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Weather Radar

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I will say this: radar is a very important system responsible for helping in situational awareness in relation to weather. VERY important. I hate that FS developers haven't aggressively modelled these systems.
Just like I'm sure PMDG (and other developers) hates limitation holding them back from properly being able to implement this into FSX/NGX and too their standards of development in regards to realism they always strive for.I'd love to see a proper working radar too but can you imagine the features list when released/announced with the listed features (a whole bunch or proper systems etc) and last saying sorta a weather radar, or a cloud radar, or the best we could do radar.I'm just happy PMDG is aggressively modeling as much as they feel they can get to spec and pushing the limits of what can be done. Sure we will NEVER see a proper working "Weather Radar" and just have to make do with what we get witch no doubt will be a awesome product.-Raven Harris

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Yep, we are. And maybe we can even find a solution, but who knows :( By the way another thing I have thought of: Could it be that FSX uses distances for when it rains or when not? What I mean is that it may "think" that it should start to rain every XXX miles. But again that's just anogher suggestion. Can anyone proof anything in this things?
No. You misunderstood.My point was that: If there was a solution, PMDG would have found it, and implemented it! This discussing to death the features you want in the NGX isn't healthy :(

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Here is an idea: why don't you take the general weather from FSX, and simulate your own precipitation model in your weather RADAR, and model from there? Sure, it doesn't reflect what FSX is doing, but then this aspect of FSX is hardly accurate to start with is it (who gets rain in clear patches of sky?!). That way you get your realistic weather RADAR to model and we get a weather RADAR to play with! :)Best regards,Robin.

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No, it doesn't.All that option does is visually change how much rain you're seeing. It doesn't physically add more rain droplets in the sim world. In fact, rain doesn't have a mesh at all. Rain droplets aren't 3D, they're a 2D effect that is centered around your airplane.You can see this especially when you look at your plane from an external view and zoom out...you keep seeing the same pattern of rain falling.FSX doesn't simulate you flying into actual rain that's being simulated falling 10 miles in front of your plane. It's just a "cloud" of rain effect with your plane in the center and it travels with you.Data from FSX tells weather if it's still raining or not. If it is, the "rain bubble" remains around your plane. If you cross into a station identifier that isn't reporting rain, the "bubble" disappears around your plane, which you can also clearly notice when you're flying; one second it's a deluge, the next it just instantly disappears. No stray drops going by the cockpit. Everything just turns off.It's only a visual effect.And since it's only visual, there isn't actual rain simulated in the area for any weather radar to detect, which is why any radar modeled will NOT be accurate and therefore not included in PMDG's aircraft.The data you keep talking about doesn't exist in the way you think it does.KPHL 181754Z 09009KT 8SM -RA BKN013 BKN020 OVC030 19/17 A2988 RMK AO2 You will see a light "rain bubble." Addons like Reality XP Wx500 will also take that data and display maybe only light shades of green around the KPHL station identifier location, possibly in random places. KPHL 181754Z 09009KT 8SM +RA BKN013 BKN020 OVC030 19/17 A2988 RMK AO2 You will see a heavy "rain bubble." Wx500 might show large red cells. It's not realistically accurate.
This is one of the best technical posts I've seen a user here post on how it really works. Someone finally understands what we're dealing with! ;) Precip in FSX isn't actually a "thing" you can detect in the sim, it's visual effect that gets triggered when the sim decides the conditions are right (which isn't even consistent either).

Ryan Maziarz
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No, it doesn't.All that option does is visually change how much rain you're seeing. It doesn't physically add more rain droplets in the sim world. In fact, rain doesn't have a mesh at all. Rain droplets aren't 3D, they're a 2D effect that is centered around your airplane.You can see this especially when you look at your plane from an external view and zoom out...you keep seeing the same pattern of rain falling.FSX doesn't simulate you flying into actual rain that's being simulated falling 10 miles in front of your plane. It's just a "cloud" of rain effect with your plane in the center and it travels with you.Data from FSX tells weather if it's still raining or not. If it is, the "rain bubble" remains around your plane. If you cross into a station identifier that isn't reporting rain, the "bubble" disappears around your plane, which you can also clearly notice when you're flying; one second it's a deluge, the next it just instantly disappears. No stray drops going by the cockpit. Everything just turns off.It's only a visual effect.And since it's only visual, there isn't actual rain simulated in the area for any weather radar to detect, which is why any radar modeled will NOT be accurate and therefore not included in PMDG's aircraft.The data you keep talking about doesn't exist in the way you think it does.KPHL 181754Z 09009KT 8SM -RA BKN013 BKN020 OVC030 19/17 A2988 RMK AO2 You will see a light "rain bubble." Addons like Reality XP Wx500 will also take that data and display maybe only light shades of green around the KPHL station identifier location, possibly in random places. KPHL 181754Z 09009KT 8SM +RA BKN013 BKN020 OVC030 19/17 A2988 RMK AO2 You will see a heavy "rain bubble." Wx500 might show large red cells. It's not realistically accurate.
Wait a moment. So you say that FSX just has 2D rain which appears there where a weather station reports the rain. And so it will rain in the whole area of the station? Those areas covered by the stations should be more of less clear, so we would have our rain location. Also the station reports how strong it rains. So we could make a WX radar which tell exactly which weather is shown in FSX. And so the unrealistic thing in FSX is the rain and not the radar which could show us exactly where the rain is in the sim. Or did I get something wrong there?
My point was that: If there was a solution, PMDG would have found it, and implemented it! This discussing to death the features you want in the NGX isn't healthy :(
I didn't say that I want this feature in the NGX. Actually I'm quite pleased with the terrain radar already :( .I just want to find out how this weather engine in FSX is working and besides I hoped that we might find a solution, even though it's pretty unlikly.

