MS/Asobo and opening Weather / Camera SDK to 3rd Parties

[Damian Clark 1,257]

2 hours ago, Pastaiolo said:

This is not a charity and we are not here to keep certain developers afloat. If their software is needed we'll ask and buy it, if it isn't those developers should ask themselves that maybe there are other sims or addons they should focus their energies on.

The given reason that the majority wants an open weather SDK but few crying babies are stopping all of that is honestly childish and quite biased.

Could you try and put yourself in my shoes for a moment?  25 years of weather simulation development.  We focused on weather, all our eggs in that basket, that's why we succeed and accomplished what we did.  And it's partly why you have some of the features in FS2020 now that you enjoy.  We innovated on many fronts.  The other platforms do not have sustainable add-on markets, FS2020 has taken nearly all of it.  Seems like 95% of everyone is REALLY WANTING THIS.  We just learned there's nothing preventing it but a decision.  Here we are with a last chance situation, either we go out of business, or we're allowed to participate very soon (or we decide to release a very limited product without any API anyway, as our competitors have done) .  As I've been doing for years now, I'm trying to communicate the situation and advocate for open API access.  I really believe that a proper AS for FS would be a plus for everyone, but more importantly, opening weather/camera access, and opening ALL parts of the sim, to everyone, instead of the opposite, is the most important thing.

Yes, I'm childish and biased, thank you for sharing your opinion, you are right.  But I still think there should be weather access and I think it's actually a good thing for everyone, you included.  And I do think that "anti-3rd-party-weather" sentiment has had a big influence, in a negative way.  I realize I have a different perspective than most.  

Edited May 17, 2023 by Damian Clark

[lwt1971 7,408]

17 minutes ago, Damian Clark said:

The other platforms do not have sustainable add-on markets, FS2020 has taken nearly all of it.  Seems like 95% of everyone is REALLY WANTING THIS.  We just learned there's nothing preventing it but a decision.  Here we are with a last chance situation, either we go out of business, or we're allowed to participate very soon.  As I've been doing for years now, I'm trying to communicate the situation and advocate for open API access.

That is an interesting and serious comment you make there, and I suppose speaks to what we've all been witnessing since MSFS released... I'm interested to discuss more about why you feel the new incarnations of other sims do not provide big enough of a market for your add-ons but that's OT and I suppose it'll also ruffle various feathers and this thread will devolve. In any case, I sincerely do hope MS/Asobo open up the sim for 3rd party weather modding since like I've said before, given the state of the sim now, there are more upsides than downsides for MS/Asobo to set aside some time to do the necessary work to open it up (compared to the earlier days of MSFS when they needed to be heads down on various core functionality and issues).
 

Edited May 17, 2023 by lwt1971

[Bones62 79]

14 minutes ago, Damian Clark said:

Could you try and put yourself in my shoes for a moment?  25 years of weather simulation development.

ActiveSky in its many forms was always the first addon I installed in FSX and P3D. I would love to see you have a chance at MSFS.

[Lucky38i 1,095]

7 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

The entire VATSIM/IVAO/Pilot Edge crowd disagrees with you.  FYI, I don't fly on VATSIM much these days. But there are a lot of people that do use it, and they need METAR weather in MSFS because it synchronizes with the VATSIM/IVAO/Pilot Edge networks.

This literally ignores the drawback of METARs for the situation I’m explaining. I even gave you an example as to why it’s a drawback.

[Damian Clark 1,257]

24 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

 I'm interested to discuss more about why you feel the new incarnations of other sims do not provide big enough of a market for your add-ons

Direct experience and "industry exposure".  Outside of a few blips of activity, people are just not buying very much (all genres of add-ons).  It's mainly the ultra-realism-focused enthusiasts and professional users who FS2020 is not an option for - who remain on the other platforms, and they already bought our products many years ago so there is nothing but expense in support and network costs for us there, with an occasional new version (ala XP12) that requires significant interface redesign work for an overall negative return on our investment.  Certainly new sims like XP12 have a future and will grow, but it's very small currently.  FS2020 has dominated nearly all demographics (for good reason, and well deserved), and they might even get all of them including the ultra-realism-focused and professional users if they do things like open up the API fully again.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Damian Clark

[Silicus 880]

What I do not get is that MS hired/contracted 'Working Title' to clean up the incomplete avionics in msfs. Why are they not doing the same thing with Damian Clark/Hifi regarding the weather is beyond me, if they can not open the API due to contractual limits with Meteoblue... 

Joerg said in one of the developer sessions, that 'they have really smart people working on the weather engine' yet they made the simple mistakes (which they fixed) depicting 10 nm visibility as 10 nm visibility, which of course means 'unlimited', at least in North America. What other things are they missing? We have seen plenty of missing features on these pages!

Flying is at least 50% weather. It is a very important aspect and it should be much better than it is right now!

 

[Damian Clark 1,257]

53 minutes ago, Silicus said:

Flying is at least 50% weather. It is a very important aspect and it should be much better than it is right now!

