Jump to content
  • Sign in to follow this  

    REX Simulations New Website


    Chuck_Jodry-VJPL

    REX Simulations Announces New website Launch Including Release Information on REX 5 Environment Force

    PHOENIX, AZ (Mar. 20, 2019) – REX Simulations, a leading provider of quality simulation technology product solutions, announced today the launch of its newly designed website at www.rexsimulations.com. The completely revamped website features a streamlined design which now houses all of REX Simulations’ offerings, instead of separating the brands into independent websites. 

     

    “We are thrilled to debut our new company website to our customers and visitors looking to better understand the scope of our products. This move should quickly help potential customers make well informed decisions about their simulator software needs,” said Tim Fuchs, Managing Partner. “Bringing our products back under one umbrella ensures less confusion between our products.”

     

    The REX Simulations new website will be regularly updated with news and information, which includes the upcoming release of the highly anticipated REX 5 Environment Force utility. Since debuting Environment Force at the 2018 FSExpo, there has been a growing legion of followers eager to learn more about this feature-rich, one-of-a-kind utility. “Environment Force really does change things in the environment playing field,” said Reed Stough, REX Game Studios Managing Partner. “This is truly the first time we have seen these kind of features in our genre, and we encourage all who want to learn more about this new utility to visit the product page on our new website .”

    • Like 2
    Sign in to follow this  


    User Feedback

    Recommended Comments



    15 hours ago, kingm56 said:

    Mr Reed,

    I'll offer the following post (I wrote last year hoping you would respond) as a tangible example of how your hyperbole advertisement does not align with your products capabilities; if necessary, I could provide several more examples (Latitude is probably the best example); yet, I think this will suffice to showcase my frustration with the advertisement arm of your organization.  Plus, I typically do not critique products without tangible examples to reinforce my claims.  To be clear, I would expect ANY company to enthusiastically push their products; however, IMO, you have routinely misrepresented (unintentionally) your software capabilities. I have come away feeling 'cheated' from your last two releases; not because the products were bad, but because they failed to correlate to the description you fabricated.    

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Taken direct from your website last year:

    "Integrated within Sky Force 3D is a powerful and robust weather engine (used bold font on your website) that takes full advantage of all the new features to give the best experience of our new weather system. The IWX (Intelligent Weather) Engine focuses on two simple, but powerful things: Accurate Data and Accurate Experience, which sets the bar when it comes to data and experience in ONE integrated system."

    My questions are the following:  If your weather engine is as "powerful" as you tout, why is there is a need to use another engine?  Upon reading this description, do you really think its unreasonable for customers to believe we're getting the most accurate weather engine on the market? Does this sound like the weather engine isn't a "core" element of this product? Does it sound like you're advocating for the use of different weather engines?  Moreover, you state REX set the "bar when it comes to Accurate Data and Accurate Experience"  However, it appears the weather injected fails to correlate with reported METARs.  Concerning the latter claim (Accurate Experience), how does the abrupt climate changes correlate with this feature?  In all your hype, where do you mention SDK/simconnect limitations? Reviewing your advertisement page, I see phrases like "BREAKS THIS BARRIER," overcomes "constraints of the simulator SDK." In fact, here's a direct quote: "Even with costly similar (italicized on your website) aftermarket products installed, weather systems severely lack due to the constraints of the simulator SDK. SKY FORCE 3D BREAKS THIS BARRIER." I'm sorry, how are you making it clear that SF3D's weather engine is not a core feature of SkyForce 3D again? 

    Now we get the following explanation:

    "The abrupt updates are because we are using the standard simconnect process.  No way to smooth out without hooking the system memory.  We are working on Weather Force which will provide us a means to do much more.  It is not ready though so it will be coming later."

    So, we have to buy another product to ensure this "revolutionary" product works as advertised on YOUR webpage?  Where was that stated clearly, prior to release?  BTW, the requirement to buy a new application adds to the aggregate SF3D cost, which nullifies the assertion quoted above (e.g. your product is better and cheaper than competing products). [I believe this is now a free upgrade to SF3D...thank you for doing the right thing here!!]

