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

[Ray Proudfoot 8,980]

3 hours ago, virtualstuff said:

I agree after two decades of AS I hope we won't return to that part of simulation. The WX is far better as we ever had, it need still adjustments. 

There is no compunction to buy a 3rd party addon. It’s not being forced on you. If you’re happy with the inbuilt weather engine then things will remain unchanged.

Hi-Fi do have unparalleled experience in simulator weather. I’d be amazed if they couldn’t better what is already there.

[Damian Clark 1,272]

20 minutes ago, Noel said:

As discussed a few months ago without improving on voxel density or cloud resolution depiction of the various types of cloud morphology is difficult to impossible.  Currently what we have in MSFS IMO is about as good as it's going to get w/o improving resolution--it's like trying to make sharp-edged, distinct shapes w/ cotton.  I think there is room now, hardware-wise, to address this, but I wonder how much any 3rd party can address this element.  Maybe Damian can speak to that.

Active Sky Weather Engine is not a graphical enhancement, shader mod, or cloud replacement, even though HiFi has released products in that category (such as Cloud Art).  AS is about weather realism, presentation, data interaction, planning, air effects, curated weather synthesis and depiction that aims to provide the best experience for realism-focused simmers.  That's what we're hoping we can bring (back) to FS if we can get a functional API.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Damian Clark

[jarmstro 2,405]

1 hour ago, Noel said:

They have no experience with volumetric/voxel-based cloud depictions but from reading Damian's comments they're willing to try.  Very very different environments.

Perhaps Ray can comment on this:  you mentioned not long ago you did not use the volumetric-based clouds in P3D.   Did HiFi do anything w/ P3D's version of that?

In XP11 HiFi (what was the addon called?) did not use volumetric clouds but there was an option for denser clouds at the expense of horrendous fps loss. There was also an option to add some fictional cirrus should you so wish, EDIT what Active Sky (I remembered) did  do is get rid of the sudden weather transitions but as this does not apply to MSFS I'm not sure what all the fuss is about? Historical weather is about it I guess?

All these old addons were once the bees knees but are now unnecessary and old hat.

 

 

Edited May 16, 2023 by jarmstro

[abrams_tank 7,426]

26 minutes ago, Gilandred said:

There is no downside to opening up the weather api.  If a better mousetrap comes along, then we the consumer wins.  I have no doubt MS will continue to work on and refine what they’ve created, but as Jorg himself stated, there’s only so much they can do.  This is how we ended up with Working Title.

There is a downside. MSFS likely has a team dedicated to improving the weather.  That weather team has made tremendous progress in the last 2.5 years in improving the weather. We went from Meteoblue for around the world, which was unsuitable for VATSIM/IVAO/Pilot Edge, to a mix of METAR at airports and MeteoBlue outside the airports, which is working quite well now. The VATSIM/IVAO/Pilot Edge crowd can finally use MSFS on their respective ATC networks.

All this development by the weather team at MSFS takes time.  If the MSFS team were to open the weather API, this means resources and developers from the weather team, devoted to working on the weather API, instead of improving the weather engine for MSFS. This means progress for the weather engine for MSFS is slowed down.

There is always a downside. Software development projects with finite resources can't make everything better, all at the same time. There is going to be some cost cutting and drawback somewhere. That's how software development projects work.

Now I am not saying that MSFS shouldn't open up weather API. I am saying though, there is a downside.

Edited May 16, 2023 by abrams_tank

[Noel 4,507]

8 minutes ago, Damian Clark said:

Active Sky Weather Engine is not a graphical enhancement, shader mod, or cloud replacement, even though HiFi has released products in that category (such as Cloud Art).  AS is about weather realism, presentation, data interaction, planning, air effects, curated weather synthesis and depiction that aims to provide the best experience for realism-focused simmers.  That's what we're hoping we can bring (back) to FS if we can get a functional API.

Unfortunately that does not address my fundamental question, or I guess did by ignoring it:  how do you get detailed cloud morphology w/ low density voxels.  My sense is what most people really want is this, not so much air effects or other esoterica.  They want mostly to fly in a world that looks much more like this:

[Dominique_K 10,150]

20 minutes ago, Damian Clark said:

...  Popular opinion these days, and probably why we don't have API access yet.  The campaign against weather add-ons (or I guess just HiFi?) is significant.  Glad to see that other opinions are being considered though, more API access will benefit everyone.

I do not think there is a campaign against anybody !  Most of us appreciated your products in FSX and P3D. They were landmark addons.

Now MSFS is a work in progress and there are several important areas where it is very much perfectible. Some users think that Asobo has other things to do first, thats all. Nothing against you.  We just send a message to Asobo, as customers, about our priorities. 

[Tom_L 534]

20 minutes ago, Noel said:

My sense is what most people really want is this, not so much air effects or other esoterica.

That is a major point and imho very unspecific throughout all weather related discussions. Some want to get rid of METAR, others want the release version back and for many visuals are most important.

In my opinion the goal must be to have an accurate, visually appealing, meteorologically and physically plausible Live weather system in the sim that requires and allows flight planning as realistic as possible with means available preferrably outside of the sim to maintain cross platform compatibilty and is largely adaptable to different user requirements.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Tom_L

[Damian Clark 1,272]

2 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

I do not think there is a campaign against anybody !  Most of us appreciated your products in FSX and P3D. They were landmark addons.

Now MSFS is a work in progress and there are several important areas where it is very much perfectible. Some users think that Asobo has other things to do first, thats all. Nothing against you.  We just send a message to Asobo, as customers, about our priorities. 

I believe it's possible for a sim developer to both improve their simulator, including weather engine, AND allow 3rd party access.  Lots of examples including the previous FS(X) and most recently XP12.  Surely prioritization is a valid concern, but I don't think it applies in this case.  We don't have weather API, several years later, even though it was (and maybe still is) the most popular request by users and developers alike.  Personally, I think the vocal public outcry against weather API access is why they blocked it for so long, but as eluded to in the video, it doesn't make sense, and thankfully this is getting another look and consideration.

[Steve Halpern 176]

This is sorely needed! Some of the most prolific product genres accessed exactly these two features. As Damian said, 🤞!

[Lucky38i 1,095]

34 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

There is a downside. MSFS likely has a team dedicated to improving the weather.  That weather team has made tremendous progress in the last 2.5 years in improving the weather. We went from Meteoblue for around the world, which was unsuitable for VATSIM/IVAO/Pilot Edge, to a mix of METAR at airports and MeteoBlue outside the airports, which is working quite well now. The VATSIM/IVAO/Pilot Edge crowd can finally use MSFS on their respective ATC networks.

The point you mentioned is a drawback that, IMO, MSFS shouldn't have implemented. it's been shown by various examples that METARs are not live, and are not information dense to provide significant weather information with regards to something like a weather engine. It also doesn't help that METARs are captured at a static point in time and not continuously live. For example a METAR  might've capture light rain and 15 minutes later the rain has stopped.

We've had a few forum topics where people were questioning the validity of MSFS weather because the METAR said X but MSFS has Y. People chimed in who lived near the location and turns out MSFS was depicting the weather correctly.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Lucky38i

[Noel 4,507]

36 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

In XP11 HiFi (what was the addon called?) did not use volumetric clouds but there was an option for denser clouds at the expense of horrendous fps loss. There was also an option to add some fictional cirrus should you so wish, EDIT what Active Sky (I remembered) did  do is get rid of the sudden weather transitions but as this does not apply to MSFS I'm not sure what all the fuss is about? Historical weather is about it I guess?

All these old addons were once the bees knees but are now unnecessary and old hat.

I don't see a whole lot of commentary one way or the other about weather in MSFS in the recent months it's largely gone quiet.  As far as improving voxel density there is a happy medium between what we have now, and extreme FPS-destroying density.  Right now my GPU sits around 48-63% with clouds on Ultra, 8x/16x, so there is headroom to bump up voxel density and I would love to see this done by slider.

[abrams_tank 7,426]

7 minutes ago, Lucky38i said:

The point you mentioned is a drawback that, IMO, MSFS shouldn't have implemented. it's been shown by various examples that METARs are not live,

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.

Edited May 16, 2023 by abrams_tank

[jarmstro 2,405]

7 minutes ago, Noel said:

I don't see a whole lot of commentary one way or the other about weather in MSFS in the recent months it's largely gone quiet.  As far as improving voxel density there is a happy medium between what we have now, and extreme FPS-destroying density.  Right now my GPU sits around 48-63% with clouds on Ultra, 8x/16x, so there is headroom to bump up voxel density and I would love to see this done by slider.

Yes a slider would be vital. I could afford, performance wise, a slight nudge up but wouldn't want anything imposed that crashed my fps. 

[Damian Clark 1,272]

Quote

what Active Sky (I remembered) did  do is get rid of the sudden weather transitions but as this does not apply to MSFS I'm not sure what all the fuss is about? Historical weather is about it I guess?

Hmmm, here are just a few features that HiFi developers and myself worked very hard on for many, many years:  High-performance, high-availability private weather cloud network, dynamic historical playback, forecast data synthesis, TAF awareness, global forecast model and surface observation data integration, weather planning, mapping, advanced radar/reflectivity simulation, realistic wind shear and PWS simulation, weather gauge, radar gauge, in-cloud effects, visibility reduction, realistic air data analysis, SIGMET/AIRMET awareness and simulation, microbursts, terrain-based drafts, comprehensive options and weather control, manual weather control, comprehensive API, mobile companion app, wake turbulence, advanced gust simulation, turbulence effects, vertical drafts, detailed interpolation feedback/data.  And yes, historical weather and weather transitions were also done.

Granted, some of this has been done now in FS2020, XP12, etc.  But some of these features will never be appreciated nor wanted (obviously) by everyone and will never be added to the base sim.  That's why add-ons are cool, right?  Wouldn't it be great if 3rd parties like us could try and offer such features for those who care about them?  And wouldn't it be great if we could do even more, now that we have such improved visuals and underlying weather system?  We've been dreaming about a product like FS2020 for a long time.  I think it would be great if we could participate one day.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Damian Clark

[Gilandred 695]

42 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

There is a downside. MSFS likely has a team dedicated to improving the weather.  That weather team has made tremendous progress in the last 2.5 years in improving the weather. We went from Meteoblue for around the world, which was unsuitable for VATSIM/IVAO/Pilot Edge, to a mix of METAR at airports and MeteoBlue outside the airports, which is working quite well now.

I wouldn’t characterize what they’ve done over the last 2.5 years as “tremendous.”  While we do now have better METAR matching conditions, we have lost a lot of the weather variety that came with the “old” system, at least in my experience. I have yet to see a big and scary towering thunderstorm FL 400+ that I need to avoid at all costs.  Remember those from the initial teaser trailers? If this is all we have to show after 2.5 years, then my vote (fwiw) is to reallocate some of those resources to facilitate a better api.