X-Plained.Com is pleased being a SkyMAXX Pro simmer, that SkyMAXX Pro has been updated to version 4.5. This seems to me a big step.
According to the incoming news “Beginning somewhere today, May 27th 2017, you’ll be able to enjoy SkyMaxx Pro v4.5. This is a pretty nice update we’re excited to get out to you, and we’re hoping you enjoy it as much as we do!
Of things to note, you can expect the following:
- Procedural sky box (based on the Hosek model) to accurately simulate sky colors for any time, place, and weather
- Improved blending of distant clouds into the sky
- Cloud draw distance increased by 20%
- Stutters with high cloud draw area settings reduced
- More realistic and distinctive representation of “HD cloud puffs” stratiform clouds
- More variety of cloud shapes and positions
- New, much-improved cloud textures for “crisp” and “soft” cumulus clouds
- Added glare effect surrounding the sun
- Our own ephemeris model, for accurate placement of the sun, moon, stars, and planets at night
- Accurate moon phases and orientation of the moon
- Various bug fixes and graphical polish
By replacing X-Plane’s skies with our own, it enables us to make the lighting on our clouds more consistent with the skies you see behind them. The screenshots below show what you can expect. This results in better blending and color continuity, which makes the clouds seem much more natural and realistic. This is a big upgrade to SkyMaxx Pro, and will be offered free of charge to existing SkyMaxx Pro 4 customers running X-Plane 10 or X-Plane 11.”
Watch your mailbox closely since today, May 27th, it will happen.
I loaded SkyMAXX Pro 4.5, but I noticed a drop in frames with cloud distance fairly minimal. The main issue for me is that clouds just seem to surround the aircraft, I know they can be extended way out, but that does have a serious frame hit.
Having said that, with updates the LR stock cloud set is very good now, so I’ve gone back and frames have went up to around 27/31. With SkyMAXX Pro they were low 20’s.
Being on Mac I’ll have to wait and see what xEnviro offers.
Thanks Angelique – I haven’t used this yet but I will give it a look. Sounds like a nice addition! Cheers – Jon
Jon, I’ve seen many environmental add-on programs, one is SkyMAXX Pro and the other product I reviewed was xEnviro, also a great product. Only thing with xEnviro is that as of this writing, it’s only for Windows. A Mac version is coming later this year.
But I hope that other simmers can pop in with their preferred environmental program.
Thanks Angelique – was hoping that xEnviro would be coming to the Mac soon. I’ll check both of them out when I can.