    I'll close by saying I think SF3D is a solid, but hardly a "revolutionary" product that "breaks the barrier."  In short, like almost every other REX product, it doesn't live up the advertisement hyperbole littered throughout the manual and/or website.  To that point, I would not 'attack' (did someone really tell a poster 'good luck with their own weather engine') the overwhelming critical comments within this thread, as they're based on REX's performance to date (obviously doesn't apply to your textures, which are second to none).  I know my comments seem overly critical; however, I think they're justified based on the claims made regarding SF3D capabilities, coupled with my past experiences with REX products (e.g Latitude, WORLDWIDE AIRPORTS HD and Overdrive).  IMO, these product also failed to live up to the hype you helped generate.  To be fair, I'm only one customer; I know you have plenty of die-hard customers that love your work.  Therefore, speaking for myself only, you have some work to do earn my dollar back; then again, you could also 'wish me good luck on creating my own weather engine.'  Nevertheless, I wouldn't dismiss these critiques...

     

    +1

    Years ago and up to the release of sf I tried to communicate the very same thing and have been shut down by Avsim, rex, and other simmers every time. I'm actually totally banned from rex forums.

    In a stark contrast, years ago I offered criticism of STB and a specific function that did not work correctly for a long time, yet the claim was there. I was likely the only one who made a big deal of it; not because the function did not work, but because there was an unfulfilled claim. I simply stated that the feature should be removed from the feature list so potential future customers are not deceived. Initially Simon did revise the feature list until he could fix it. Eventually he fixed it, because he wanted STB to do what it originally claimed....integrity at its best. To me Flying W is like TOP 5 flight sim companies; the product (STB) is awesome and unique, the price for STB is a great value, and the customer service has always been excellent.

    I swear I would not intentionally expect too much from any company so as to slander or troll. I let them make their claims, and I assess, to verify honesty. Its really that simple.  

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    19 hours ago, rstough said:

    Mark it isn't really free speech. It is more spewing than giving constructive criticism. You just said we treat our  customers poorly - but no example as to how.

    I just remember you being upset on our forum about us taking a while to get the final update for WWA for P3D v4 done.  We communicated through that time it was going to take a while to complete.  We not only updated Worldwide Airports but also Texture Direct for FREE to all our customers.  Not sure how that is treating our customers bad.  Again I think it is more personal.

    wrong!

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    1 hour ago, pracines said:

    +1

    Years ago and up to the release of sf I tried to communicate the very same thing and have been shut down by Avsim, rex, and other simmers every time. I'm actually totally banned from rex forums.

    In a stark contrast, years ago I offered criticism of STB and a specific function that did not work correctly for a long time, yet the claim was there. I was likely the only one who made a big deal of it; not because the function did not work, but because there was an unfulfilled claim. I simply stated that the feature should be removed from the feature list so potential future customers are not deceived. Initially Simon did revise the feature list until he could fix it. Eventually he fixed it, because he wanted STB to do what it originally claimed....integrity at its best. To me Flying W is like TOP 5 flight sim companies; the product (STB) is awesome and unique, the price for STB is a great value, and the customer service has always been excellent.

    I swear I would not intentionally expect too much from any company so as to slander or troll. I let them make their claims, and I assess, to verify honesty. Its really that simple.  

    I concur with your sentiment, Pracines.  Also, you highlighted another facet of this thread I found interesting; specifically, the chart posted by REX to validate their superior customer support.  If the survey is being conducted under a controlled environment, how accurate can it be?  To that point, if they ban dissenting voices (i.e. you) from their forum, who will provide opposition via their survey? To increase the accuracy, I'd recommend they conduct a survey on a platform they don't control; I suspect the results will be drastically different.

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    17 hours ago, MrSpeaker said:

    I remember one time years back I was having an issue and turned out it was not even rex related in the end but I was tossing messages back and forth for about an hour or so and I believe it was you Reed. That helped me find the solution. Anyways I find the customer support top notch. I think your new product will be awesome. Won't hesitate to buy it 😊 love skyforce too btw. Use it everytime 😊

    It's important to note the positives too, Mr Speaker! I've never had issues with their customer support; they always seem willing to help.

