138 replies to this topic

[Damian Clark]

Hello Everyone!!!It is with great excitement that we announce our next product: Active Sky 2012 for FSX!Active Sky 2012 expands on the award-winning Active Sky Weather Engine and combines it with brand new high-definition graphics, fully integrated to debut what we call "Total Weather Immersion".Over 16GB (uncompressed size) of high-definition graphics textures in dozens of categories are at your fingertips - accompanied by advanced imaging techniques including high-quality down-sampling and user-recoloring.  Easily create your own texture variations with a few clicks of the mouse.  Route awareness, weather-influenced selections, custom themes, universal graphics add-on integration and a clean, intuitive interface provide robust command of the total experience.Other new features include improved flight planning, auto routing, route export, integrated mapping and route-editing, drag and drop waypoints, improved weather depiction, improved performance, enhanced thunderstorm depiction and much, much more.We are currently in the final testing stages in preparations for release, hopefully by the end of this year.Please note that all past Active Sky/X Graphics customers will be eligible for an upgrade, and we have additional discounts planned for those upgrading from the most recent HiFi product release (ASE).  Upgrade and pricing details will be provided very soon.Full details have now been posted on our AS2012 product page which can be reached at http://www.activesky2012.comThis includes a bunch of screenshots and a video!  Come take a look...We'll also be providing some additional high-res screenshot previews here on this thread... stay tuned for more...

[MarcM]

Hi Damian,Thanks for this great news. I use ASE for the weather and REX for the textures.What about the future between REX and Active Sky 2012 ? Should it be always compatible or must we expect to deinstall completely REX ?Thanks in advance for your explanations.Best RegardsMarc

[jkieffer1957]

Is Active Sky 2012 the complete package, Wx and Graphics? Will this negate the need to have ASE and another graphics program (i.e. REX) to get the complete feel? Will current ASE owners have to update with full price purchase or will we see a bridge over cost from current ASE to Active Sky 2012Jim KiefferGreenville, NC

[Mike_CFII_MEL]

Hi Jim,Some very good questions.

jkieffer1957, on 04 December 2011 - 11:27 AM, said:

Is Active Sky 2012 the complete package, Wx and Graphics? Will this negate the need to have ASE and another graphics program (i.e. REX) to get the complete feel? Will current ASE owners have to update with full price purchase or will we see a bridge over cost from current ASE to Active Sky 2012Jim KiefferGreenville, NC

[solwell1]

Hi Damian,  that's great news, sort of.   I just purchased ASE yesterday.   No regrets,  because its a great product but I wish I had known this for I would have held off for the newer version.

[rvlasek]

Just bought ASE, will I have a upgarade path to this.....

[ohsirus]

Soo glad i waited.

[flyerkg]

I was going to buy ASE today. I am glad to find this thread and will probably wait for this new product.

[ohsirus]

hopefully they will answer the Rex question soon as Rex is currently 50% off, so tempting.

[minoslas]

A questions:1 future version for xPlane or other simulator, Flight, Aerosoft Sim, etc?2 Changer for 2012 to ASE, new additions or features?

[Damian Clark]

Hello,First of all, AS2012 retains the universal graphics add-on compatibility via the Snapshot system you've seen in ASE.  You're existing graphics add-on library is safe and can be utilized within AS2012 with full wx-influenced support once you create snapshots.  In addition, you can create combinations of graphics (i.e. Clouds from add-on A, water from add-on B, Airports from AS2012, Skies and everything else from add-on C) with the snapshots, again, all with wx-influenced support.While AS2012 includes a very large assortment of HD graphics with customization/recoloring support which should satisfy nearly all users, we wanted our user's investment in their existing graphics collection to further improve their experience, instead of making such investments obsolete.  Therefore, with AS2012 you gain a bunch of new styles of high-quality graphics and get to keep and use whatever you had before as well.As for those who've purchased ASE, we are planning on two upgrade discount paths... one for those who've purchased past products, and one (more significant discount) for those who've purchased the most recent release (ASE).  Further details on this will be announced soon.  Please note that ASE was also discounted in preparation for this release.  Also, ASE is not being made obsolete by AS2012's release.  ASE will continue to be sold and supported as our wx-engine only product for FSX and FS9.Stay tuned for some screenshots :)

minoslas, on 04 December 2011 - 05:21 PM, said:

1 future version for xPlane or other simulator, Flight, Aerosoft Sim, etc?2 Changer for 2012 to ASE, new additions or features?

