sundog

Ask and ye shall receive - just posted some more!

Here are some of the latest images of SkyMaxx Pro 2.0, which is currently at beta 11. We're cautiously optimistic this will be the version we ship. Thanks to our amazing beta testing team for providing some of these images. A nice shot of cloud shadows and the new high-resolution cloud option: Thunderstorms got a facelift as well: Nice shot of the new lens flare option: I've posted this one before, but I just really like how it shows the cloud shadows and new cloud textures: Stormy conditions from above, coming out of a towering cumulus cloud: Nicely composed shot showcasing cloud shadows and the new hi-res cloud puffs: One more lens flare shot: That's enough for now Stay tuned for more details on the update.

From what we've found, the whiteout that appears on loading but disappears in a couple of seconds happens with or without SkyMaxx Pro installed. It seems to be a quirk of the 10.30 betas. There does seem to be a problem in the 10.30 betas in some airports that causes the whiteout conditions to stick permanently if real weather is on. We've added code into Skymaxx Pro 2.0 (coming soon!) that seems to prevent this from happening, in case this issue persists into the final 10.30 release.

bkeith2, please check your PM's on this board - I haven't seen this happening myself, so we'll need to work a little more closely with you to make sure whatever is going on gets resolved.

We do the best we can with the information X-Plane gives us, which is just a single value indicating how "thunderstormy" it is around the plane. SkyMaxx Pro represents these types of conditions with a mixture of three different cloud types: - Cumulus congestus clouds, which make up most of the clouds in SkyMaxx Pro. - "Towering cumulus" clouds, which are basically really really big and tall cumulus congestus clouds, in the process of forming into cumulonimbus thunderheads. If storms are present, we throw in a few of these around the plane. These are new types of clouds In SkyMaxx Pro 2. - Cumulonimbus clouds - these are the anvil-shaped "thunderheads" that create lightning effects. We pepper a few around the plane, the number of them being determined by X-Plane's measure of local storminess. Cumulonimbus clouds existed in SkyMaxx Pro 1, but we made them bigger and better lit for SkyMaxx Pro 2.

FYI, the new X-Plane 10.30b6 release should clear this issue up. It's explicitly mentioned in the beta 6 release notes. It's a little too early to say definitively, but 10.30b6 also seems rock-solid with SkyMaxx Pro so far, as opposed to earlier 10.30 beta versions.

Right now there is still an issue in X-Plane that prevents us from doing totally opaque overcast layers with thickness - the visibility effects from X-Plane don't quite match up with the altitudes published to us through the SDK. That's why SkyMaxx Pro today represents these types of clouds either with really dense cumulus clouds or an infinitely thin stratus cloud depending on your "overcast quailty" settings, and disables X-Plane's white-out effect when you are near these types of clouds to prevent the inconsistency. But, there is reason to hope - on the X-Plane developer blog, Ben Supnik recently commented that this is slated to be fixed within the 10.30 run at some point. If this is resolved, it's literally a one-line-of-code change within SkyMaxx Pro to take advantage of it. It's anyone's guess as to whether SkyMaxx Pro 2.0 will ship before or after X-Plane 10.30. But if a later release of X-Plane lets us improve our representation of overcast conditions further, history has shown that we won't hesitate to release another update to SkyMaxx Pro to make it even better. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more details on the new features in SkyMaxx Pro 2.0. If the reactions of our beta testers is any measure, I think you guys are going to love it.

I've been looking into this more deeply - right now I believe this is a bug in 10.30b5 that SkyMaxx Pro happens to expose. Please do submit crash reports to Laminar when prompted so they can investigate more deeply. I have some reason to believe 10.30b6 might clear this up, but meanwhile if you want crash-free flights you should stick with the current stable release of X-Plane (10.25). If you run beta software, you have to accept some things will be broken. Based on feedback from our own beta testers for Skymaxx Pro 2, these crashes do not occur in 10.25.

Here's a much nicer screenshot one of our beta testers, Emma Bentley, took of SkyMaxx Pro 2.0 beta 8. We're still tweaking the appearance of the clouds for beta 9, but I think it's shaping up pretty nicely.

SkyMaxx Pro 2's shadow settings are completely independent from X-Plane's built-in settings - it uses its own shadow system for clouds. There is a checkbox to enable them, and a slider to adjust their intensity, within the Skymaxx Pro configuration screen. So, you can adjust X-Plane's shadows however you wish and tweak the cloud shadows on their own.

Again it's important to remember that SkyMaxx Pro is a weather renderer, not a weather injector / engine / whatever you want to call it. We take advantage of whatever weather information and hooks X-Plane's SDK makes available to us, and represent it as best we can. The stuff you're talking about does mostly hinge on Laminar or other third parties providing new or better data to us to render. You can be sure we'll stay on top of it though.