    BTW, do you use SF alone, or with another wx engine?   

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    2 hours ago, kingm56 said:

    I concur with your sentiment, Pracines.  Also, you highlighted another facet of this thread I found interesting; specifically, the chart posted by REX to validate their superior customer support.  If the survey is being conducted under a controlled environment, how accurate can it be?  To that point, if they ban dissenting voices (i.e. you) from their forum, who will provide opposition via their survey? To increase the accuracy, I'd recommend they conduct a survey on a platform they don't control; I suspect the results will be drastically different.

    The survey is sent out to every customer when we close a Tier 2 support item through our Zendesk support system. It is up to the customer to report if they want too or not.

     

    Edited by rstough

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    21 hours ago, kingm56 said:

    Mr Reed,

    I'll offer the following post (I wrote last year hoping you would respond) as a tangible example of how your hyperbole advertisement does not align with your products capabilities; if necessary, I could provide several more examples (Latitude is probably the best example); yet, I think this will suffice to showcase my frustration with the advertisement arm of your organization.  Plus, I typically do not critique products without tangible examples to reinforce my claims.  To be clear, I would expect ANY company to enthusiastically push their products; however, IMO, you have routinely misrepresented (unintentionally) your software capabilities. I have come away feeling 'cheated' from your last two releases; not because the products were bad, but because they failed to correlate to the description you fabricated.    

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Taken direct from your website last year:

    "Integrated within Sky Force 3D is a powerful and robust weather engine (used bold font on your website) that takes full advantage of all the new features to give the best experience of our new weather system. The IWX (Intelligent Weather) Engine focuses on two simple, but powerful things: Accurate Data and Accurate Experience, which sets the bar when it comes to data and experience in ONE integrated system."

    My questions are the following:  If your weather engine is as "powerful" as you tout, why is there is a need to use another engine?  Upon reading this description, do you really think its unreasonable for customers to believe we're getting the most accurate weather engine on the market? Does this sound like the weather engine isn't a "core" element of this product? Does it sound like you're advocating for the use of different weather engines?  Moreover, you state REX set the "bar when it comes to Accurate Data and Accurate Experience"  However, it appears the weather injected fails to correlate with reported METARs.  Concerning the latter claim (Accurate Experience), how does the abrupt climate changes correlate with this feature?  In all your hype, where do you mention SDK/simconnect limitations? Reviewing your advertisement page, I see phrases like "BREAKS THIS BARRIER," overcomes "constraints of the simulator SDK." In fact, here's a direct quote: "Even with costly similar (italicized on your website) aftermarket products installed, weather systems severely lack due to the constraints of the simulator SDK. SKY FORCE 3D BREAKS THIS BARRIER." I'm sorry, how are you making it clear that SF3D's weather engine is not a core feature of SkyForce 3D again? 

    Now we get the following explanation:

    "The abrupt updates are because we are using the standard simconnect process.  No way to smooth out without hooking the system memory.  We are working on Weather Force which will provide us a means to do much more.  It is not ready though so it will be coming later."

    So, we have to buy another product to ensure this "revolutionary" product works as advertised on YOUR webpage?  Where was that stated clearly, prior to release?  BTW, the requirement to buy a new application adds to the aggregate SF3D cost, which nullifies the assertion quoted above (e.g. your product is better and cheaper than competing products). [I believe this is now a free upgrade to SF3D...thank you for doing the right thing here!!]

