FSUIPC visibility settings question with online weather

[Guest]

As I understand it, FSUIPC's visibility manipulating options will ONLY work with an online EXTERNAL weather program that utilizes GLOBAL settings to set weather, am I correct?

Therefore, FSUIPC visibility setttings will NOT work with FS2004's own built-in online weather downloads nor the latest versions of FSMeteo (both of which use localized weather settings). Correct?

This means that FSUIPC will ONLY work with Activesky 1.x versions as to the best of my knowledge this is the only external weather program that sets online global weather formats required by FSUIPC. Correct?

Thank you.

[Pete Dowson]

As I understand it, FSUIPC's visibility manipulating options will ONLY work with an online EXTERNAL weather program that utilizes GLOBAL settings to set weather, am I correct?

Actually, no! Not all all correct! I will assume you are talking about FSUIPC installed in FS2004? If not, tell me because all this will be wrong otherwise.

What you say is true for the wind and pressure smoothing only. All the other filters work with any global weather, including FS's own if you enable that in the Technical page. It says this in the documentation, and tries to imply it in the comments on screen.

The problem really is that in FS2004 there's not really any such thing as "global" weather. Before long anything set globally becomes localised in any case. It's a better atmospheric simulation than in previous releases and never really stays still.

The big exception to this deficiency in FSUIPC's attempts to control things for you are, in fact, the main three visibility features deliberately marked with asterisks (*) in the options page to bring them out. As the documentation says, and the screens imply, these three apply to ALL WEATHERS. These features are the visibility maxima, the smoothing and the graduation. They work best together.

Therefore, FSUIPC visibility setttings will NOT work with FS2004's own built-in online weather downloads nor the latest versions of FSMeteo (both of which use localized weather settings). Correct?

No, not correct. Those three main facilities work with ALL weathers, as I thought I clearly stated in several places.

This means that FSUIPC will ONLY work with Activesky 1.x versions as to the best of my knowledge this is the only external weather program that sets online global weather formats required by FSUIPC. Correct?

No. That is not at all true. FSUIPC works with all the weather programs I know of. Take out FSUIPC and none of them can do any weather control whatsoever!

If what you really mean is that the FSUIPC weather filtering options don't work with localised weather setting programs, then, yes, that is most certainly true of many of the other facilities -- just not the main three visibility features.

Of course you can, I believe, set FSMeteo to apply only global weather. But as explained at length both in the FSUIPC documentation (near the end) and in one of the Announcements in this forum (see above), global weather doesn't last long as global in FS2004, so really I would say that none of the global stuff is of long term interest in FS2004.

I have tried to explain all this stuff in the documentation, yet you seem to have come out with almost the opposite impression!! Can you tell me how you arrived at this? It makes me think my powers of English have diminished considerably. Even in the limited space of the FSUIPC option screens I try to show what applies to what, yet you have the opposite results, almost. How is this, please?

Regards,

Pete

[Guest]

Hi Pete,

Yes I am referring to FS2004 in the above post :)

Pete, I quote the following from your FSUIPC supplied user documentation:

"Smooth visibility changes works for all weather in FS2004, but only for global weather supplied by outside programs in FS2000 and FS2002. It introduces visibility changes gradually when selected. You can adjust the speed at which the visibility is allowed to change. (This of course does not affect sudden visibility changes caused by clouds). This option is defaulted off, and does not occur at all for FS2000/FS2002’s local weather (including downloaded ‘real weather’).

On FS2004, the upper altitude of restricted visibility can be set by FSUIPC, for global and local weather injected by external programs. This allows you to limit the thickness of the fog or mist layer so that when you climb out of it you get blue skies (or fancy clouds) above and around you, but still see the mist below. It’s a really nice feature of FS2004"

So this means that visibility smoothing and graduation DO work with FS2004's own built-in online weather as well as external weather programs that utilize localized weather, correct? I misunderstood your documentation is this regard, I apologize.

However, as I understand it, the upper visiblity layer altitude of FS2004's weather engine can ONLY be utilized with FSUIPC and a external weather program, not FS2004's own online weather, correct?

Pete, what I'm trying to accomplish is illustrated in the following scenario: Today I used real world weather with FS2004's own built-in online weather, FSMeteo, and Activesky during various trials from the same airport and real-time weather. The surface observation was visibility 1 mile in snow, overcast at 800 ft. Below this overcast in FS2004 with all three of these online real-time weather utilities (tried in succession of course, not all at once :) ), everything looked great, very realistic. Climbing above the set visibility layer upper limit however the overcast became translucent and not at all realistic anymore. Only upon decending back into the set visibility layer do I get a realistic overcast effect again. This effect of having a see through overcast from above is one of the biggest complaints of FS2004 that I've heard.

My question: Can the registered version of FSUIPC fix this problem and if so, will it only work with an external weather program such as Activesky or FSMeteo?

Thank you very much.

.

[Pete Dowson]

Yes I am referring to FS2004 in the above post :)

Okay, so what I said wasn't wasted.

Pete, I quote the following from your FSUIPC supplied user documentation:

Yes, which says it does work for all weather in FS2004.

So this means that visibility smoothing and graduation DO work with FS2004's own built-in online weather as well as external weather programs that utilize localized weather, correct?

Yes, and global weather too. As it says, and as I repeated, it works for ALL weather. It isn't applied to the weather inputs at all, it's applied to the end results. I'd like to be able to do the same for winds and pressure too, but I can't find a way to do it (yet).

However, as I understand it, the upper visiblity layer altitude of FS2004's weather engine can ONLY be utilized with FSUIPC and a external weather program, not FS2004's own online weather, correct?

Well, no, not strictly correct. Certainly I cannot impose the altitude you select for the top of the visibility layer for F's own weather - this is one of the filter actions. It can apply filters to data passing through its own interfaces, but it can't get into FS's existing settings and change then. This doesn't mean to say there is no such altitude, it only means that the top of the FS visibility layer is whatever it is set to be in FS, not in the FSUIPC options. However, if you set the lower altitude of the graduated visibility option to zero, FSUIPC will automatically start the graduation from the FS value for the top of the surface visibility.

Please look at the visibility page in FSUIPC Options, on screen. You see the three facilities asterisked? Thoise are the facilities which apply to AL weathers. I thought I made that clear.

Climbing above the set visibility layer upper limit however the overcast became translucent and not at all realistic anymore. Only upon decending back into the set visibility layer do I get a realistic overcast effect again. This effect of having a see through overcast from above is one of the biggest complaints of FS2004 that I've heard.

Overcasts are clouds, not visibility. You are mixing up two differet weather aspects. You need to set maximum density clouds in the display settings. I run with all the sliders there set to maximum, and it looks okay to me.

My question: Can the registered version of FSUIPC fix this problem and if so, will it only work with an external weather program such as Activesky or FSMeteo?

Neither. It can't do it at all, with anything. FSUIPC cannot do anything at all about cloud graphics. That is not a weather function so much as a graphics image function. Sorry.

Regards,

Pete