P3Dv2. FS Global Real Weather and OpusFSX have long been favourites of mine. The software architecture that FS Global Real Weather uses to connect to FSX, Prepar3D v1 and Prepar3D v2 is very different to that of OpusFSX, and this has given OpusFSX an edge in being able to provide immediate functionality of their weather engine with this week's release of Prepar3D v2. You may or may not know that OpusFSX's most recent version, which was released this past Friday, has added a new Enable Volumetric Fog Effect option.
In his latest forum message Stephen Percy of Opus Software explains, and I quote:
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The volumetric fog effect will now create appropriate visibilities to differentiate between areas of reduced vertical visibility, fog banks, mist banks, and likely low level inversion layers. You can test these effects using the new Enable Volumetric Fog Effect option within the OpusFSX Weather User Preferences dialog.
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I haven't had much time to play around with the new settings, but I can tell you that the way low visibility is now depicted is much more realistic, there is no longer a blanket type layer that covers everything. An example:
You can see how the radar dome is just visible in the third picture above, and how very atmospheric and real the new volumetric cloud and fog depiction in Prepar3D v2 looks when coupled with OpusFSX. Using the active departure runway at Vancouver International Airport (CYVR) as an example again, you can see how the control tower and surrounding buildings are all but totally obscured in the third picture below:
As aircraft and scenery will steadily be made compatible with Prepar3D v2 in the coming weeks and months, the way we experience low visibility weather now compared to FSX and Prepar3D v1 is already proving to be a major leap forward. Although I've noticed some severe performance hits in certain weather conditions, performance fixes and improvements are being worked on, both by Lockheed Martin and Opus Software. Suffice it to say that the future for our hobby looks extremely bright and promising.
According to a message I received on Friday from the developer in Austria, a Prepar3D v2 compatibility update for FS Global Weather will be available in January 2014. It will be interesting to see how accurate and different Active Sky Next (ASN), FS Global Weather, OpusFSX and Real Environment Xtreme (REX) depict weather in a side-by-side comparison, and we look forward to giving you an insight into this as soon as they are all available to us.
I will leave you with some more OpusFSX weather shots from some of my Prepar3D v2 test flights this weekend:
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9 comments:
That sure does look Purddyyyyy!!! :)
Those screenshots really are an eyeopener as to how different DX11 is able to handle the way weather looks. Thanks Jerome, stunning screenshots.
Yep! Just like FS9.
The only difference till now betwen p3d and fsx are the shadows and volumetric fog effects,i do not think to deserve spending money and changing simulation for some effects....!!!!!!!
i am holding out for active sky next, it has more features and you can create your own flight plan as well
That would serve as confirmation that you've been living under a rock for the past week :P
More features than what? You can create a flight plan in other weather programs too.
Dear Kristian Holzhausen,
i play flight simulation since 1998...!!!!!! spending a lot of money buying new pc and many original addons.
My opinion always is that a bad copy of FSX named P3D and is a bitter reality for every one that believing to new product......and DO NOT FORGET to buy a new pc as this is a fps killer if you want to see the shadows
Dear Theo and me since the 80s, so no medal for you :-)
The shadows aren't the real fps killer, the legacy scenery that was made for FSX and cannot take advantage fully of DX11 is what the real problem is.
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