    I'll close by saying I think SF3D is a solid, but hardly a "revolutionary" product that "breaks the barrier."  In short, like almost every other REX product, it doesn't live up the advertisement hyperbole littered throughout the manual and/or website.  To that point, I would not 'attack' (did someone really tell a poster 'good luck with their own weather engine') the overwhelming critical comments within this thread, as they're based on REX's performance to date (obviously doesn't apply to your textures, which are second to none).  I know my comments seem overly critical; however, I think they're justified based on the claims made regarding SF3D capabilities, coupled with my past experiences with REX products (e.g Latitude, WORLDWIDE AIRPORTS HD and Overdrive).  IMO, these product also failed to live up to the hype you helped generate.  To be fair, I'm only one customer; I know you have plenty of die-hard customers that love your work.  Therefore, speaking for myself only, you have some work to do earn my dollar back; then again, you could also 'wish me good luck on creating my own weather engine.'  Nevertheless, I wouldn't dismiss these critiques...

     

    Let me address your lengthly post here.  

    WEATHER ENGINE

    The core behind the weather engine is the following:

    Accurate Data :  

    We pull data 6x an hour from NOAA as well as GFS Model data 2x a day.  This data is then stored and prepped for when a user of Sky Force makes a call to our servers to pull down the data.   The use of the GFS data also allows us to expand coverage from 4000+ sites to 72,000+ sites.  So we can now cover the world with weather data.  To confirm our data download we have several check files that we use with customers to confirm the right data is being pulled if an issue arises.  I would say 99.9% of the time this data is spot on.  What we can't control is the source of the data and its accurancy.  That is just a given.   Sometimes NOAA or NCEP go down or data is delayed or a station is late or doesn't update its data. 

    Accurate Experience:  

    First, I am NOT going to address the abrupt Climate Change aspect of your post.  That is a little beyond a flight sim and has no bearing on what we are trying to do.  Our focus is more on the micro, meso, and synoptic scale weather features of each day and hour.

    The experience has a lot to do with how the weather data gets injected into the simulator.  Now first there are issues with the flight sim itself.  These issues have been around for a very LONG time.  Mostly associated with interpolation.  Especially, if you get many weather stations tightly placed near one another.  I have spoken to the developers of FSX and P3D about this personally.  It just is what it is.  Many times we have found ourselves scratching our heads about how the sim shows one thing yet we know the data being put in is totally different.  

    There are two ways of weather injection currently into the sim:  Station by Station which is what many developers used a long time ago, but because of flashing this got pushed aside and abandoned.  I still think it is more accurate.

    Then there was the dynamic weather theme approach.  Which in my opinion is not the most accurate because you have to create "regions" of weather within the file.  This has been adapted by most 3rd party weather engines.

    Now is it always perfect? - No.  It will never be, but we are working with our Insider Team and QA Team to make it better.  We just recently pushed out an update to the public and received really good feedback.

    The results of our recent Technical Update 2.1 tests are looking good, but we still are fine tuning and hope to have that out very soon.

    But just having accurate metar reports was not our only focus here.  Our weather engine digs deeper.  We take several elements of the GFS model and metar data and make a pseudo model of the atmosphere.  In other words, we measure the action of a parcel air.  

    How is this different than other weather engines (hence, the comparison to other products on the market) - because we have more control over the clouds model types we can now control the types of clouds to be seen based upon atmospheric conditions.  

    So where as one weather engine may just show a common thunderstorm, we not just show a thunderstorm we control what type of cloud structure and height of that storm base upon instability.  We look at lifted indices, CAPE (convective available potential energy), lapse rates, and shear to determine this.  One can see these elements within an Skew-T plot.

    This was ONE aspect of "BREAKING THE BARRIER".

    The other aspect was the cloud models themselves.  Which was the focus of the "BREAKING THE BARRIER" part of the website.

    With past REX products and most other texture products on the market there were limits with the SDK.  The only way around that was by sort of going around the SDK and expanding it.  Hince the breaking the barrier.  

    The default system only utilized 16 elements from a single file and about 1500 models elements.  We doubled that roughly.  We did this by building our own models.  This is an area we are continually working on to improve and grow.  Our new work will be coming out with Creative Update 1 and 2.

    ENTER WEATHER FORCE AND ENVIRONMENT FORCE

    Because we are not completely satisfied with what we have, that is why we have been working on these 2 other products for a little over 3+ years.  We would have loved to have Weather Force ready for Sky Force.  But it wasn't ready yet for release.

