Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2014 9:43 pmBeen tweaking the options on my trial version of Active Sky Next (ASN) and very happy with the results. I've never used a weather engine other than the default one and REX 3, but this is a huge step forward for me. Unlike previous versions of Active Sky, ASN doesn't include textures, so it fits perfectly with REX, which doesn't have a weather engine (yet). I use REX 3 because I can't imagine REX 4 has better textures, although it's supposed to be a lot faster. Once you install the textures though and you're content with them, you don't even need to run REX again.
In ASN you can decide what kind of weather you want to fly in and then it will tell you where you can find that weather right now. I wanted low clouds and it just happened that they were available at Fort Worth, Texas, which is where I learnt to fly, so I set up a flight to Austin, where the clouds looked thicker on the ASN weather map. I made a flight plan in ASN and loaded it in P3D2.
The first pic (click for full-sized jpg) shows a good overcast. In the default P3D2 there was always a blue strip (no cloud) on the horizon and that was always quite irritating to me.
After take-off there was low cloud or rain over part of the city.
Breaking through the stratus: I've always wanted to see this in my flightsim but had never managed it until now:
Still climbing, - to me this is very realistic. Combined with the high frame rates of P3D2 and the good lighting, it hits the spot.
Then a break in the clouds and some Texas scenery. This is OrbX Global with Vector, which incidentally has just issued a major patch.
Back into the cloud layer approaching Austin...
...and a nice approach thanks to some good vectoring. Again, the overcast is far more convincing than I've ever had, and this is my best experience in a flightsim of breaking through clouds and seeing the runway lined up in front....
I'd say ASN is definitely worth the money, especially if you've never had a third party weather engine. There is a problem at the moment with NZ weather stations though: - there are so few free ones that if you fly out over the Tasman there is currently *no* weather (i.e. clear skies always). Seems they are trying to make some kind of work-around to fix this soon, but it's something to bear in mind. I guess if you were to set the weather manually that wouldn't happen.
Dave.
In ASN you can decide what kind of weather you want to fly in and then it will tell you where you can find that weather right now. I wanted low clouds and it just happened that they were available at Fort Worth, Texas, which is where I learnt to fly, so I set up a flight to Austin, where the clouds looked thicker on the ASN weather map. I made a flight plan in ASN and loaded it in P3D2.
The first pic (click for full-sized jpg) shows a good overcast. In the default P3D2 there was always a blue strip (no cloud) on the horizon and that was always quite irritating to me.
After take-off there was low cloud or rain over part of the city.
Breaking through the stratus: I've always wanted to see this in my flightsim but had never managed it until now:
Still climbing, - to me this is very realistic. Combined with the high frame rates of P3D2 and the good lighting, it hits the spot.
Then a break in the clouds and some Texas scenery. This is OrbX Global with Vector, which incidentally has just issued a major patch.
Back into the cloud layer approaching Austin...
...and a nice approach thanks to some good vectoring. Again, the overcast is far more convincing than I've ever had, and this is my best experience in a flightsim of breaking through clouds and seeing the runway lined up in front....
I'd say ASN is definitely worth the money, especially if you've never had a third party weather engine. There is a problem at the moment with NZ weather stations though: - there are so few free ones that if you fly out over the Tasman there is currently *no* weather (i.e. clear skies always). Seems they are trying to make some kind of work-around to fix this soon, but it's something to bear in mind. I guess if you were to set the weather manually that wouldn't happen.
Dave.
.
.. looks very what it looked like here in Christchurch early morning today 
.
