flyingdolphino Posted May 30, 2020 Share Posted May 30, 2020 Ive come back to xplane after a year or so of not touching it, and have had xEnviro since its launch back for xplane 10. Decided to give xEnviro 1.13 a go. Im very impressed with its visuals, and for me atleast, the performance is good enough. And I am looking forward to future improvements to the product, however I do have a question: Back when i was using it early on, I remember that there was an issue with it depicting clouds over oceanic airspace (aka no airport METARs nearby, eg over the atlantic) hence whenever flying over large bodies of water you would get clear skies even if that wasnt the case IRL, however wind data would still be correct as thats pulled from somewhere else (NOAA i believe?) Anyway i decided to test fly 1.13 with a concorde flight. And noticed that there was no cloud over the ocean, despite the fact that there should of been (infact, at the time there was overcast over the entirety of the coast of canada and streatching over the atlantic for most of the way, however xenviro predictably stopped drawing clouds once i got out of the range of the nearby METARs on the canadian coast) Is this still a thing that hasnt been solved? Or did i encounter a bug? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kastyr1 Posted May 30, 2020 Share Posted May 30, 2020 Hii, I cannot speak on behalf of the product xEnviro. Secondly, I'm pretty sure what you describe is not a bug. It is expected that flying over large portions of water like the Atlantic produces natural results of not drawing clouds outside METAR injected space. The metar service within xEnviro and how it works, I don't know. Neither whether it will be improved, but I am optimistic it will be dealt with and improved. (they are working deligently on improving performance as of recent) Sadly, alot of weather injectors if any, are not compatible with xEnviro. So to conclude, what we should hope for is "bettered" metar coverage or "service" over the Oceans. Pretty sure we are not the only ones with this in mind. Also, I think some of it is related to limitations of X-Plane itself - but that likely is just an opinion and I've been wrong before. I've had similar to same results with NOAA until recently dropping the plugin due to limitations and bugs in 11.41. It has not been solved, it is not a bug. But maybe its METAR service, by its I mean xEnviro's, and/or coverage needs an update. Personally I wish FS Global Real Weather + xEnviro could work together; realistically, impossible. Have a lovely weekend! Regards, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingdolphino Posted May 30, 2020 Author Share Posted May 30, 2020 (edited) Thanks for the reply! Yeah so, not a bug; as in it doesnt feature ocean coverage persay. Kinda of a big thing tbh. I dont know about x plane limitations but I know other weather engines such as ASXP and FSGRW have coverage for cloud drawing over the oceans, so if i had to guess its probably that xEnviro doesnt have a source for the information needed to allow for cloud drawing, which hopefully is a priority. Hopefully a dev or someone can give us some insite considering that this is even listed on the roadmap, and seems like quite a big missing feature? EDIT Did a little testing, xEnviro seems to normally draw stuff over the ocean, based off of nearby METARs, which I assume are extrapolated to cover the atlantic (and other oceans) So i feel as if my gap was a bug or gap in coverage. Unfortunatley i dont have the location on hand to double check Edited May 30, 2020 by flyingdolphino Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kastyr1 Posted May 30, 2020 Share Posted May 30, 2020 Hii again, Yes exactly that and it is in the roadmap; I didn't check or double check as I don't enjoy saying/writing things which aren't correct etc. It is a big feature to miss, and in due time. I think the team is keen on making 1.14 update RIGHT in any and every way. You know how it goes, everything takes time. I am confident they will sort it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingdolphino Posted May 30, 2020 Author Share Posted May 30, 2020 So did a bit more testing. After reading here: https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/147271-no-clouds-over-the-ocean/ If nothings changed since then (which idk) then essentially i think xenviro covers oceans by extrapolating METARs from costal stations, which sure can provide an approximation of cloud coverage. I decided to give it a test, because i found it weird that in my last flight i saw CAVOK while i should of been seeing OVC and FSGRW also depicted ovc over the same area. For this test i just dragged a plane over different spots of the atlantic lol heres what i found attached you can see the aircrafts position, what the sim looks like, the METAR stations in the list. From just messing about and testing it a bit i feel like it was a bug or gap in coverage i had. Unfortunatley i dont have the exact location of where this occured so i cant check again. Of course better coverage over oceans where possible is always a positive, but yeah will take time. Have a good weekend Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kastyr1 Posted May 30, 2020 Share Posted May 30, 2020 Indeed, but some coverage is better than no coverage still. Likewise. Regards, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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