I think its absolutely incredible and amazing as it is right now.  It was when it launched and is much better now (albeit some possible missteps along the way).

But, like everything else, it's a perfect opportunity for further 3rd party development to bring those features that most users don't care about and/or MS/Asobo couldn't possibly prioritize, for understandable reasons.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Damian Clark

[Keirtt 574]

2 hours ago, Damian Clark said:

We SO want to do this for FS2020, and SO much more!  

I'm still very hopeful that Asobo/Microsoft will find a way to open up things so you all can take a stab at it. I really enjoyed the work you all did in p3d and look forward to ActiveSky coming to MSFS one day!

[Orlaam 306]

3 hours ago, Damian Clark said:

Ummm, our advanced radar, precipitation and reflectivity simulation for FSX/P3D (which debuted with ASNext about 10 years ago) is based on actual cloud positions, and absolutely is synchronized and accurate within around 250 meters horizontally and 50 meters vertically.  There was no arbitrary rain in the area you flew.  It was and is highly accurate. 

For example, if you sit on the runway in scattered/broken precipitating cloud layers, the rain starts and stops, increases, decreases in intensity, updated at least every 1/4 second.  Turbulence is handled similarly as well as tstorm-based updrafts and downdrafts, hail and anvil simulation, based on the actual synchronized cloud positions, heights and associated computed precip type/intensity.  

You both must be referring to another platform or earlier product, or subsequent new procedural cloud depiction modes which removed our ability to identify clouds and their positions and never made new API/SDK available to do such.  But it still works with legacy clouds.  Here's a video from 9 years ago: 

We SO want to do this for FS2020, and SO much more!  

I think your comment was directed at me.  I do feel the rain and radar were a bit arbitrary in FSX.  You could be quite a distance from the clouds and still have rain coming down as you flew.  For the most part, yes, any depiction of weather on the radar was something to avoid if it wasn't just green.  But you also had blobs of cells that were unrealistic.  I also don't expect weather to be implemented in a game as if you would see outside.  It's dynamic and translated mostly from METARs gather from local stations.  The blank spots are thus needing to be filled with visuals that might not be accurate.  I think expectations can be extreme too. 

[Orlaam 306]

3 hours ago, WestAir said:

Ideally, I'd want a 3PD to expeditiously make the weather capable of danger. The default engine will allow me to fly straight into the anvil of a CB with a 172. In no small list, the default engine has:

• No hail
• No lightning
• No cirrus or iridescent clouds
• No stratus (or alto-stratus)
• No mesospheric cloud formations
• No microbursts or macrobursts ("Wind Shear - Wind Shear!"
• No squall lines or outflow boundaries
• No lenticular, Horseshoe, Fractus, Arcus, or Velum cloud formations
• No sandstorms, ash clouds, or other city-sized meteorological events
• No human made weather visuals like smokestack smoke, fires, or smog
• No Aurora Borealis, St.Elmo's fire, or other visually unique events
• No Tuba cloud formations like: vortexes, hurricanes depiction, tornadoes, or dust devils
• No wet / contaminated surfaces after rain stops
• No wet / contaminated surfaces due to fog / high dew point
• Precipitation does not care for wind direction or speed. (At high altitudes you should be able to see rain snow or hail hit you from below)
• No proper icing simulation
• No wake turbulence

The engine can depict all of these. The only reason they're not in the base sim is because the devs have their hands full with more important aspects of the simulation. IMHO, much like WT is fixing the 787 and 748, a 3PD would be more incentivized to do these because they tend to focus on niche realism.

The bonus of letting 3PD's drive weather ahead is that the millions of players who don't care for realistic weather can opt out of it, which isn't always possible when Asobo implements things themselves. (See: Lightning in clear skies and icing while flying through 2,000 feet of cumulus.)

While many of those things are missing, do we really need them?  I would welcome contaminated runways affecting your stopping distance, but considering how ridiculous the ground handling is, how likely would you just run off the runway?  That would require some careful techniques on all sides to translate into longer stopping distances.  Proper icing would be nice, but again, how do you manage this implementation without ruining a flight?  Just because the numbers lean towards icing doesn't mean you will experience it.  Developers would need to alter their flight dynamics, because having ice doesn't mean stalling out of the sky.  Neither of those are easy to add IMO.  Hail?  Do we need hail?  What purpose would it serve in the sim over heavy rain? Damage to the plane?  No one purposely flies into hail, so seeing a bad storm on radar and avoiding it are essential.  Wake turbulence is another one.  Yes, it happens, and we had that in Active Sky, but how often do those lame AI plane cut right in front of you without any ATC coordination, thus possibly tossing you out of the sky?

I think it much wider variety of clouds, severe weather, and other anomalies you mentioned would be nice.  Icing would be great but hard to implement in a way that doesn't ruin a flight.  I'm reminded of a video where icing is encountered and seems rather sketchy, but some accommodations are made and the flight continues on.  How do you make icing in a small plane a problem when it's not for an airliner??  That would require some developer coding.

And V1 Simulations had some lightening today into ATL, so it's in the sim, but I don't know what triggers it.  Start at 2:16, during final approach.

