On 7/14/2024 at 12:47 PM, DD_Arthur said:

For my use Active Sky just can’t provide the approaching weather fronts I can look out on or some the subtleties of live weather that MSFS default provides.

This is the reason I only have REX for the very few cases MSFS default weather completely fails when doing local VFR/IFR flying and for my home region, which is sadly heavily affected by the snow coverage bug. In all other cases, doing short to long haul IFR flying with airliners, the absence of weather front depiction in every weather addon available let me always use MSFS default weather for those flights. End of the story 😉 

4 hours ago, AnkH said:

This is the reason I only have REX for the very few cases MSFS default weather completely fails when doing local VFR/IFR flying and for my home region, which is sadly heavily affected by the snow coverage bug. In all other cases, doing short to long haul IFR flying with airliners, the absence of weather front depiction in every weather addon available let me always use MSFS default weather for those flights. End of the story 😉 

As in RL you will never be happy with the weather - especially in a simulator game. 😜

So make your own.

sp

Edited July 17, 20241 yr by Sky_Pilot071

On 7/14/2024 at 3:09 AM, fsiscool said:

... ActiveSky is also just arranging CU clouds in different ways, densities and so on to achive what it achieves.

I look forward to when the tech advances such that you get cirrus that look like these below in Live Weather.  It will happen some day.  Right now this is impossible w/ the current low-resolution rendering we seem stuck w/ in MSFS 2020.  I hope 2024 brings us even a tiny bit closer towards more distinct cloud types.

 

 

I purchased AS yesterday and my first flight using it in Active mode (real weather) was from Addis Ababa to Lagos.   I was instantly pleased with the obvious cloud variation and it felt like a more plausible representation of real weather.

But I came across a glaring issue. I used 15 minute refresh intervals and a high smoothing option, but still experienced sudden weather changes. I was also disappointed that the app was not refreshing weather at subsequent weather stations automatically.   I had to induce the refresh by clicking Real Weather mode/Active weather in the UI before a change happened (which was quite a significant change in weather representation.   

Perhaps I have somewhat sub-optimal settings in the options, but I had what I thought was a logical selection of options to provide the most efficient, non-intrusive configuration.    

Mixed feelings about it.  

Edited July 24, 20241 yr by ErichB

1 hour ago, ErichB said:

I purchased AS yesterday and my first flight using it in Active mode (real weather) was from Addis Ababa to Lagos.   I was instantly pleased with the obvious cloud variation and it felt like a more plausible representation of real weather.

But I came across a glaring issue. I used 15 minute refresh intervals and a high smoothing option, but still experienced sudden weather changes. I was also disappointed that the app was not refreshing weather at subsequent weather stations automatically.   I had to induce the refresh by clicking Real Weather mode/Active weather in the UI before a change happened (which was quite a significant change in weather representation.   

Perhaps I have somewhat sub-optimal settings in the options, but I had what I thought was a logical selection of options to provide the most efficient, non-intrusive configuration.    

Mixed feelings about it.  

There's something wrong with your settings, yes.

First of all: You need a *low* smoothing setting. The lower, the slower the transitions (and the less obvious, or visible). E.g. I have it set to 25, which means it will take about 13 minutes from clear skies to overcast and viceversa. This is slow enough to not make any transitions visible, except for when you look for them hard (like watching a cloud in 500% zoom for 3 minutes).

Then BATC automatically changes the weather when you fly over stations. Not sure what setting could cause your weather not to change accordingly. Do you have "prevent downloads on departure/arrival" set to ON? It should be OFF.

Edited July 24, 20241 yr by Fiorentoni

1 hour ago, ErichB said:

I purchased AS yesterday and my first flight using it in Active mode (real weather) was from Addis Ababa to Lagos.   I was instantly pleased with the obvious cloud variation and it felt like a more plausible representation of real weather.

But I came across a glaring issue. I used 15 minute refresh intervals and a high smoothing option, but still experienced sudden weather changes. I was also disappointed that the app was not refreshing weather at subsequent weather stations automatically.   I had to induce the refresh by clicking Real Weather mode/Active weather in the UI before a change happened (which was quite a significant change in weather representation.   

Perhaps I have somewhat sub-optimal settings in the options, but I had what I thought was a logical selection of options to provide the most efficient, non-intrusive configuration.    

