Questions about Sky Maxx pro

[jfsimon1981]

Hi

I'd like to know and understand how various are type of clouds and systems available.
Are the following implemented : snow/rain Cu/Cb/Tcu/St/Ci ?

 

Many screenshots show some of the above, essentially looking like Cu / Ci as few or layers.

 

Are more compler weather systems available ? How different and various are the type of clouds and type of cloud systems implemented and available with this add on plugin ?

 

I'm basically taking about the following type of clouds as it is normally described in all aviation, Cumulonimbus, Cumulus and cirro/alto cumulus, Status, stratocumulus, Tower cumulus, embeded systems, etc ...

 

The questions since I've not seen so far manyscreenshots of different types. It'all all quite similar - I'd like to be sure quite more complex weather systems are also available.

 

Regards

 

Jean-François

Edited August 8, 2014 by jfsimon1981

[JohnMAXX]

Jean,

 

We do simulate the same conditions available under the default weather engine anlong with any injectors out there.

 

Overcast condtions are presented as either a flat layer(low setting in the SM UI)  or as a heavy Cumulus Congestus layer (Medium/High setting in the SM UI)

 

You can force a cirrus layer to be present all the time or let it be present if the weather engine says one is there.

 

We also simulate standard cumulus conditions ie few, scattered or broken along with thunderheads and towering cumulus.....

Edited August 8, 2014 by JohnMAXX

[jfsimon1981]

Can you describe a little bit how are clouds made in there, are there accumulated 2D samples or 3D ? how is the volume simulated etc ?

 

Thanks

[sundog]

Can you describe a little bit how are clouds made in there, are there accumulated 2D samples or 3D ? how is the volume simulated etc ?

 

I don't want to give away too much about how we do it, but different types of clouds are created in different manners. Taking cumulus clouds as an example, each cloud is a 3D volumetric collection of "metaballs", where each metaball is represented by a billboard and lit individually. The cloud shapes are created procedurally using a cellular automata to create variety and realistic cloud shapes, and the distribution of cloud sizes is also based on algorithms taken from meteorological research.

Edited August 8, 2014 by sundog

[jfsimon1981]

Does that mean generally clouds are not similar ? which is realistic I mean.

[sundog]

Does that mean generally clouds are not similar ? which is realistic I mean.

 

Yes, each individual cumulus cloud will be a little different. Each cloud is "grown" using the same rules, but with random variations in the initial conditions. It's a big part of why SkyMaxx Pro looks so convincing.

[jfsimon1981]

Then it's what I'm looking for. Are 32 bits development ongoing ?

 

Edit, latest Beta 8 / for future v10.30 seems  to implement something related to cloud pluing if I'm right :

 

There is now an official override for clouds (sim/operation/override/override_clouds) – setting this to one gets rid of all cloud puffs and white-out; it is no longer necessary to use art controls to replace X-Plane’s built-in clouds. Using this override saves CPU time that would have been spent building clouds and VRAM that would have been spent storing cloud meshes.

Edited August 8, 2014 by jfsimon1981

[sundog]

SkyMaxx Pro is 64-bit only, due to its dependencies. We're aware of that new override dataref - Laminar had us in mind when they created it

[jfsimon1981]

X-plane really is'nt just a sim. Thanks for allt those infos.

BTW how does the plugin handle 32 bits mode => revert back to original xplane's ?

Is lighter in CPU ressources than original's ? I've many slow FPS under layers.

Edited August 8, 2014 by jfsimon1981

[sundog]

In 32 bit mode, X-Plane will use its own clouds.

 

Most customers report that our clouds are measurably faster than X-Plane's default clouds.

Edited August 8, 2014 by sundog

[roroma]

Most customers report that our clouds are measurably faster than X-Plane's default clouds.

 

Hi - does that apply to v2 as well? Thanks

[JohnMAXX]

Hi - does that apply to v2 as well? Thanks

 

Its safe to say yes, you do need to tweak SM for best results.  Thats why we included a handy user interface

[sundog]

It's early, but so far I've seen about 3 comments online about SMP2's superior performance - one person has come out and said it's faster than SMP v1. Our testers reported comparable performance to SMP1.