    BTW - You made it sound as if we were going to require customers to purchase the new weather engine.  We have never said that and as a matter of fact when we showed Weather Force at the FSExpo 2018 in Las Vegas we announced it would be a free upgrade to all Sky Force users.  

    Weather Force gives us the FULL control of things that we have been wanting for a very long time.  So this will allow us even better representation of the weather than before.  Still people can choose to use what they want.  They aren't forced to use our weather engine, but we will strongly recommend it.

    Environment Force is a universal tool that brings even more aspects that control the whole environmental feel associated with the weather.  However, it is NOT a weather engine.  I want to make that clear so there is NO misunderstanding.  However, we built it to improve all 3rd party weather engine experiences.  As well as to improve the experience of users with Sky Force + Weather Force.

    DOES SKY FORE LIVE UP TO WHAT WE SAID IT WAS

    We strongly believe so, but we do know there is room for improvement.

    Like you said, this is really up to the eye of the beholder.  Sky Force had its problems when released and we have worked to improve them and continue to work on them to this day.  If anything you can see we are committed to our customers and our products to strive to improve the experience beyond cutting edge as much as possible.

    Our point is we just didn't slap textures and code together to reproduce what we have done in the past.  We have put a lot of thought into what we have built.  That has been our goal and will always be our goal.  Whether you feel it meets your level experience, that is up to you.  I can't change you nor do I intend to try to change your thoughts towards REX.

    WHERE THERE IS SMOKE THERE IS FIRE

    Your right, but the source of that fire being generated right now can be questioned.  My purpose here is to protect those that have worked countless hours to produce products that please the people and not let others to misrepresent the character of the people of REX.

     

    Edited by rstough

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Dear REX-team,

    thanks for the update on your next product. I am happy to hear about the progress of the Environment Force development. Please keep us updated.

     

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    12 hours ago, rstough said:

    My purpose here is to protect those that have worked countless hours to produce products that please the people and not let others to misrepresent the character of the people of REX.

    Hello again Reed 🙂,

    To be fair, flight simmers work hard for their money to be able to buy rex products, so the "work hard" bit can be left out.

    Your purpose is understood. But what is not understood is we people are not misrepresenting the character of the people of rex, rather, rex is misrepresenting what they actually provide/do according to what is stated in the feature lists and the documentation (specifically, smooth wx transitions that are said to exist, that have not and still do not at this point in time). We people are just pointing that out. If ones character allows one to deceive others then that character needs to be corrected or even attacked if needed. If there is an error exposed (like way over bloated and false exaggerations in advertising), just correct the error, and stop doing it! When it happens over and over, company character NEEDS to come into question; people run companies so their character is in full play. It has to be this way to prevent corruption as much as possible.

    Clearer and more honest language in the representation of rex "weather generating" products would solve the issue. I and likely everybody else agrees that rex textures are excellent and deserve high praise. 

    For the record, I do not enjoy having to expose lies and deception, but I'm compelled to do so when the facts are plain. This tiny community cannot afford to have its major companies deceive their way to success. It will always come back to bite. 

    FACT: most skyforce users use AS for weather, but if the skyforce product worked like the documentation claims, there would be no need for AS. But in the end skyforce users paid for "AS like" features, yet still have to use or even buy AS to benefit. This should be terminal for rex business, and for the life of me I cannot understand the tolerance of such a situation when it spans over the course of several products and several years. The only explanation I can come up with is the textures are very good and it out weighs the problem to the less experienced or what I dub the "screenshot takers" who primarily fly out side of the cockpit.

    If rex has solved smooth wx transitions then that is wonderful and congratulations. If not, I again for the 3rd time suggest that rex stick with textures alone, it would be better for everybody including rex.

    For now I will trust what you say Reed, wx transitions in env force is solved.🙂

    Best wishes,

    paul

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Well, Paul - Let's just agree to wait and see what happens with Environment Force when we release and Weather Force.

    Have a great rest of the week my Friend.