Hi,Yes we are already working on product variations for XPlane 10, Prepar3D and FS9.  When Flight SDK is available we will work on that as well.And a full feature list and details, screenshots and even a video will be posted VERY soon!

[MarcM]

Thanks Damian for your clarifications and future screenshots and .... video.

[Chris Willis]

Here some Preview

[NoahBryant]

Great news, and great screenshots. When can we hear about the new/improved weather engine features?

[TommyBoy84]

Can you elaborate a little more on how the weather engine will be improved? ASE is great 75% of the time.... but the other 25% of the time I'm still having trouble getting ASE to get along with the unregistered version of FSUIPC.  I've tried every fix I could find online, but I still get wonky winds aloft and weather that won't update sometimes, and the only remedy I've found is to go in to the FSUIPC settings and click "Weather Settings Off"..... which I often have to do several times in a single flight.

[christos]

Wow, cant wait for this one, will the s-turn issue with PMDG aircraft be sorted in AS2012? Either way i'll be adding this to my collection the screenies look fantastic and you can always trust AS to give you as real as it gets weather dipiction!Keep up the good work guys!

[ohsirus]

Can we expect ground textures also?

[Damian Clark]

Hi everyone,The included texture categories will be available on our website AS2012 product page soon.S-turn issues with PMDG are well documented and discussed, not something we have control over.  The turbulence sensitivity of these aircraft require adjustment of settings to reduce or even remove turbulence effects completely to avoid s-turns.  It depends on the 'turbulence' the aircraft is subjected to, of course the weather environment has a lot to do with that (so does DWC, when FSX is fighting ASE for wind control).  Many users have had success resolving s-turn issues and we have official recommendations from PMDG also .  There are several threads, including a recent one in the PMDG forum that has lots of participation and recommendations.  So no, this is not something that will change in AS2012.  As with ASE, you will be able to reduce/remove turbulence effects to avoid s-turns.  If you'd like some help from our support department regarding s-turns in your current ASE setup please contact us (support.hifitechinc.com) and/or PMDG.For issues with wx depiction with ASE and unregistered FSUIPC, please also contact our support department so we can look at this in detail.  This problem is not version-specific.  A reinstall of FSUIPC (ensuring it's the latest version) has solved a couple recent casesWeather engine improvements and a full feature list will be provided very soon on our website!

[Sydneyspida]

After encountering a few, mainly performance related issues, ASE has been steadily growing on me. Lately I have been using it with every flight and discovering its many features. So this news has me really excited. The screenshots posted are simply magical and some of the best I have seen. Looking forward to its release hopefully soon. Would make for an excellent Xmas present to myself. Thanks HiFi Team!Kind regards,Sam Mustafa

[B777ER]

Damian,With 16GB, I hope we have the ability to download all of it on a separate hard drive than the one FSX is loaded on and have it import textures into FSX from that hard drive?

[Damian Clark]

Hi Eric,16GB is the uncompressed size, but we are using some new compression techniques to keep the stored HD footprint much smaller.  Yes it can be located on another drive (or another computer!)

[dlrk]

I just purchased ASE, will I be getting I a free/very reduced upgrade?

[ohsirus]

dlrk, on 05 December 2011 - 07:47 PM, said:

I just purchased ASE, will I be getting I a free/very reduced upgrade?

The answer is posted above.

[Chris Willis]

few others

[christos]

Looking very nice, loving the cloud and runway textures. Any chance this will be out before 24/12/2012?