Mixed feelings about it.  

Been using the app since the day it was released, flying all over the world, I have never seen what you report.???

5 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

Been using the app since the day it was released, flying all over the world, I have never seen what you report.???

 

18 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

There's something wrong with your settings, yes.

First of all: You need a *low* smoothing setting. The lower, the slower the transitions (and the less obvious, or visible). E.g. I have it set to 25, which means it will take about 13 minutes from clear skies to overcast and viceversa. This is slow enough to not make any transitions visible, except for when you look for them hard (like watching a cloud in 500% zoom for 3 minutes).

Then BATC automatically changes the weather when you fly over stations. Not sure what setting could cause your weather not to change accordingly. Do you have "prevent downloads on departure/arrival" set to ON? It should be OFF.

Okay, thanks. I'm glad to hear that it's just my sub-optimal settings.  I'll have a look at them again this evening and report back.

With the new uppered price i don’t recomend to buy this addon. Will stay with live msfs weather during a couple of months until msfs 2024 arrive

Edited August 11, 20241 yr by motishow

On 7/12/2024 at 9:14 AM, Claudius_ said:

SU7 "debacle" and "disaster"? maybe I missed something here, but what are you talking about?

The current weather is nowhere near as good as pre SU7 - still good of course, but better before.

23 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

The current weather is nowhere near as good as pre SU7 - still good of course, but better before.

Personal opinions.

7 hours ago, Claudius_ said:

Personal opinions.

True, but I would be amazed if anybody who used MSFS from the beginning wouldn't agree with me.  I do understand some will criticise MSFS for not having Metar integration from the beginning, but its inclusion was the start of a degradation in weather depiction in MSFS.

8 hours ago, Claudius_ said:

Personal opinions.

Yes but there sure are a lot of "personal opinions" out there in general agreement that although the accuracy of the live weather has been improved (but still not real great), we lost the variations of clouds, thunderstorms, and cloud opacity for the small variety of clouds we still see. It was very much "watered down" after the METAR inclusion, and the weather depiction seems "unsure of itself" since; therefore depending on the situation, sometimes it displays clumps of ugly cumulus blobs all over as a "blend" attempt. "broken at 12,000" for example shows blobs of cumulus not even close to representing a broken mid-altitude broken "layer" like one would expect. It just looks terrible.

Incidentally, this is what Active Sky does very well (for example those mid-altitude layers of clouds one would expect), or pretty much any scenario according to the METAR. Few clouds at 500, we see a pretty good rendition of few clouds at 500. (MSFS live weather gives a couple of transparent puffs here and there at best). But the problem with Active Sky is as pointed out many times - the illusion of moving from one weather area to another is not bad depending on the transition speed set, but we just lose out that "what's on the horizon" immersion with AS.

Edited August 11, 20241 yr by KERNEL32

On 7/17/2024 at 3:42 PM, Noel said:

I look forward to when the tech advances such that you get cirrus that look like these below in Live Weather.

I agree but, they need to get a live weather true overcast fixed first, and broken layers at mid altitude. Also the few clouds are pathetic. If we see the few clouds at 800 for example, there is barely a puff showing. Absolutely no intensity of cloud (very transparent not opaque). 

I have not had the "feeling" of flying through a cloud in MSFS since before SU5. And I doubt that we'll see this "fixed" in MSFS2024. They are more focused on adding people walking around.

I tend to agree the potential for significant improvement is low for 2024.  I read 2028 is when next gen Xbox debuts and it is touted to involve a massive performance increase and I predict that is when we might see something significant unless a new rendering model that substantially improves cloud rendering w/ tolerable performance impacts it will be a while before we really get to something we're all ultimately after.  Even pre SU5 suffered in this regard, low resolution but a bit better and I have to think MS/A decided to reduce cloud resolution to make room for lots of new high end aircraft performance accommodation and presumably because early on Xbox wasn't quite keeping up.

9 hours ago, KERNEL32 said:

but we just lose out that "what's on the horizon" immersion with AS.

True, but even that is has itself been degraded 🙂. The horizon used to have an excellent representation of an approaching front, with cloud gradually lowering.  Now, there are some cumulus puffs in the distance, that's it