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    6 hours ago, pracines said:

    Hello again Reed 🙂,

    To be fair, flight simmers work hard for their money to be able to buy rex products, so the "work hard" bit can be left out.

    Your purpose is understood. But what is not understood is we people are not misrepresenting the character of the people of rex, rather, rex is misrepresenting what they actually provide/do according to what is stated in the feature lists and the documentation (specifically, smooth wx transitions that are said to exist, that have not and still do not at this point in time). We people are just pointing that out. If ones character allows one to deceive others then that character needs to be corrected or even attacked if needed. If there is an error exposed (like way over bloated and false exaggerations in advertising), just correct the error, and stop doing it! When it happens over and over, company character NEEDS to come into question; people run companies so their character is in full play. It has to be this way to prevent corruption as much as possible.

    Clearer and more honest language in the representation of rex "weather generating" products would solve the issue. I and likely everybody else agrees that rex textures are excellent and deserve high praise. 

    For the record, I do not enjoy having to expose lies and deception, but I'm compelled to do so when the facts are plain. This tiny community cannot afford to have its major companies deceive their way to success. It will always come back to bite. 

    FACT: most skyforce users use AS for weather, but if the skyforce product worked like the documentation claims, there would be no need for AS. But in the end skyforce users paid for "AS like" features, yet still have to use or even buy AS to benefit. This should be terminal for rex business, and for the life of me I cannot understand the tolerance of such a situation when it spans over the course of several products and several years. The only explanation I can come up with is the textures are very good and it out weighs the problem to the less experienced or what I dub the "screenshot takers" who primarily fly out side of the cockpit.

    If rex has solved smooth wx transitions then that is wonderful and congratulations. If not, I again for the 3rd time suggest that rex stick with textures alone, it would be better for everybody including rex.

    For now I will trust what you say Reed, wx transitions in env force is solved.🙂

    Best wishes,

    paul

    Like I said, I'm very glad I dumped their products and chose others. Will never use their products again. I'm sure REX will never care.

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    On 3/25/2019 at 10:30 AM, Mark Niebauer said:

    This is what Free Speech is all about!

    Absolutely NOT what the first ammendment in the USA is about, and this ignorance of our Bill of Rights is a prime cause for all the craziness we see today.  Let me make this plain.  You have ZERO rights when posting on this or any other board owned by somone other than you.  This is the AVSIM board and ONLY they have any rights here.  They MAY choose to cede them to you and others, but they belong to AVSIM.

    As far as "what free speech is all about", here it is very simply. You are free FROM THE GOVERNMENT for your speech.  That's it. That's all.  You are not free from repurcussions anywhere else.  The Bill of Rights also does not protect you from illegal calls to action, like "hey let's punch so and so in the nose" or worse. 

    All of our freedoms are FROM the Government.  More importantly is our LIBERTY.  We have the LIBERTY to choose to do the right thing and act like well mannered people.  In fact is poor judgment in the excersise of liberty that causes your freedoms to be restricted.

    So you are at LIBERTY to act like a fool but you have NO freedom to do so.

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites
    1 hour ago, Crabby said:

    and this ignorance of our Bill of Rights is a prime cause for all the craziness we see today.

    Not to get off topic too much, but this statement is not true.

    Sin is the prime cause of all the craziness yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

    The Bill of Rights is new on the human scene relatively speaking, and there has been some serious craziness before the Bill of Rights came along. 

    In context of this topic and the differences in the discussion, there would be no differences (at least on my part) if it were not for sin. Mistakes and errors I can handle and forgive quickly, but consistent misrepresentation (sin) needs to be corrected. The problem in this case is that for some, sin is acceptable, and to others its not.

    On a world scale this is the craziness which leads to wars and eventually death. I for one am glad sin will lose in the end, that is why I will not side with or be acceptable to consistent/blatant sin.   

    Share this comment


    Link to comment
    Share on other sites



    Create an account or sign in to comment

    You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

    Create an account

    Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

    Register a new account

    Sign in

    Already have an account? Sign in here.

    Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...