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SkyMaxx Pro 2.0 Has Been Released!


Cameron
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Hi, I really enjoyed my first flight with SkyMaxx Pro V2, thanks for providing this great cloud option for X-plane 10.

I was using X-plane real weather and noticed on landing that some of the cloud bases were touching the ground, airport elevation 33 feet. The airport weather was reporting scattered clouds at 600 as the lowest layer. I was wondering how accurate you are able to get the cloud bases to reported levels in SMPv2 ?

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I was wondering how accurate you are able to get the cloud bases to reported levels in SMPv2

 

We put them exactly where X-Plane tells us to put them, but I haven't quantified the error between real-life cloud bases and what X-Plane reports. I do know this is a known issue in X-Plane and on the list of things they are planning to address in X-Plane 10.30, but I don't know the status of that work.

 

We do add a random variation of up to 300 meters in the altitudes of individual clouds in order to add some visual interest - in real life, they're not all at exactly the same level. But, this variation is added to the given base altitude, so it would only make clouds higher, not lower.

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Thanks for your reply Sundog - just to clarify - The cloud base in X-plane weather (10.30b8) was 633 feet which was spot on (clouds at 600 feet plus airfield elevation 33 feet), so maybe its worth looking into this if SMPv2 cloud base are not supposed to be any lower than the base set in X-plane.

By the way a cloud shadow drifted across the runway as I was on short final it looked SO GOOD !!!

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I got a little problem, looks like a tornado in the middle of Greece

I had to laugh when I saw this and the resulting posts. It appears to me to be a small thunderhead (storm clouds); I have seen X-Plane do this before, make rather small localized storm cells. Sound reasonable???

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When rendering clouds, is skymaxx / x-plane only using one core?

 

We render the clouds with whatever thread (and core) X-Plane calls us from. You can't render to the same OpenGL surface from multiple cores / threads at the same time - only things like physics can be spread out in that way. But I have no idea how X-Plane uses or doesn't use threads internally.

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We render the clouds with whatever thread (and core) X-Plane calls us from. You can't render to the same OpenGL surface from multiple cores / threads at the same time - only things like physics can be spread out in that way. But I have no idea how X-Plane uses or doesn't use threads internally.

I see. Well your suggestion deleting the settings.dat and then adjust from there worked. Thanks!

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Well your suggestion deleting the settings.dat and then adjust from there worked.

 

Very cool. We should probably add a "reset" button to the configuration screen in a future update. It's too easy to end up making unwanted tradeoffs between quality and performance in there, and forget how to get back to where you started from.

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Very cool. We should probably add a "reset" button to the configuration screen in a future update. It's too easy to end up making unwanted tradeoffs between quality and performance in there, and forget how to get back to where you started from.

 

Hi Guys,

 

Actually - I was just thinking this exact same thing as I was fooling around with SMPv2 yesterday.

 

The ability to [reset to factory defaults] would be appreciated, this way I don't have to remember whack knobs Ive turned, and where to put them 'back' once I've fiddled with them.

 

+1 on this idea. Thats is all.

 

- CK. 

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SkyMaxx Pro does not set visibility, or do anything special at 10,000 feet. I think the problem here is that X-Plane only gives us a single visibility value, so if there is different visibility at different altitudes that information is not exposed to us. We do increase visibility of the clouds a bit as altitude increases to compensate for this, but for now that's the best we can do with what X-Plane tells us.

 

 

Hello Sundog!
 
Sorry for the other day. Because now I bought SMP2, I said to myself why not help them to solve problems, instead of getting angry with them? 
 
And here I found the dataref the actual visibility on the time displayed on the screen! Try to give that value as the distance to the clouds and it will work! 
 
The dataref is sim /private/stats/skyc/fog/far_fog_cld To find the meters, multiply the value of dataref for 10 EDIT: Sorry the value is already in meters
 
Try it, you do the test and tell me if it goes !! If you succeed I will not be unhappy with SMP, that was the problem that most of all I could not stand!
Edited by mat18590
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Well I do appreciate your being constructive, mat18590. That is a good find.

 

The problem is that commercial add-ons are not allowed to depend on private art controls, since they may change without notice at any time - unless you get some sort of special permission from Laminar. I'll have to think on the best way to approach that.

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Well I do appreciate your being constructive, mat18590. That is a good find.

The problem is that commercial add-ons are not allowed to depend on private art controls, since they may change without notice at any time - unless you get some sort of special permission from Laminar. I'll have to think on the best way to approach that.

shame because it would improve a lot! Can not let you do this permission? if I'm not mistaken even read the addon planes dataref that with the changing of versions of Xplane can change. Them how to do it? have this permission?
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The only issue I'm having with V2 is the peculiar movement of the aircraft shadows when panning around the aircraft when cloud shadows are enabled. This goes completely when cloud shadows are enabled, as seen here: 

 

 

You have to watch the shadows at the shallow viewing angles angles seen above.

 

Other than this, V2 is superb

 

EDIT: Also forgot to mention, this does not occur in cockpit view even with cloud shadows enabled. Flying into the shadow of a cloud does not seem to have any effect on the cockpit shadows and the wings do not appear to be darkening in the shadows.

Edited by DanSkywalker
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Yup, that one slipped by us. Good catch. If all of the following are true:

 

  • You have cloud shadows on
  • You have X-Plane's shadows on
  • You are looking at your plane from an external view
  • Your plane is on the ground
  • Your plane is actually underneath a cloud shadow
  • HDR is on

 

...and you move the camera around, the shadows from the plane won't be quite right. So far I haven't found a workaround, but we'll address it in our next release if we can.

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They are exactly the circumstances needed to reproduce this :P  Its not too much of an issue at the moment, nevertheless, I hope you are able to find a fix.

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

EDIT: This shadow issue is also seen in flight. Also is there a way to fade out the cloud puffs as you fly through them to avoid them popping away? Maybe a to fade them out within a certain radius of the camera?

Edited by DanSkywalker
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