 

[scotchegg 4,186]

4 hours ago, Damian Clark said:

I really believe that a proper AS for FS would be a plus for everyone

It might help get more users in your corner if you could suggest a list of things a prospective AS MSFS could bring to improve over default weather. (if you haven't already done so?)

[abrams_tank 7,412]

3 hours ago, Damian Clark said:

Direct experience and "industry exposure".  Outside of a few blips of activity, people are just not buying very much (all genres of add-ons).  It's mainly the ultra-realism-focused enthusiasts and professional users who FS2020 is not an option for - who remain on the other platforms, and they already bought our products many years ago so there is nothing but expense in support and network costs for us there, with an occasional new version (ala XP12) that requires significant interface redesign work for an overall negative return on our investment.  Certainly new sims like XP12 have a future and will grow, but it's very small currently.  FS2020 has dominated nearly all demographics (for good reason, and well deserved), and they might even get all of them including the ultra-realism-focused and professional users if they do things like open up the API fully again.

Hi Damian. Thanks for your candid answer. This is what I suspected as well, and may trigger more 3rd party developers to move to MSFS, or prioritize MSFS. But it's always good to have an actual 3rd party developer that has products on multiple flight simulation platforms, confirm this. 

[jarmstro 2,402]

47 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

It might help get more users in your corner if you could suggest a list of things a prospective AS MSFS could bring to improve over default weather. (if you haven't already done so?)

I agree. I'm still unclear on exactly how ActiveSky would transform MS2020? Cirrus would be nice but they were injected fictionally based on user preferences. Would we get more cloud types and therefore a better looking sky?

Icing, visibility and lightning are all there already. They were toned down because people bitterly complained about these effects.

In XP, in the end I turned off or down most of the AS dangerous weather effects because, in a home sim, I don't want to be constantly crashing. Sitting constantly in front of a screen monitoring the weather radar on three hour flight and not daring to leave for more than a minute is not for me.

Edited May 17, 2023 by jarmstro

[Nemo 1,305]

Regard me as a first hour customer when a HiFi weather add-on arrives.

[Damian Clark 1,257]

1 hour ago, scotchegg said:

It might help get more users in your corner if you could suggest a list of things a prospective AS MSFS could bring to improve over default weather. (if you haven't already done so?)

Sure, let's do it again....

These are NOT features that all users will appreciate or even understand.  Keep in mind, Hi-Fi stands for High-Fidelity (Falcon AT-coined reference inspired) and we are always focused on realism-based features, function over form, and the most realistic experience possible at all costs.  Active Sky was initially made to help me with my initial IFR training ~25 years ago and enable proper IMC approaches to minimums, and I've selfishly designed it and used it (at least in part) for my own needs and desires, and to keep proficiency (and even IFR currency when used on an approved A/BATD).  The majority of our development and testing/QA teams, for the first 8 years or so, were comprised of actual pilots and weather scientists, and as you can imagine, this had a big influence on our development direction and the type of simmer that our features would be appreciated by.

So, off the top of my head: How about historical weather, with dynamic playback.  Advanced interpolation of all data types including surface, air forecast data, sigmet/airmets, tafs, with details on that interpolation, giving you interaction and visibility of weather data and conditions.  Accurate radar and precipitation/reflectivity simulation, cloud depiction synthesis and depiction curation (for the best/most accurate realized depiction considering the active data and the depiction limitations), textual briefings, voice briefings, voice weather delivery, scenarios, custom weather and visualization, full comprehensive API to all our weather/conditions (read and write), companion mobile app, weather planning, advanced microburst and gust simulation, better cirrus clouds, better CB clouds, better lightning where/when expected, TAF awareness, pireps, LAN configuration support, air effects management and supplementation (turbulence, drafts, wake turbulence, thermals).  Then maybe we can add some things we've been working on recently including realistic data/conditions discrepancies (unpredictability), METAR+TAF+Air Forecast Model Data synthesis for realistic variation and proper weighting away from strict METAR adherence to provide more realistic conditions especially in sparse-METAR coverage (unless you need this for IVAO/VATSIM when you can force METAR priority), multi-user and wide-cockpit weather with deterministic variance synchronization, full Navigraph/Simbrief integration, NOAA chart mapping overlays, thunderstorm lifecycle simulation, supercell simulation, storm/front/convective lines, SKEW-T display (with accompanying low-CAPE cloud height and icing type/intensity determinations.  I'll stop there.  Many more exciting things on top of that.  We have a wish list submitted by our users and testers of over 1100 items, and about 50 of them are REALLY GOOD, but not listed here.  We'd like to work on those, given the chance....  As mentioned before, we have been planning and already working on ASFS for many years now, in fact nearly 2 years were spent on it as a development focus, before we learned that weather API access was "not planned".  Much of this is ready to go, but it depends on what kind of SDK/API is provided.

tl;dr: we'd like to do what we've always done, innovate new features that our users ask for.  There's no shortage of capability, features or ideas.

 

Edited May 17, 2023 by Damian Clark