction to be depressingly monotonous and I HATE the fact that I can't time shift the weather along with the time of day. As for #2, sure, that could happen, but why not allow a little competition and then incorporate some of those ideas/techniques into the base sim? After, competition spurs innovation.

I would love, love, love to have a historical weather (not storms on specific dates, per se, but rather being able to select seasonal averages for different times of the day at any point in the year). It would be better if it was the actual historical weather, but I'd take averages. With real weather, my historical PSXT traffic and the patterns being flown would match the weather being depicted. 

Edited March 10, 20233 yr by mmcmah

32 minutes ago, Damian Clark said:

Today, we focus where we're wanted, and where we're encouraged to innovate new features and technologies. 

Damian, can you speak to challenges you have in working w/ the voxel-based cloud structures vis a vis what we had w/ ASN in P3D/FSX?  My sense is the volumetric clouds in MSFS and XP12 are too low in density to afford the kind of complexity needed to depict a large variety of distinct cloud types we would love to see.  Is it even possible at current density levels of what you have to work w/ in XP12 to get the kind of high definition clouds we had in the prior 2D sprite world?  Instead you get this general blurriness,  sometimes like they're out of focus, especially the closer you get to cloud structures, at least in MSFS haven't tried XP12 yet.  Here are two examples of cloud.  XP's not bad, but doesn't hold a candle to the RW clouds below.  What needs to change to get much closer to RW quality cloud depiction, that would almost pass the Cloud Turing Test?  My sense is the base tool you have to work with just isn't capable and that alot of that has to do with density/resolution.

XP12:

Versus RW: