The real value, however, is when you include it with AS16. Standalone, I see no value in owning ASCA compared to REX4 and other texture packages, it’s just another product, which many tools already do.
Never before have I felt like weather within the sim could be dangerous, but now it’s more important than ever to pay close attention to the weather radar – whether that’s the in-built one, or using it directly from your aircraft (note, the PMDG WX radar works flawlessly, just as with ASN).Īs I have mentioned, Active Sky 16 was designed to work in conjunction with Active Sky Cloud Art – a weather texture package, in the same vein as REX. Be careful though, as turbulence has been improved upon, meaning you need to ensure you fly your aircraft safely and carefully through storms now, otherwise you could face catastrophic events. Your speed and angle of attack will determine the effects of the clouds, but this level of detail gives you reason to spend your time cloud surfing. I’m not talking about 2D spinning clouds, but now you can see the white cotton candy bounce off your flight deck windows, as you pierce your way through. Not only is performance drastically improved over ASN, but now you have a sense of motion as you fly through the clouds. Speaking of immersion, the way clouds are rendered has drastically improved for Active Sky 16. I really am impressed with just how they’ve managed to achieve this level of immersion. No more ‘pop-up’ clouds, no more drastic wind shifts and no more visibility popping. Not only does it apply to change, but you can now see formation of clouds in the distance where it’s supposed to be. I finally feel like a weather engine provides a realistic approach to change. For once, not just clouds transition smoothly, but now everything from wind, temperature and visibility change seamlessly. Luckily, HiFi have worked tirelessly to provide the best experience possible within flight simulation. Building upon the excellent engine that HiFi have been perfecting over the years, you can see they’ve brought over the best bits of ASN and added a range of new features, which really enhance the weather engine within the sim.įor years, we’ve been spoilt with how great massive storms look in our sims, but something that was missing was the formation and the smooth transition. So I think the first question is: how much of a leap is AS16 compared to Active Sky Next? Well, from a user’s point of view, this is more of an evolution of ASN, compared to the revolution the 2014 product gave us. As HiFi makes clear, both products were designed to work with one another, and as a result, I’ll be reviewing them as a pair. Of course, it wasn’t just Active Sky 2016 that was announced but also Active Sky Cloud Art. As you can imagine, this went down like a storm. Fast forward to 2016, and just weeks before the launch, HiFi gave us a trailer, peeking into the future they had prepared for us. With Active Sky Next, they focused on the basics and developed a revolutionary new weather engine, enabling developers like PMDG to make a fully functional weather radar for the first time. When Hifi introduced Active Sky Evolution, they introduced textures, to try to give users the best available textures for that weather condition. HiFi Simulations have been developing weather engines for years now, and with each release, we see a new level of realism added, a new interface and of course, many new features aimed to be a new standard in our world. This may have been a lack of overcast coverage, maybe storms weren’t accurately depicted or maybe, the visibility options meant your Sim would look like something placed a piece of A4 paper over your eyes. Regardless of your choice, there’s always been something ‘missing’ from making it as realistic as possible.
#ACTIVE SKY 16 OR ACTIVE SKY NEXT. SKYFORCE 3D BY REXSIMS FREE#
Of course, if Simmers don’t want to fork money out, then there are plenty of free options, as well as the chance to use “real world weather” from within the Sim itself. FS Global Weather, Opus, REX and of course Active Sky have all been seen to be the main players when it comes to weather engines, all offering something slightly different. Numerous developers have tried to impress us with the ‘advance’ weather engines, all trying to offer something different. For years and years, weather within the Flight Simulation world had always been one of the most unrealistic aspects of exploring the virtual world.