Cameron Posted April 11, 2016 Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 Captains, With SkyMaxx Pro 3.1 now out the door and so much positive feedback coming back to us through various channels, we're ready for the next step: Real Weather Connector! We have completed our beta testing phase and the packaging for retail begins now. For those of you hearing about Real Weather Connector for the first time, Real Weather Connector couples with SkyMaxx Pro v3.1 when you have the real weather option selected in X-Plane. Without Real Weather Connector there is a limitation in the X-Plane plugin SDK which makes it impossible for products like SkyMaxx Pro to access real weather data in far out distances. Instead, you would see real weather ONLY for the area your aircraft is flying over, and it would be uniformly set for the entire scene (meaning you can't see overcast ahead if broken clouds are below you; the whole scene would be broken clouds instead). After a ton of work (more programming code than in SkyMaxx Pro v3 itself!), Real Weather Connector now makes this possible reading downloaded weather data from the default X-Plane real weather METAR file format OR a program like FSGRW (note: EFASS and NOAA are not compatible with Real Weather Connector as they do not provide the required data files for Real Weather Connector to be able to work its magic!). We have actually had rather spectacular results with the default real weather download functionality in X-Plane. These third party programs (like FSGRW) are optional, not required! So, again in simpler terms, Real Weather Connector lets you see different weather conditions in the distance, and fly into them smoothly, just like in real life. All of the clouds around you will be in the right place and at the right altitude, and won't just "pop" in as you fly. If you look closely at the screenshots below, you'll see there are many different weather systems and cloud conditions visible in the same view - that wasn't possible before with SkyMaxx Pro v3! Real Weather Connector will be released this coming Friday, April 15, 2016. As a thank you to our current customers, anyone who purchases SkyMaxx Pro v3 prior to April 15, 2016 will receive a discount to be used towards the purchase of this product! We will send out discount codes before the product goes live so you have the opportunity to purchase this product as soon as it's available. Of course, no final announcement is complete without a promotional video (and more screenshots below the video), so we're excited to show you that now! Further to the video above, check out some of these awesome images by @Yidahoo showcasing Real Weather Connector in action. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do! We'll see you in the skies with awesome weather scenes this Friday! 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jose Almeida Posted April 11, 2016 Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 It is rather disappointing that RWC only works with x-plane's real weather or FSGRW, since the former only provides winds aloft over the USA and the latter does not have a Mac version; since I don't live in the USA and I use a Mac, I'm afraid it's not for me. I was really looking forward to this development and I am very sad! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cameron Posted April 11, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 7 minutes ago, Jose Almeida said: It is rather disappointing that RWC only works with x-plane's real weather or FSGRW, since the former only provides winds aloft over the USA and the latter does not have a Mac version; since I don't live in the USA and I use a Mac, I'm afraid it's not for me. I was really looking forward to this development and I am very sad! Encourage the developer of whichever weather injector you use to implement METAR based files! It's simply the default X-Plane METAR format, so nothing impossible or daunting for them (I think you use NOAA). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jose Almeida Posted April 11, 2016 Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 That's right, Cameron, I use NOAA because x-plane did a very bad job with their weather implementation. Will RWC work with on line weather from IVAO or VATSIM? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cameron Posted April 11, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 17 minutes ago, Jose Almeida said: Will RWC work with on line weather from IVAO or VATSIM? As I recall it, these DO work with RWC with proper settings in either VATSIM or IVAO. This information will be in the documentation of RWC (and easy). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Celis Posted April 11, 2016 Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 Great news... Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ONDR4.cz Posted April 11, 2016 Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 The very important feature of NOAA is that it includes various layers of turbulence and winds aloft even in areas not covered by METARs (typically over the oceans or large seas). I'm not sure if the default XPL weather can do any of that. The news is especially disappointing because of what the original announcement said: Quote To be precise, Real Weather Connector will further enhance your flying sessions when utilizing real world weather from sources like NOAA, FSGRW, X-Plane's Real WX Download option, EFASS, etc. FSGRW is of course an option but 40 EUR for a mere weather injector? Go figure. Now the only hope is to wait and see if the developer of the NOAA plugin can somehow adapt it to work with RWC. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cameron Posted April 11, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 6 minutes ago, ONDR4.cz said: I'm not sure if the default XPL weather can do any of that. The news is especially disappointing because of what the original announcement said Sadly it wasn't until later where we discovered NOAA does some funny business with disabling certain real weather features, thereby bypassing items RWC needs to work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmerelles Posted April 11, 2016 Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 can we expect in sync views from real weather connector under a dual computer setup? or anything specific to know about this setup? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ssimm42858 Posted April 11, 2016 Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 RATS! RATS! RATS! Got to wait 4 more days, Heck I got my patpal link in my favorites. I'm ready to buy it right now, and got SkyMaxx upgraded to v3.1 and ready to go, its going to be a very long 4 days 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wycliffe Posted April 11, 2016 Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 Excellent News card paypal and everything else is ready to go. Xplane Dedicated will be doing full featured review. Wycliffe 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liser Posted April 11, 2016 Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 Congratulations! Another one ready to buy! And thanks for the discount! Enviado desde mi Nexus 5 mediante Tapatalk 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paraffin Posted April 11, 2016 Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 A question about how this works: I do almost all my flying in the FSEconomy game, where it's fun to have the variety from real weather and the cloud effects from SkyMaxx Pro, but I still have to complete each assignment in the FSE game. No weather diversions allowed! So, what I'm doing now, is to load up X-Plane's default "real weather from the Net," at the departing airport, then see if the winds or cloud base would make the landing too difficult. I'm usually flying short enough hops that it's basically the