Active Sky Next and P3D2.1

[Scupper]

Been 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.

[Splitpin]

Not sure why no body has posted a comment .... odd , and a bit rude i think.
Great screens .... awesome weather , once Im away from XP I will look at this .... thanks for the post .

[Ian Warren]

QUOTE (Splitpin @ Mar 10 2014,7:08 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not sure why no body has posted a comment .... odd , and a bit rude i think.

Think it was the GA and small screens ... quick squizz then had you fellas in here for the afternoon

[Splitpin]

QUOTE (Ian Warren @ Mar 10 2014,7:39 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Think it was the GA and small screens ... quick squizz then had you fellas in here for the afternoon

Understood ..... as you were Mr Warren .

[toprob]

Yes, I missed this completely as well, maybe it was the linked thumbnails, where we're used to seeing full sized shots in the screenshot forum.
Anyway, I am very tempted to try this, but I'm not in any hurry to add stuff to P3D -- I use REX sky and cloud textures, plus real weather, but nothing else at the moment.

Weather effects are one of P3D's strengths, sometimes I'm just blown away (no pun) by the effect of flying through the clouds.

[Bugdani]

Love outside view !!!

[Ian Warren]

QUOTE

odd , and a bit rude i think.[/quote]

Thanks for the thought, Splitpin. I've seen far ruder on other sites though, - this is absolutely fine. Nobody's ever really rude on this site I don't think. (I mean I think nobody's ever really rude)

I kind of like thumbs because if you're not interested you don't have to load all the pics. Or if you're in too much of a hurry to read the text where it says click on the pic.

Having used REX 3 for quite a long time, I don't think it compares with REX 3 plus ASN. Clouds cut in and out, never in a very convincing way, they fizzle out after 100 miles or so in my experience. ASN makes it much smoother and more immersive. It's free to try for a week, so nothing to lose really, except you might be sold on it.

Here's one more, - this is between two cloud layers, which I've never done with just REX, although it might be possible. Since people seem to find clicking on a picture rather difficult I'll post it nearly full size .

Last edited by Scupper on Mon Mar 10, 2014 8:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Ian Warren]

That's better Scup's .. looks very what it looked like here in Christchurch early morning today

[AlisterC]

I can only say "great screenshots!" so many times lol.
I enjoyed the write up more than the screenshots this time though (and your shots are EXCELLENT), thanks for taking the time to do it.

[Scupper]

QUOTE (AlisterC @ Mar 10 2014,9:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I can only say "great screenshots!" so many times lol.
I enjoyed the write up more than the screenshots this time though (and your shots are EXCELLENT), thanks for taking the time to do it.

Thanks!

[ardypilot]

Getting real world weather for NZ into FSX has always been an issue with only AA, WN and CH being able to display true METAR conditions, with the rest of the country having interpolated data displayed based on weather at the closest of those three city airports.

Factors such as the alpine divide in the South Island that generates significantly different weather patterns depending on which side of the mountain range you are cannot be taken into account, even with REX or ASN. Anything north of Auckland just seems to have less cloud, and less wind displayed, the further away you load up in the sim.

However, I see ASN has an option to emulate hurricanes, which I'm guessing incorporates an algorithm in it's software to display a calm eye of the storm where the co-ordinates of the lowest pressure value have been recorded? Ex tropical cyclone Lusi is due to hit the top half of the country on Saturday, so it might be worth downloading this trial and seeing how the weather bomb gets depicted in the sim:

[toprob]

QUOTE (Scupper @ Mar 10 2014,9:19 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Here's one more, - this is between two cloud layers, which I've never done with just REX, although it might be possible. Since people seem to find clicking on a picture rather difficult I'll post it nearly full size .

How much work actually went into setting up this weather? I must admit this one has pretty much sold me on at least trying this out. Freakily realistic.

I don't think that thumbnails are difficult, they do have their place (mainly outside the screenshot forum), but it's more a matter of grabbing people's attention, plus the fact that having to open each image separately removes the "Wow. Wow! WOW!' factor as you scroll through some great images.

[ardypilot]

QUOTE

How much work actually went into setting up this weather?[/quote]

Great, - I was hoping someone would ask about the weather aspect of this post, though clearly I should have put it in the general section. I thought it would appeal to people who are interested in the way things look, which is why it ended up in Screenshots) (feel free to move it...).

This weather just happened, - it was over Morocco or Tunisia and I'd just searched for clouds and some wind, and this is what was there when I popped up through it, - otherwise I wouldn't have thought of flying over North Africa. These days though, with decent global scenery, it's a lot of fun to try out new parts of the world, - they don't hurt your eyes anymore.

I haven't tried manual weather setup yet, - it looks a bit complicated, but I would like to at some point. If there are layers in real life there'll be layers in ASN too (assuming there are weather stations to detect them).

Regarding next Saturday's storm cell, if you forget to save it you can call up 'live' weather retrospectively quite a long time in the past, - to a particular time and place, - another feature.

[ardypilot]

So I took my own advice and downloaded the trial this evening. The main screen of ASN lets you know if there are any current hurricanes active, and what the location of the eye area are.

Sure enough, Hurricane Faxai is spinning around out off the coast of Japan, so I jumped in the default Lear and went for a geeze:









Luci off Vanuatu doesn't seem to have generated an eye yet, however I loaded up at the closest airport to the storms' most recent path (Santo-Pekoa, NVSS) and found CB's galore from 1000 feet right up past FL300. Interestingly by comparison, REX showed a similar overcast ceiling, but only topping 13,000 feet and just generic cumliform cloud. Air pressure at the field was down around 990hPa which coincided from FSX deciding to prevent me from starting my piston engined aircraft whilst running ASN... Anyone else experienced this?

[Ian Warren]

I have another museum appointment in the morning .. the walk home makes it extra fun, to stop off and check out P3D2.1 - Dash mm Mk 4 series .. TRIPOD .. I'll get a little Video

[Scupper]

Paid for it tonight, my trial ran out. The main problem will probably be the lack of weather stations in NZ/Tasman but It's a lot of fun thinking of weather you feel like flying in and then selecting somewhere in the world where it's at.

Trolly, - I'm going to have to try the hurricane thing in my Bonanza, - what could possibly go wrong???

[ardypilot]

QUOTE (Scupper @ Mar 11 2014,10:52 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Trolly, - I'm going to have to try the hurricane thing in my Bonanza, - what could possibly go wrong???

This?

[Ian Warren]

I'm going to watch this later Andy, I do recall I was in Dunedin when 8/9 and had another Lockheed in the sky's tracking a Storm .. the Constellation .. be interesting to see if that doco could be found again .