I think the weather in the sim is phenomenal, and the rain effects, volumetric lighting in clouds, low visibility, thunderstorm capabilities, and so forth are a work of art.  Having said that, I think it's disappointing that people in the community are pushing back on 3rd party APIs.  We need cirrus clouds, more overall cloud variety, some extra controls, and most of all, weather radar.  I don't get why the weather radar in certain add-ons (Black Square) is sufficient for development, but others say it's not accurate and they won't implement it.  It's a cop out IMO. 

Regardless, if a certain number of users and developers are asking for something, it should be considered.  That would be like me saying I don't have any performance problems, so they shouldn't streamline the code to assist slower systems.  The whole "It's works fine for me" crowd should really keep it to themselves.  No one is gonna force you to buy Active Sky if that is released at some point. 

1 hour ago, polosim said:

Several important and some trivial things have been mentioned about the way ASOBO has recreated the weather in MSFS2020. However, no one has mentioned that up to this point, you still can't select a specific sight distance, 

That has bothered me since day 1 of the sim.

We sometimes see depiction with unlimited visibility.  That is pretty rare in most non-desert climates.

3 minutes ago, Orlaam said:

it's disappointing that people in the community are pushing back on 3rd party APIs

This.

Strange to see push back on more open software and future 3rd party releases that may.....improve the sim. If it improves and adds features I want I will buy and if it doesn't I wont.

Either way, I would at least like to have the choice and see what 3rd party devs can do.

5 minutes ago, Orlaam said:

Active Sky

is not primarily about "the rain effects, volumetric lighting in clouds, low visibility, thunderstorm capabilities, and so forth...."

those basic elements are already there, but to work on fine adjustments and control these programatically, not to come up with new cloud types or rain effects, that's Asobo's job. there seems to be some confusion here (probably more among the nay sayers) about what the 3rd party weather developers could+should do with the SDK.

10 minutes ago, turbomax said:

is not primarily about "the rain effects, volumetric lighting in clouds, low visibility, thunderstorm capabilities, and so forth...."

those basic elements are already there, but to work on fine adjustments and control these programatically, not to come up with new cloud types or rain effects, that's Asobo's job. there seems to be some confusion here (probably more among the nay sayers) about what the 3rd party weather developers could+should do with the SDK.

Hey, I welcome better cloud textures (e.g., cirrus) and weather effects from Asobo.  You are right, it should be there, but it's not and it's not even acknowledged.  It would probably take a couple days of development to introduce an occasional cirrus layer, but they don't even talk about it.  It's just like the wind shift problem in FS9.  MS/ACES never even tried to fix it.  We had to rely on third party software for that.  The biggest failing so far to me, is the weather radar.  We've had that since FS9, but now we have the same developers/aircraft plowing through the rain with a blank screen.  Game or not, as much as this sim does with weather over previous sims, I see no reason why we shouldn't have such effects.  People are acting like the Active Sky rendering method were accurate, when they clearly weren't.  It was an arbitrary rendering of rain in the area you flew, that's it.  I purchased several Active Sky products, and I used them on every flight.  If Asobo isn't going fix or add to the sim in this regard, then third parties should be able to, and it would be up to the consumers to decide on how to spend their money.

If somebody can bring actual weather to New Zealand using more than three weather stations, and get rid of the snow at Milford, then bring it on, HiFi. Guess they'd have to pay NZ's fee to do so though. Other than that, I love the current MSFS weather.

Edited May 16, 20233 yr by Bones62

I fly in vr only so no camera addon needed. Even in 2d I would not know what for.

the default weather is awesome and I o any weather addon is a money waste.

so I don’t care 

3 minutes ago, Orlaam said:

People are acting like the Active Sky rendering method were accurate, when they clearly weren't.  It was an arbitrary rendering of rain in the area you flew, that's it.

they couldn't help it since in previous versions like FSX/P3D a developer had no idea where exactly the rain was falling down, so not their fault. With a weather SDK and access to all weather variables, this could easily be fixed and you'd get a nice working weather radar. if it works in x-plane, there is absolutely no reason why it couldn't work in MSFS just as well. there is "more that just a few 1% users" who want weather tools, contrary to Joerg Neumann's claim.

2 minutes ago, DaWu said:

so I don’t care

good to know.

