Which Weather Engine?

[Doug Boynton]

Apologies if this is too OT, but have not found too much guidance on the P3D forums or elsewhere:

I'm looking to add a good weather engine into P3D (5.2), something that will produce visually good looking clouds & weather effects:

The obvious candidates are Active Sky or Rex Sky Force, but there are other options.

Can anyone recommend any particular weather engine, please? Also, do I need anything else, such as cloud art/textures to get the best looking results?

Many thanks.

[Rafal Haczek]

In my view, but I believe this is a common knowledge, ActiveSky is the very best option for weather injection.

However it does not add textures (clouds, sky, etc). In order to get them, you have to use another product or collect some free ones.
You can find some great free sky textures if you search for Pascal Visuals.
Most popular paid texture addons are ASCA (made by HiFi, just like ActiveSky), Envtex and REX.

REX SkyForce doesn't officially support P3D v5.2 (HF1), but I can tell you it works, as I am using it.
It also offers a weather engine in one price, but I do not think it's very good.
At least I read so, since I love ActiveSky enough not to experiment with other options.

[Doug Boynton]

16 minutes ago, Rafal Haczek said:

In my view, but I believe this is a common knowledge, ActiveSky is the very best option for weather injection.

However it does not add textures (clouds, sky, etc). In order to get them, you have to use another product or collect some free ones.
You can find some great free sky textures if you search for Pascal Visuals.
Most popular paid texture addons are ASCA (made by HiFi, just like ActiveSky), Envtex and REX.

REX SkyForce doesn't officially support P3D v5.2 (HF1), but I can tell you it works, as I am using it.
It also offers a weather engine in one price, but I do not think it's very good.
At least I read so, since I love ActiveSky enough not to experiment with other options.

Many thanks for your input, Active Sky is certainly on my shortlist.

Happy to pay for a better texture addon if they are better than the free ones. Just wondering which one from the options you mentioned. I already have Envshade, so Envtex might be a good addition, given that it also provides textures for ground, water etc. But ASCA might be a better fit with Active Sky?

[Rafal Haczek]

14 minutes ago, Doug Boynton said:

Just wondering which one from the options you mentioned.
I already have Envshade, so Envtex might be a good addition, given that it also provides textures for ground, water etc.
But ASCA might be a better fit with Active Sky?

There are many threads about it, here, on AVSIM, etc. Once you read, you will obvioulsy see that it heavily depends on people's tastes.
I own all of them. I have been flying with each for some time, and currently enjoy the REX textures.

Some people say REX textures do not look realistic, because they look like photos.
Well, as an aviation enthusiast and photographer I can say they do and I love it.
Of course they are only 2D textures (unlike P3D's volumetric clouds), but so are ASCA and ENVTEX ones.

I used ASCA for a long time, due to its nice live integration with HiFi, but these textures looked too boring to me.

Envtex, in my eyes, is something in between. Better looking than ASCA, but not as photoreal as REX.

Also pricing matters, doesn't it? ASCA and ENVTEX cost similar money, around 25 euro, which is not much.
REX is definitely more expensive, probably due to being a 2-in-1 piece of software (textures and the WX engine).
But all of them happen to be on sales, which is exactly how I bought them. So, if costs matter to you, wait for some sales.

[Doug Boynton]

Excellent, your feedback from experience is much appreciated. It's a shame that you can't get a trial period for these addons, but such is life.

As you suggest, I will keep my eyes open for the sales...

Thanks again.

[Tom van der Elst]

I am using Active Sky for the weather and Rex Texture Direct for the textures.

I have used ASCA and also EnvTex but the REX ones are better IMHO.

I am however still flying P3D4.5

Having owned Active sky since forever, it seems I cannot get used to anything else.

[Ray Proudfoot]

Active Sky + ASCA user here. Used their products for years. Highly recommended. They also offer good discounts for new products when you bought an earlier one at full price. Very generous.

They do have discounts so keep an eye on their website.

https://hifisimtech.com

[Doug Boynton]

35 minutes ago, Tom van der Elst said:

I am using Active Sky for the weather and Rex Texture Direct for the textures.

I have used ASCA and also EnvTex but the REX ones are better IMHO.

I am however still flying P3D4.5

Having owned Active sky since forever, it seems I cannot get used to anything else.

Thanks Tom, I appreciate your opinion.

16 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Active Sky + ASCA user here. Used their products for years. Highly recommended. They also offer good discounts for new products when you bought an earlier one at full price. Very generous.

They do have discounts so keep an eye on their website.

https://hifisimtech.com

Thanks Ray, your comments are also appreciated.

