Active Sky review

[Noel 4,563]

1 minute ago, MPL said:

I made a topic into MSFS official forums, hope you could vote for it!

Hire Hifisim Damian to fix the weather in the sim for good! - Official Microsoft Flight Simulator / Wishlist - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

I suggested this a long time ago.  Further, they should offer to buy his software and retain him for a year or so to do a full overhaul.  What we have no clue about is how Asobo can tweak the cloud rendering engine and get away with it performance wise.  Damian will be the first to tell you the current method is really hamstrung due ultimately to low resolution 3D pixels and the performance cost of addressing this.  We know there are major improvements coming in multithreading and what I heard from Asobo was that would allow for massive increases in plane surface density (my paraphrase) and that might bode well for getting more distinct cloud morphologies than the current rendering engine will allow for.  

[MPL 57]

13 minutes ago, Noel said:

I suggested this a long time ago.  Further, they should offer to buy his software and retain him for a year or so to do a full overhaul.  What we have no clue about is how Asobo can tweak the cloud rendering engine and get away with it performance wise.  Damian will be the first to tell you the current method is really hamstrung due ultimately to low resolution 3D pixels and the performance cost of addressing this.  We know there are major improvements coming in multithreading and what I heard from Asobo was that would allow for massive increases in plane surface density (my paraphrase) and that might bode well for getting more distinct cloud morphologies than the current rendering engine will allow for.  

Shame on them, Asobo then for not using the one of the best available resources!

Edited April 28 by MPL

[DD_Arthur 1,091]

1 hour ago, Bond said:

Thunderstorms at Jeju(RKPC)

https://streamable.com/6b16kd

Paris Timelapse

https://streamable.com/tfevd6

Fantastic!👍

[mmcmah 444]

2 hours ago, Bond said:

Thunderstorms at Jeju(RKPC)

https://streamable.com/6b16kd

Paris Timelapse

https://streamable.com/tfevd6

Great videos!

[fppilot 4,397]

1 hour ago, MPL said:

I made a topic into MSFS official forums, hope you could vote for it!

Hire Hifisim Damian to fix the weather in the sim for good! - Official Microsoft Flight Simulator / Wishlist - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

Done, and appreciate the turn to positive.

[fppilot 4,397]

1 hour ago, MPL said:

Shame on them, Asobo then for not using the one of the best available resources!

Not the only aspect of MSFS that went astray.  I totally appreciate every ounce of what WT has contributed after piercing the armor, but fully developed products like those from Reality XP were available to simply reach out and touch.  Shameless.  I wake up each day and wonder what became of Jean Luc.  I so highly valued his highly significant contributions to this simulation activity.  If there is ever an independant Flight Simulation Hall of Fame he deserves the recognition.  Certainly there were others as well.  Just way too much of the NIHS (NIHS=not invented here syndrom) at play that seems to permeate large organizations where associates are more interested in success through their own innovations instead of recognition of existing innovations that could more immediatley accelerate success of their organizations products.  That clearly occurred with multiple dimension of MSFS 2020.  Weather, traffic, ATC,....

[JughedJones 220]

After a week with MSFS Active Sky, I'll say it again. 

 

I'm not a meteorologist, but the weather matches METAR and looks better. I'm seeing rainbows, lightning, and thunder. Super cool

 

I'm not a licensed pilot but the turbulence and wind effects *feel* better.

 

What do I know?  Not much. But it *seems* more convincing and I like it better!

 

(Edit: I never had a problem, especially recently, with MSFS showing me what the METAR looks like. I think live weather in MSFS is really good. I just think this is about 25 dollars better to my untrained eye!)

 

 

Edited April 29 by JughedJones

[Cpt_Piett 4,823]

6 hours ago, Bond said:

Thunderstorms at Jeju(RKPC)

https://streamable.com/6b16kd

Paris Timelapse

https://streamable.com/tfevd6

Amazing videos, especially the timelapse!

[MrBitstFlyer 3,896]

32 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

7 hours ago, Bond said:

Thunderstorms at Jeju(RKPC)

https://streamable.com/6b16kd

Paris Timelapse

https://streamable.com/tfevd6

Amazing videos, especially the timelapse!

They certainly are.  Considering how fast the time lapse is, the transitions are still really good.  At normal speed hardly noticeable.

[Cpt_Piett 4,823]

12 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

They certainly are.  Considering how fast the time lapse is, the transitions are still really good.  At normal speed hardly noticeable.

I still haven’t seen any transitions actually. Not noticeable though. Using default settings in latest beta. 

[Iiari 13]

Certainly haven't reviewed all 32 pages of posts, but after spending the last month flying the airlines quite a bit as a passenger and paying close attention to weather along the way and using ASXP since launch, with a lot of "out the window" comparisons, I've come to really believe it looks far more accurate.  Less "dramatic" than sim default?  Absolutely, but that's how real weather often looks too.  I'm very happy with turbulence implementation so far, and historical weather is great.  No dramatic transitions yet.  So far, I'm very pleased with the purchase.

[Cpt_Piett 4,823]

While doing my last cross-country GA flight, I had a lot of time to reflect on the differences vs default. I flew from Auckland to Tauranga, 60-70nm (the PA-38 is not a fast aircraft).

NZTG doesn’t have a METAR. The cloudscape was vastly different. Default: few clouds, CU. AS: several different layers of CU (and think also ST), at least broken.

I guess default gets the non-METAR data from Meteoblue. But what about AS? So I was thinking, how do we determine which one is most realistic when there aren’t any nearby METARs. 

I could post some screenshots, but they’ll look horrendous as video quality is only at 360p (still uploading).

Also: is it true that Meteoblue only updates twice a day?

Thoughts? I guess I could have called someone in Tauranga and asked them to look out the window…

 

If someone want’s to go check out what the weather was like: 270427z.

Edited April 29 by Cpt_Piett

[SAS443 1,731]

1 hour ago, Cpt_Piett said:

I guess default gets the non-METAR data from Meteoblue. But what about AS? So I was thinking, how do we determine which one is most realistic when there aren’t any nearby METARs. 

You have to consider that meteoblue NEMS, ICON and ECMWF etc are forecast models. They forecast macro/mesoscale weather and for those purposes they are extremely well refined. They are not good at predicting microscale events such as wind directions disturbed by mechanical turbulence or other local terrain events (including isolated local thunderstorm)

ECMWF model found in Windy (which I think is superior) while still great, reports surface wind at my local airport consistently wrong by at least 40 degrees, and have been like that for the last 5 years. It's just too local weather phenomena happening.

But again, for VFR (and IFR) flying planning purposes, cloud bases and winds aloft, these models are very competent. They just aren't suitable for minute operative variables used for takeoff, approach and landing decisions. For that you need local observations at the aerodrome. And it will always be like that.

Edited April 29 by SAS443

[Adamski_NZ 967]

56 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

If someone want’s to go check out what the weather was like: 270427z.

Confused (LOL!). Is that 27 Apr 04hrs 27min (Zulu)?

[Cpt_Piett 4,823]

18 minutes ago, Adamski_NZ said:

Confused (LOL!). Is that 27 Apr 04hrs 27min (Zulu)?

That’s right! Video here with comparisons from 34:33 https://youtu.be/H6F1JQIUKh0?si=YUTtiifR53g4CWGF

About 30nm SE of NZAA:

Default (passive mode)

AS (preset mode)

Edited April 29 by Cpt_Piett