International travel has kept me away from posting the past week or so, and I still won’t be in the sim again for about another week. That said, I will be able to post a bit more in the coming week than in the last. Thanks for staying with OTG in the meantime …
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I’ve been using and playing with the settings and combinations across the new HiFi ActiveSky16, Active Sky Cloud Art, and REX Texture Direct and Soft Clouds. To give a feel of how it all looks from an immersion standpoint, here’s a quick video. And to make it fast (and fun) we take a different ride than our standard Cessna 182 … 😉
Thanks for watching.
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Based on a viewer request for some flights in the Pacific Northwest, here’s the first of a two-part video, with the route overall being Arlington – Eisenberg – Diamond Point – Friday Harbor – Orcas Island – Bellingham – Skagit Bay – Arlington. In this video we fly the Arlington to Friday Harbor legs. Note the first two landings, which are each interesting in their own ways!
Details:
- REX textures and clouds
- ASN weather injection
- ORBX Pacific Northwest scenery
- A2A Cessna 182 airframe
- Prepar3d v 3.3
Thanks for watching!
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There’s been a lot of discussion in the sim forums about the new HiFi products, ActiveSky16 and Active Sky Cloud Art, and I noted this commentary earlier. Today I put commentary aside, though, and took some time to fly through convective real-time weather near KMSP and shoot screen shots along the way. (Given the need to have power and altitude, the F-22 was the ride of choice).
Primarily I took multiple screen shots of the same scene with a variety of settings, from 100% AS16+ASCA, to AS16+ASCA sky textures and cloud structures + REX cloud textures, to AS16+just REX. I will post those comparisons later. But overall, I was REALLY impressed with with AS16+ASCA can do. Yes, I thought some of the cloud textures looked cartoonish. But the cloud structures are remarkable, and were nearly unbelievable to fly through in a desktop simulator – especially considering that I had absolutely zero negative performance compared to Active Sky Next. I mean, look at these shots, all of which are unedited …
Those were both with High Dynamic Range OFF. In some of the tests I felt that the clouds were blown out and overexposed. When I realized HDR was off and turned it on, the image changed to this, which look great for bad weather …
And then I got these …
This was out the right-hand window …
And some more …
These shots are all with a particular ASCA theme, “Armageddon,” which is meant to represent turbulent, convective weather. One of the selling points is that AS16+ASCA will update cloud textures on the fly, and one would hope then with a METAR like the one at KMSP it will pull textures like these. It did not in this instance, picking a different set of textures that did not look as good (at least, not originally and not with HDR off). But if it does pick solid textures more often than not, it’s going to be a remarkable product to use.
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… was a GREAT day to go flying! Clouds, some bumps, a little crosswind. A wonderful day for stalls, steep turns, and flying “under the hood” with Foggles to simulate IFR flight. And a nice landing to boot. Fun fun fun!
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The big news in the sim world yesterday was the release by HiFi SimTech of ActiveSky16 and Active Sky Cloud Art. The release met mixed reactions by the community, with some simmers thinking the weather engine (AS16) may not have been enough of an upgrade over ActiveSkyNext to be worth the cost, and others thinking ASCA cloud textures were unrealistic or unattractive.
Having seen many of the screen shots and videos online, and having downloaded AS16 yesterday, I would disagree with the former statement but be inclined to agree with the latter. The AS16 weather engine seems much more realistic that ASN, especially around convective conditions, which in the sim yesterday tossed my little Piper Cherokee around like Dorothy’s house in the Wizard of Oz. Before you could really just fly through a lot of that stuff. Not anymore.
As for the textures, I’m a big fan of REX and not eager to change. So I was excited today to see that someone (OMGEDSON over at The Sky Lounge) has found a very straightforward way to combine all three. The solution is simple: run AS16, then run ASCA,] and configure ASCA for sky textures only (or sky textures and cloud structure if you like), then run REX and install a theme LAST. Now AS16 works dynamically with the weather transitions and sky textures, but uses the REX textures in the process. I think it looks great, as you will see via the link above, and some of these shots by OGMEDSON:
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I took a night flight to try to compare the ORBX Global, UTX, and Taburet night lighting environments. Scenery layering can be a challenge with this, but I believe I successfully started with ORBX, then went to UTX, then went to UTX and Taburet together. Overall I think the best solution of these would be ORBX and Taburet, which I’ll try tonight, and Chris Bell’s Night Environment (which has its own video in my channel) is, to me, the best of them all. I eagerly await his “Black Marble” package. Thanks for watching.
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One of my new subscribers on YouTube is HK Spotter. Looking at his channel, the first thing that got my attention was this great video from inside the Hong Kong control tower, both up top with the view, and in radar room for approach, departure, etc. If you’ve wondered what things look like from and inside the tower, this video is a great example.
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Yesterday I was able to get in a new leg on the PilotEdge Alphabet Challenge, flying from Bullhead / Laughlin (KIFP) to Jacqueline Cochran (KTRM). This as a VFR flight, using the Twentynine Palms VOR and Thermal VORs as navaids. Here’s the chart (click to enlarge):
I did have an interesting moment on this flight. Right after departure my primary yoke went inoperative (probably because I accidentally unplugged it or its USB cable). This happened just as I was off the runway. As I was trying to get it sorted, and still flying the airplane with the other yoke, Bullhead tower asked me to switch to LA Center. I couldn’t respond, as the push-to-talk switch is on the primary yoke. He called four times, with no response. So as I was trying to fly the airplane, unplug the yoke, plug in the yoke, close down SPAD.neXt, and re-launch SPAD.neXt, I also squawked 7600 for lost communications and made the turn he expected me to make out of departure. In a few minutes I had it sorted and regained communication, but if I hadn’t I would have run the lost comms procedure and then flown to an uncontrolled airport to make a cautions pattern entry and landing.
Item for the “to do” list: configure the PTT switch on yoke #2 …
Here’s the Alpha Challenge progress to date. The next flight is “J” to “K,” which is one of the longer flights in the challenge, Jacqueline Cochran to Kanab.
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