[Atul Mishra]

I use Active Sky + ASCA. Toggled a lot between REX and ENVTEX but kept coming back to ASCA, especially "Interlude" cloud textures from ASCA gives me the best immersion in terms of visuals and a bit of volumetric feeling. REX clouds certainly look photoreal from far, but once you fly close to them, it feels translucent and like a layer of a flat image. Never felt that with ASCA however.

Previously, I used to use sky textures from REX with clouds from ASCA and Active Sky as the weather engine. But since P3D V5.2 allows an integration of third party cloud textures with TrueSky (with volumetric clouds off), I use ASCA for clouds and TrueSky's sky textures. Also, they've improved quite a bit on dawn/dusk textures unlike before which was a winning deal for me to use it together with ASCA.

[Brendan Dodds]

Activesky user here, and I find it the best for depiction. This may be outdated news, but I'm pretty sure Activesky is the only engine that will work with the weather radar in the FSL products. 

[Tom van der Elst]

My problem with ASCA is that it added a sort of greenish tint over my sky

which I really did not like at all.

The Aegean screen is with ASCA installed, the United without ASCA.

[Sabine Meier]

active sky is the most common among developers to use. all major developers have implemented it.

[Doug Boynton]

13 hours ago, Atul Mishra said:

I use Active Sky + ASCA. Toggled a lot between REX and ENVTEX but kept coming back to ASCA, especially "Interlude" cloud textures from ASCA gives me the best immersion in terms of visuals and a bit of volumetric feeling. REX clouds certainly look photoreal from far, but once you fly close to them, it feels translucent and like a layer of a flat image. Never felt that with ASCA however.

Previously, I used to use sky textures from REX with clouds from ASCA and Active Sky as the weather engine. But since P3D V5.2 allows an integration of third party cloud textures with TrueSky (with volumetric clouds off), I use ASCA for clouds and TrueSky's sky textures. Also, they've improved quite a bit on dawn/dusk textures unlike before which was a winning deal for me to use it together with ASCA.

Thanks Atul, very helpful.

12 hours ago, Brendan Dodds said:

Activesky user here, and I find it the best for depiction. This may be outdated news, but I'm pretty sure Activesky is the only engine that will work with the weather radar in the FSL products. 

Thanks Brendan, very helpful also.

[Doug Boynton]

8 hours ago, Tom van der Elst said:

My problem with ASCA is that it added a sort of greenish tint over my sky

which I really did not like at all.

The Aegean screen is with ASCA installed, the United without ASCA.

Interesting. I wonder if other users also find this? Is there anything in your settings which might be causing this? 

7 hours ago, Koen Meier said:

active sky is the most common among developers to use. all major developers have implemented it.

Thanks, good to know.

[Tom van der Elst]

14 minutes ago, Doug Boynton said:

Interesting. I wonder if other users also find this? Is there anything in your settings which might be causing this? 

Thanks, good to know.

It was caused by a certain settings file in the ACtive Sky folder.

After deleting it the green tint went away but every weatherupdate brought it back.

I am still in the p[rocess of discovering why, what and how so I don't know all yet.

[Doug Boynton]

Just now, Tom van der Elst said:

It was caused by a certain settings file in the ACtive Sky folder.

After deleting it the green tint went away but every weatherupdate brought it back.

I am still in the p[rocess of discovering why, what and how so I don't know all yet.

Thanks Tom, hope you manage to resolve it...

[Atul Mishra]

3 hours ago, Doug Boynton said:

Interesting. I wonder if other users also find this? Is there anything in your settings which might be causing this? 

 

I think that's the sky textures from ASCA right? If so, I have to agree that ASCA's sky textures don't give a good feel (personal opinion). @Tom van der Elst What do you think? Have you tried turning off installation of sky textures under settings? That should only install cloud textures (if it's the case).

[Tom van der Elst]

7 hours ago, Atul Mishra said:

I think that's the sky textures from ASCA right? If so, I have to agree that ASCA's sky textures don't give a good feel (personal opinion). @Tom van der Elst What do you think? Have you tried turning off installation of sky textures under settings? That should only install cloud textures (if it's the case).

It is not the sky textures,

ASCA somehow adds something like  a shader mod that gives the greenish hue.

If you delete the file responsible which is the sky.dat file in the as_srv folder it will not do that.

[Atul Mishra]

16 hours ago, Tom van der Elst said:

It is not the sky textures,

ASCA somehow adds something like  a shader mod that gives the greenish hue.

If you delete the file responsible which is the sky.dat file in the as_srv folder it will not do that.

Hmmm... will take a look later tonight as I never realized this effect.