 

Knowing how it all works under the hood - I'd expect performance to be a little faster than SMP v1 if the hi-res cloud puff option is off, and about the same if it's on. Either way it should be faster than default clouds on most systems if you stick with the default settings.

[jfsimon1981]

I'm just trying the V2 under latest beta 8, I don't understand why the visibility is good inside stratus and when setting low vis into the x-plane's parameters.

 

Regards

[mmerelles]

It's early, but so far I've seen about 3 comments online about SMP2's superior performance - one person has come out and said it's faster than SMP v1. Our testers reported comparable performance to SMP1.

 

Knowing how it all works under the hood - I'd expect performance to be a little faster than SMP v1 if the hi-res cloud puff option is off, and about the same if it's on. Either way it should be faster than default clouds on most systems if you stick with the default settings.

 

i have updated to SMP2, hi-res puff ON, all new features ON and having the same performance than previous version while in the ground, climbing, cruising and descending. IMAC 27" here

[sundog]

I'm just trying the V2 under latest beta 8, I don't understand why the visibility is good inside stratus and when setting low vis into the x-plane's parameters.

 

You'll get a volumetric representation for stratus clouds if you set the "overcast quality" setting in SkyMaxx's configuration to medium or high. We're hoping the final 10.30 release of X-Plane will publish accurate altitudes for stratus clouds that will enable us to get it perfect.

[roroma]

 

 

Its safe to say yes, you do need to tweak SM for best results.  Thats why we included a handy user interface

 

Thanks John

I don't own Skymaxx pro yet, but when I buy it will it be already updated to v2 or will I have to manually update it to v2?

[Cameron]

I don't own Skymaxx pro yet, but when I buy it will it be already updated to v2 or will I have to manually update it to v2?

 

It will already be updated.

[jfsimon1981]

It looks like S.M. does not anticipate the clouds, it draws them when we're only few miles or entering into the systems. They will disapear when we're out of them.

Since I have the distance vie in high, it results in clouds systems appearing and disappearing on the flight at areas where I did not expect since it did appear to be VMC from the distance.

 

Is there anything to set about it ? 

 

As another example, from John Wayne (KSNA) to San Cataline (KAVX), few at SNA, SCT on he way and OVC at AVX :

 

Taking off from John Wayne, I have few cumulus, I travel around them, climb, soon they all disappear and I can see the whole area including the airport free from clouds since I'm now flying in a local area that's completely free from clouds. In the distance, I see over the water, San Catalina far away, it's all VMC.

 

I travel along to AVX, on the way it's becoming few, then OVC below me and the coverage goes for all the area from coast to AVX. As checked from the weather map. Real weather available was few at SNA, clear west SNA, few on the coast, ocv overwater including AVX.

 

Visually, it's not possible to identify those areas as they appear and disappear once I fly into them (say 30 seconds flight from the area, it would change according to it).

Edited August 9, 2014 by jfsimon1981

[Ben Russell]

X-Plane only provides weather data that is reasonably local to the aircraft position.

 

It's possible to draw that same weather from horizon to horizon but you wont get the long distance effects that we all want to see.

 

 

A new weather injector is required, which doesn't publicly exist yet.

[Jose Almeida]

(...)

 

 

A new weather injector is required, which doesn't publicly exist yet.

 

Well, there is the NOAA plugin, which downloads weather from NOAA instead of Metar. Actually it can be configured to switch to Metar below a chosen altitude.

Edited August 9, 2014 by Jose Almeida

[Ben Russell]

But it only provides X-Plane with data that is local to the aircraft. Same problem different data feed.

[jfsimon1981]

At the moment, x-plane's weather engine is huge cpu hungry, while your plugin allows smooth and cpu relax flights, nicely done.

Edited August 9, 2014 by jfsimon1981

[scotchegg]

A new weather injector is required, which doesn't publicly exist yet.

...publicly?

[jfsimon1981]

...publicly?

 

Certainly refers to x-planes's datarefs available for plugins to manipulate & get datas from.