same weather at the destination airport. Many of the airstrips I fly into with FSE are small, with non-precision approaches, and I usually fly light stuff like GA bush planes and helicopters that can't handle severe conditions. If the weather doesn't look like I could complete the FSE assignment, I adjust it on the X-Plane weather page by backing down the winds and raising the cloud base if needed. In other words, I'm flying with hand-tweaked real weather, when the conditions are really bad out there in the real world. Can I do the same thing with RWC? In other words, have it load in real weather but adjust it and "lock" it on the fly so I can complete an FSE assignment? Or am I always flying in downloaded weather full-time when I'm using RWC, take it or leave it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cameron Posted April 11, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 7 minutes ago, Paraffin said: Can I do the same thing with RWC? In other words, have it load in real weather but adjust it and "lock" it on the fly so I can complete an FSE assignment? You can absolutely do this! Real Weather Connector recognizes if you have the real weather option checked in X-Plane. If you adjust it to be localized weather to your liking then SkyMaxx Pro v3 will kick back to it's original way pre-RWC. All of this is "on the fly", so this should be easy for you as a whole. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmmaBentley Posted April 11, 2016 Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 Looking forward to this another stunner from the guys at sundog Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gugubarcelos Posted April 11, 2016 Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 Wonderful! I can not wait to see this wonder in action. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paraffin Posted April 11, 2016 Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 51 minutes ago, Cameron said: You can absolutely do this! Real Weather Connector recognizes if you have the real weather option checked in X-Plane. If you adjust it to be localized weather to your liking then SkyMaxx Pro v3 will kick back to it's original way pre-RWC. All of this is "on the fly", so this should be easy for you as a whole. That's great Cameron, thanks! That will let me pick and choose between static or updated, depending on real-world conditions. I'm really looking forward to this. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chase172 Posted April 12, 2016 Report Share Posted April 12, 2016 (edited) Can I use both WX engines simultaneously? Also, which engine did you use on the video preview? Edited April 12, 2016 by chase172 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cameron Posted April 12, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2016 Can I use both WX engines simultaneously? Also, which engine did you use on the video preview? I don't understand this question (the first one). Default X-Plane real weather download is shown in the video. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chase172 Posted April 12, 2016 Report Share Posted April 12, 2016 (edited) 7 minutes ago, Cameron said: I don't understand this question (the first one). Default X-Plane real weather download is shown in the video. From what I understand you can either use the default real-world wx OR fsgrw. Is this not true? Does weather connector make these two run together at the same time? Maybe I'm just completely misunderstanding the functionality of this add-on... :/ Edited April 12, 2016 by chase172 Grammar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cameron Posted April 12, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2016 From what I understand you can either use the default real-world wx OR fsgrw. Is this not true? Does weather connector make these two run together at the same time? Maybe I'm just completely missing the functionality of this add-on... :/ It can use ANY weather injector which downloads metar.rwx files from the Internet. I used the default real weather option or FSGRW as examples. X-Plane wouldn't allow you to use both at once. Why would you even want to? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chase172 Posted April 12, 2016 Report Share Posted April 12, 2016 11 minutes ago, Cameron said: It can use ANY weather injector which downloads metar.rwx files from the Internet. I used the default real weather option or FSGRW as examples. X-Plane wouldn't allow you to use both at once. Why would you even want to? The way I see it, they both have their pros and cons. So to be able to compile the data from both AND THEN inject the weather would seem like a great product and it's what I thought the aim of the weather connector was. The video description says you can use the default engine and FSGRW is optional, so I thought this was maybe the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cameron Posted April 12, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2016 42 minutes ago, chase172 said: So to be able to compile the data from both AND THEN inject the weather would seem like a great product and it's what I thought the aim of the weather connector was. But they both compile the same data from their own sources...so it's not really right to say what you just did. You are definitely not understanding the aim of Real Weather Connector. As it stands now, if you load up FSGRW or X-Plane real weather, then SkyMaxx Pro will render the ENTIRE sky with clouds for the exact area where your aircraft is. So, if you are over broken clouds, but there is an overcast front 10 miles away, you will actually see broken clouds 10 miles and beyond until you get to the overcast front boundary, and all of a sudden the entire weather scene will re-draw to now show all overcast. With Real Weather Connector it works with SkyMaxx Pro v3.1 to place various weather fronts where they should be, meaning you can now be over those broken clouds and see the overcast ahead of you. No sudden, jarring transition. This basically oversteps what's "not possible" with X-Plane right now by making our own METAR file parser...so when X-Plane or FSGRW download these files from the internet, Real Weather Connector then reads it and grids the clouds throughout the area as they should be shown. Let's use the below image as an example...see how in the image there are clear skies and the aircraft is approaching a weather front? Without Real Weather Connector this image would have actually had those clouds throughout the entire image...no discernible boundary for where the weather system starts. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgeiss Posted April 12, 2016 Report Share Posted April 12, 2016 5 hours ago, Jose Almeida said: It is rather disappointing that RWC only works with x-plane's real weather or FSGRW, since the former only provides winds aloft over the USA and the latter does not have a Mac version; since I don't live in the USA and I use a Mac, I'm afraid it's not for me. I was really looking forward to this development and I am very sad! Global winds aloft with x-plane's real weather is planned for 10.50, at least according to the developer blog. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twgin Posted April 12, 2016 Report Share Posted April 12, 2016 Looking forward to trying the product... I second Mmerelles' question above; I run a two computer setup, xplane running on both, one drives an out the window view (slaved) and the other (the master) the panel view. At present SkyMaxx is running on both machines and FSGRW running only on the master. I would assume Weather Connector would be put on the master machine and pass all weather info to the slaved machine ? Any comment or expertise out there on this question ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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