Greetings from the 737 flightdeck!

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Wait a moment. So you say that FSX just has 2D rain which appears there where a weather station reports the rain. And so it will rain in the whole area of the station? Those areas covered by the stations should be more of less clear, so we would have our rain location. Also the station reports how strong it rains. So we could make a WX radar which tell exactly which weather is shown in FSX. And so the unrealistic thing in FSX is the rain and not the radar which could show us exactly where the rain is in the sim. Or did I get something wrong there?
If it were that simple, we'd have already done it - it isn't. The rain effect in the sim is not consistent at all - sometimes it's there, sometimes it isn't etc.It does amazes me that people think we just don't know how to do this or something and that it's really some simple thing we could do... tongue.gif

Ryan Maziarz
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Wait a moment. So you say that FSX just has 2D rain which appears there where a weather station reports the rain. And so it will rain in the whole area of the station? Those areas covered by the stations should be more of less clear, so we would have our rain location. Also the station reports how strong it rains. So we could make a WX radar which tell exactly which weather is shown in FSX. And so the unrealistic thing in FSX is the rain and not the radar which could show us exactly where the rain is in the sim. Or did I get something wrong there?
No it doesn't. It's something more or less in between 2D and 3D. IIRC it's some sort of animated 2D rain texture projected on a cone or cylinder type mesh around the aircraft, that will tilt backwards depending upon TAS. As stated above it can be seen at best when on ground in an external view, at least it used to work that way back then but should still be the same in FSX.But still, the issue remains. How would you want to get the radar to work based on the "data" you have? Say you have a METAR that contains rain (which can be RA, -RA or +RA, besides DZ maybe and some other fancy ones). Now, even if you knew the "radius" around the station where the METAR is valid, what would you wanna do with it? Based on the rain intensity, you could draw a color filled circle around the station on the radar, eventually depicting the rain 'trigger' area valid in the sim. Still, as Ryan pointed out, it doesn't even guarantee you will actually SEE the rain once you're inside the bubble because there seem to be factors that are beyond everyone's imagination. Now, since you think a perfectly round pattern around the stations is oh so unrealistic so you introduce some randomness to the shape. And now, at the latest, it's all pure guesswork. Simply put, it don't work as we all want it.Oh, on a side note, I've flown with a WXR on a certain aircraft that was just like any FSX WXR haha, in fact once you turned it on it showed pretty much the same structures on every flight, quite regardless of CAVOK or nasty IMC. Plus right and left were somehow inverted, rendering it completely useless finally... :( And guess what, we could still live without it, and it wasn't even FSX! Big%20Grin.gifsig.gif

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Yeah I mean take the LSH MD-80 (which I really like actually, very well done systems-wise) - the wx radar looks really cool at times in it, but you'll notice things constantly disappearing from it - huge "cells" etc. It's basically just a visual effect.


Ryan Maziarz
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Yeah I mean take the LSH MD-80 (which I really like actually, very well done systems-wise) - the wx radar looks really cool at times in it, but you'll notice things constantly disappearing from it - huge "cells" etc. It's basically just a visual effect.
... well, and since EGPWS and WXR can't be displayed at the same time (IIRC), why would I want an WXR anyways given we finally got EGPWS keeping us busy and our jaws dropped to the floor?? LOL :(sig.gif

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Just like I'm sure PMDG (and other developers) hates limitation holding them back from properly being able to implement this into FSX/NGX and too their standards of development in regards to realism they always strive for.I'd love to see a proper working radar too but can you imagine the features list when released/announced with the listed features (a whole bunch or proper systems etc) and last saying sorta a weather radar, or a cloud radar, or the best we could do radar.I'm just happy PMDG is aggressively modeling as much as they feel they can get to spec and pushing the limits of what can be done. Sure we will NEVER see a proper working "Weather Radar" and just have to make do with what we get witch no doubt will be a awesome product.-Raven Harris
Yes. By FS developers I mean Microsoft, not third parties! I can always drop the old wx2100 into things I purchased years and years ago.

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I hope that while no weather radar will be present, the terrain on ND will be there. I like my ND colorful that's all :(


 

Regards,

Martin Martinov / VATSIM 1207931

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I hope that while no weather radar will be present, the terrain on ND will be there. I like my ND colorful that's all :(
It's been stated multiple times that the HSD will be there.-stefan

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Ryan, does using the "TERR" mode in the NGX bring on a drop in FPS? It sounds to me that besides visually displaying the terrain, it must take a fair amount of coding to make this function work. That must surely have an impact on FPS.

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I think the biggest problem with a WXR would be the fact that the information it provides won't change your decision making.Let's face it, FS has never (and will never?) had a weather model capable of making you fear weather. You can fly into the heart of a squall line and come out the other side asking "was there any turbulence?" :( Lenticular clouds are just for show, and if Active Sky X ever tries to simulate "hurricane winds" your only true problem is trying to do the appropriate geometry to line up with the runway on final.The day you can actually crash your plane in FS because of weather is the day we'll actually need a WXR. Though it is always fun to have.


Take-offs are optional, landings are mandatory.
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.
To make a small fortune in aviation you must start with a large fortune.

There's nothing less important than the runway behind you and the altitude above you.
It's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than in the air wishing you were on the ground.

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I think the biggest problem with a WXR would be the fact that the information it provides won't change your decision making.
And I fully agree. This is the crux of the matter why WXR in FSX can at the most be a set of pretty pictures.

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