It's not tied to the 10.30 release, although it does take advantage of a few 10.30 features if they are present. We'll release SMP2 to X-Aviation as soon as we're confident the bugs have been identified and resolved.

Correct; shadows will not be cast on the plane if it is above the cloud layer.

In the current SMP, the clouds extend to a distance that is a function of the "draw distance" slider in the SMP configuration and the current visibility. Right now the cloud layer can be as large as 150km across if visibility permits, and you've cranked up the draw distance all the way. I can bump that up further if needed, but first make sure you've increased the draw distance slider and your visibility is high in the weather settings to get the most clouds.

They said it couldn't be done! Today, beta testers received Skymaxx Pro 2.0b7, and with this release we've cracked the nut on rendering shadows from SkyMaxx's 3D clouds! Actually, I said it couldn't be done too. But, we came up with a new shadowing technique never before seen in X-Plane that allows us to draw shadows using the existing X-Plane SDK. Clouds will shadow anything below the clouds, including your own plane, and with little to no measurable framerate hit. Cloud shadows in SMP2 will also move as the wind blows the clouds in the scene. You might also notice the new high-resolution cloud option in SMP2 in this screenshot. SMP2 also includes a new lens flare feature, new towering cumulus clouds in stormy conditions, and many improvements to the lighting and visual quality of the clouds. We will probably be casting a wider net for beta testers soon, so please monitor this forum if you're interested in early access. Stay tuned for more information as we grow closer to a release.

SkyMaxx Pro will regenerate clouds any time: A cloud layer is introduced or removed, or the cloud layers are suddenly assigned to different ID's The local thunderstorm percentage changes by more than 10% The top, bottom, or coverage of a cloud layer changes at all In SkyMaxx Pro 2 we'll introduce a tolerance around the cloud layer top/bottom/coverage as well which might help if EFASS is the culprit, but for now see if disabling EFASS clears it up.

It's just a radio button in the Skymaxx Pro configuration screen you need to change. No need to do anything else.

mmerelles, the most common issue on MacOS can be avoided by setting your "overcast quality" setting in SkyMaxx Pro to medium or high. Have you already tried that?

Thanks for the info. Since you're on Windows, I think this is actually a different issue, but I suspect it's one we've already fixed for the upcoming SkyMaxx Pro 2.0 release (which is currently in beta testing.) Basically if you somehow end up with more than one cirrus layer in the scene (which third party weather add-ons could do, even though that never happens in real life) it can lead to problems. It should be an extremely rare issue however, and the update is coming soon. If this is happening for you on a regular basis however please let me know, and we can work more closely with you on testing a fix.

Hi captbullet, I just tried Maxx-FX on two different systems with 10.30b5 without a problem - and this is the first I've heard of any potential issue with the 10.30 betas and Maxx-XP products. I suspect either something is wrong with your installation, or Maxx-FX is failing its license check with X-Aviation for some reason. The latter seems more likely. There should be something in your log file if the license check failed, so posting your log here might help us shed some light on it.

Hi José, Right now, SMP saves changes to your settings only when a normal shutdown occurs. You're right this isn't much help in the event of X-Plane crashing for some reason. SkyMaxx Pro 2.0 will save the changes whenever you apply the settings or close the settings dialog box - just coded that up for you. No information yet on a release date for that, but stay tuned.

SkyMaxx moves these files when it starts up and puts them back when it shuts down. (This is just in case our usual means of disabling the default clouds breaks for some reason.) As a result the file modification date changes even though the files themselves did not, and the installer thinks you may have modified them. It's safe to overwrite them when updating.

I'll leave the installation question to X-Aviation staff, but to synchronize you just need to make sure every computer has the same settings for SkyMaxx Pro. If you haven't changed them from the defaults, then no action is required. If you have tweaked them however, you'll probably want to set things up the way you like them on one computer, and copy the settings.dat file inside the SilverLining plugin folder to the other systems.

My best guess is that your SkyMaxx Pro installation can't validate your license for some reason. It will refuse to draw clouds in that case - and that could happen due to a missing Gizmo plugin, a Gizmo plugin that's too old, or several other things. Did you re-install SkyMaxx Pro using the installer provided by X-Aviation? SkyMaxx Pro consists of both the SilverLining and Gizmo plugins. If you've been manually moving these around during your experiments, that might explain the trouble. There may be some useful information in your log.txt. If it does seem like a license issue, you'll need to contact orders@x-aviation.com to work it out.

SkyMaxx only listens to what X-Plane tells it about the weather conditions at the plane's current location; there is no way it could affect X-Plane's metar parsing. It may just be coincidence that X-Plane got it right after you uninstalled, unless it is some truly bizarre bug in 10.30b3 that is triggered by just asking for the weather conditions via datarefs. Either way filing a bug report with Laminar is definitely the best course of action. For what it's worth, I ran some tests this morning with 10.30b3 + SkyMaxx Pro + Real Weather here in Orlando and it seemed to be functioning normally.