Cameron

It's more or less this. Blending techniques must be used to match up with X-Plane's horizon/fog effects.

That's interesting. I don't have any experience with Vulkan vs OpenGL, really, but I can say on the Mac side Metal is an impressive uptick in performance for X-Plane as a whole over OpenGL. That said, since SMP only works in OGL on Mac, I stick to that.

The log files you have posted are not from a crashed session. They are from a clean shutdown of X-Plane that you initiated, so unfortunately these do us no good. We need log files immediately following a crash without you opening X-Plane again.

Happy to see you back!

I'm sure someone will do that on a stream pretty quickly once it's out there. Speaking personally, I don't have the time for it at the moment due to travel. Once I'm back I'm solely focusing on the release at that point. I'd also say no matter what software it is, an FPS counter with video is not going to be representative of performance. The recording of video alone is going to chew up processing power, therefore not giving you an accurate representation. Screenshots with FPS counters are probably better.

Topic closed.

This is already the case for v5 voxel clouds. Ambient light and how it scatters within the cloud based on the sun or moon position are factored in. Yes, they will remain the same.

Hi there, All of these questions are answered in the original post below the screenshot previews, but I'll answer them again here. It will require a new version of RWC. This will be FREE for all current customers of RWC. FSGRW and ASXP will still continue to work. Pricing remains the same. $39.95 for v5. A 60 day 50% discount for current v4 owners will be provided, making the v5 upgrade $19.95.

Thanks @wain!

Thanks for the support, @Radiosabines!

I totally respect that you feel differently and wish you nothing but the best in your flight sim adventures!

Hi there!, I see that you're in a part of the world where it's currently past sunset. Technology is a fun thing, and these days manufacturers of phones and computer operating systems now have the night shift where blue light is removed and a yellow hue comes in. This got me the other day. Be sure to turn off any night shift mode on your operating system or phone, and view again. These clouds are very...white.

Hi @Honey56, This is a pretty extreme comparison. If $19.95 USD is going to cause you a life or death situation, you should probably re-evaluate flight simming. I'm sorry that you're in tough times. I do hope things improve for you in 2021. On our side, SkyMaxx Pro v4 has been on the market for 4 years. In that time there have been many updates; all free. At some point, just like X-Plane 11 going to X-Plane 12 will be, new transitions must be made to keep development flowing. This is common in software (heck, even cars!). We are happy to offer you the 50% discount and feel this is a more than fair price discount for your past support. All the best!

Adding to what @sundog said above, my settings are actually 1440p ultra wide. 3440x1440p to be exact, so quite a bit more than standard 1080p.

You can alleviate abrupt weather changes with Real Weather Connector in use. I'm going to be out of office through the weekend, so will have to wait. I'm going to leave this one for @sundog. The answer is yes in OpenGL. I don't remember if this carried through to Vulkan (I'm on Mac, so no Vulkan here). 3D rain has been a thing since SkyMaxx Pro v4. However, it is only available in OpenGL. Vulkan does not allow for this kind of thing to be done at this time until Laminar creates an SDK for it. Thanks for your interest and the questions!

Hi @Glah Salamanthe, This question is answered at the bottom of the first post in my announcement. It is not possible to make plugin cloud add-ons for X-Plane in Metal at this time. Apple does not provide the necessary path to do this, and Laminar is not yet comfortable making a Metal SDK (if at all). Therefore, as much as we really wish we could, Metal will not be coming for the foreseeable future. All screenshots you have seen were taken on a Mac in OpenGL. I agree that Metal is amazing with X-Plane. I wish the answer were different, but unfortunately there's nothing we can do.

Hi @marco.auer, Thanks for the kind words. ASXP has integration with SkyMaxx Pro, but Real Weather Connector is required to get that working. Once Real Weather Connector is installed you will find a new menu option in SkyMaxx Pro for Real Weather, and then a checkbox to select ASXP. Hope this helps!

Did you somehow miss the part that v5 performs faster than v4? Or the specs of my average Mac in OpenGL at full cloud draw distance running this pleasantly over ORBX NORCAL HD? It's fine if you want to be cynical. I can only tell you you're wrong with regards to v5 and let you go about enjoying your sim however you desire. Active Sky is a great product. We like it too. Enjoy it!

Hi there, No, there is no demo available. I'm sorry you felt burned on your last purchase.

When you set cloud shadows all the way up, you are telling SkyMaxx Pro that you want cloud shadows to completely block all light from the sun. So, if a cloud shadow falls over your cockpit, it will go black. Set it to a more realistic setting, like the default of 0.5. That said, I know that the shadows don't affect the terrain as strongly as it should - this is a limitation of X-Plane's HDR pipeline that prevents us from totally blacking out the terrain. Disabling HDR will give you darker shadows if that's the look you're aiming for.

@tkyler check this out. @axmiha what video card do you have? Mac or Windows?

SkyMaxx Pro has been on the market for many years and is easily the highest bought software in the sim over that course of time. The current v4 product page should give you a pretty good idea about what it is: https://www.x-aviation.com/catalog/product_info.php/skymaxx-pro-p-138 Keep in mind v4 will be phased out next week when we release v5 as shown above.

Thanks @RobH!

Thanks @Jerry Airplanes! We appreciate the kind words.

I think this ultimately comes down to: 1. Do you want 3D volumetric clouds that are not based on billboard 2D graphics (like default), look realistic as you fly through them, and dynamically interact with sun and moonlight? 2. Do you want more cloud layers for real weather than X-Plane can provide by default (limited to 3)? 3. Do you want to be able to see sun rays and have a custom sky box atmosphere model? 4. Do you want to see cloud types not offered by X-Plane (requires FSGRW or ASXP to see these added cloud types)? If you answered yes, then it's worth your consideration. If you're happy with default and don't find value in these things, then you're probably right. These aren't for you. Regardless, you have the option, and that's a great thing!