3 minutes ago, turbomax said:

they couldn't help it since in previous versions like FSX/P3D a developer had no idea where exactly the rain was falling down, so not their fault. With a weather SDK and access to all weather variables, this could easily be fixed and you'd get a nice working weather radar. if it works in x-plane, there is absolutely no reason why it couldn't work in MSFS just as well. there is "more that just a few 1% users" who want weather tools, contrary to Joerg Neumann's claim.

It’s probably lower than 1%. The only good thing of the weather api will be actual real weather radars hopefully. 

42 minutes ago, turbomax said:

is not primarily about "the rain effects, volumetric lighting in clouds, low visibility, thunderstorm capabilities, and so forth...."

those basic elements are already there, but to work on fine adjustments and control these programatically, not to come up with new cloud types or rain effects, that's Asobo's job. there seems to be some confusion here (probably more among the nay sayers) about what the 3rd party weather developers could+should do with the SDK.

Ideally, I'd want a 3PD to expeditiously make the weather capable of danger. The default engine will allow me to fly straight into the anvil of a CB with a 172. In no small list, the default engine has:

• No hail
• No lightning
• No cirrus or iridescent clouds
• No stratus (or alto-stratus)
• No mesospheric cloud formations
• No microbursts or macrobursts ("Wind Shear - Wind Shear!"
• No squall lines or outflow boundaries
• No lenticular, Horseshoe, Fractus, Arcus, or Velum cloud formations
• No sandstorms, ash clouds, or other city-sized meteorological events
• No human made weather visuals like smokestack smoke, fires, or smog
• No Aurora Borealis, St.Elmo's fire, or other visually unique events
• No Tuba cloud formations like: vortexes, hurricanes depiction, tornadoes, or dust devils
• No wet / contaminated surfaces after rain stops
• No wet / contaminated surfaces due to fog / high dew point
• Precipitation does not care for wind direction or speed. (At high altitudes you should be able to see rain snow or hail hit you from below)
• No proper icing simulation
• No wake turbulence

The engine can depict all of these. The only reason they're not in the base sim is because the devs have their hands full with more important aspects of the simulation. IMHO, much like WT is fixing the 787 and 748, a 3PD would be more incentivized to do these because they tend to focus on niche realism.

The bonus of letting 3PD's drive weather ahead is that the millions of players who don't care for realistic weather can opt out of it, which isn't always possible when Asobo implements things themselves. (See: Lightning in clear skies and icing while flying through 2,000 feet of cumulus.)

OT but speaking of weather has anyone had any lightening over the past...year or more?  I must have something turned off as it's been at least a year I think since I last saw any lightening and I'm flying in many very different areas of the world.

28 minutes ago, turbomax said:

they couldn't help it since in previous versions like FSX/P3D a developer had no idea where exactly the rain was falling down, so not their fault. With a weather SDK and access to all weather variables, this could easily be fixed and you'd get a nice working weather radar. if it works in x-plane, there is absolutely no reason why it couldn't work in MSFS just as well. there is "more that just a few 1% users" who want weather tools, contrary to Joerg Neumann's claim.

Ummm, our advanced radar, precipitation and reflectivity simulation for FSX/P3D (which debuted with ASNext about 10 years ago) is based on actual cloud positions, and absolutely is synchronized and accurate within around 250 meters horizontally and 50 meters vertically.  There was no arbitrary rain in the area you flew.  It was and is highly accurate. 

For example, if you sit on the runway in scattered/broken precipitating cloud layers, the rain starts and stops, increases, decreases in intensity, updated at least every 1/4 second.  Turbulence is handled similarly as well as tstorm-based updrafts and downdrafts, hail and anvil simulation, based on the actual synchronized cloud positions, heights and associated computed precip type/intensity.  

You both must be referring to another platform or earlier product, or subsequent new procedural cloud depiction modes which removed our ability to identify clouds and their positions and never made new API/SDK available to do such.  But it still works with legacy clouds.  Here's a video from 9 years ago: 

We SO want to do this for FS2020, and SO much more!  

Edited May 16, 20233 yr by Damian Clark

I hope the API is open for hifi. I have used AS for many years (and still do) and it has been an essential addon in the community for a long time.  Would love to see their work in MSFS.  Not knocking the default weather engine, but I’m confident hifi could make it a whole lot better. 

3 hours ago, virtualstuff said:

Wel if I was Asobo I would hire you guys to do it in the same framework 

I've been whining about this on their forums for months. They gave contracts to weather "experts" that never step a foot in the flight sims and it bit them hard. They should hire them like they did Working Title guys. Do it!