The Next Revolution in Weather Realism

NOW ALSO FOR PREPAR3D AND NEW SERVICE PACK 4 RELEASED. SEE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE FOR INFO

UPGRADE INFORMATION FOR OWNERS OF PREVIOUS EDITIONS.

This is the Upgrade edition of Active Sky Next. You are eligible for a reduced price upgrade (40% discount) if you own any of the following: Active Sky Evolution, Active Sky Advanced, Active Sky X, Active Sky 2012

To order the upgrade edition please stay on this page. To order the Full Version please follow this link. You must have eligible product installed or have valid license key to provide during installation/first run of ASN upgrade product.

Full and Upgrade versions available. (See bottom of page for upgrade information)  

DEMONSTRATION VIDEOS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE

Active Sky Next brings an entirely new level of realism to your simulation experience!  Advanced technologies enable incredible levels of accuracy and smoothness.  Realistic radar simulation, cloud position awareness and synchronized ambient effects, brand new air effects, brand new thunderstorm depictions, microbursts, thick overcast, smooth cloud transitions, variable cloud areas, voice weather briefings and forecast data integration are just some of the features that await you!

Details:

Active Sky Next (ASN) is the next weather simulation engine from HiFi Technologies, Inc. In development for 3 years, this new version of Active Sky has a completely new depiction system to enable enhanced visuals, accuracy and smoothness never before possible.

Using new low-level weather control techniques, the new depiction system eliminates many problems faced in the past, including inaccurate cloud locations, inaccurate coverage, thin overcast and excessive coverage gaps, non-smooth cloud transitions, inaccurate winds, and required compromises in depiction settings.

With ASN, your skies will be accurate, smooth, visually stunning and uncompromised. No longer must you configure complicated settings to achieve accuracy in certain areas while compromising others. You can have it all, all the time.

ASN also introduces, for the first time ever in a weather engine: Complete cloud position awareness, synchronized cloud-based ambient weather effects and an integrated accurate radar simulation. Precipitation is accurately depicted in the proper locations within and below appropriate cloud structures. Entering or exiting a cloud brings an appropriate change in precipitation, visibility and turbulence. The exact position of clouds and precipitation cells are always synchronized between the simulator depiction and the radar display.

Thunderstorms have been given great attention, utilizing the new depiction system, ambient effects, radar and cloud position synchronization. Completely new microburst, updraft and downdraft, enhanced turbulence and wind-shear effects combine to make thunderstorms beautiful yet dangerous. Using the new radar system will be key to safe piloting in the vicinity of these storms.

Full International Airmet/Sigmet simulation is now provided in real time weather mode, with airmet/sigmet areas shown visually on the map and/or gauge.  These areas are now also synthesized, influencing weather depiction appropriately.  If a Sigmet warns against severe turbulence, convective activity, or icing, you can expect to encounter this appropriately during your flight.

New voice weather briefings, a new intuitive user interface with resizable/undockable and multi-window support, redesigned high-resolution wake turbulence simulation and enhanced air effects are just a few of the other new features in ASN.

ASN will be available for FSX initially, with a P3D version planned shortly after.  An ASN license entitles users to use both FSX and/or P3D versions.

Features:

Hybrid Weather Depiction System

• Utilizing a combination of Theme Control, SimConnect Interfacing, and new Low-Level interfacing via our brand new AS Connect module, comprehensive control of the weather environment is finally achieved
• Ambient conditions including Visibility, Wind Direction and Speed, Pressure, Temperature and Precipitation type/density are completely controlled, smoothed and synchronized for accurate and realistic conditions at all times
• Higher performance depiction and updates utilizing new features such as dynamic Cloud Draw Distance Control

Smooth Cloud Theme Transitions

• Clouds depicted using the Theme Control method are smoothed during transitions to new conditions using our unique Smooth Theme Reload method

Newly Designed High-Fidelity Air Effects

• Air effects are brand new, bypass all internal simulator air effects and include:
  • Wind Shear with Predictive Detection and Alert System (via audio warnings and visual mapping overlay)
  • Microbursts synchronized with thunderstorm activity
  • Updrafts and Downdrafts with high-resolution terrain awareness
  • Thermals with realistic simulation based on temperature and surface type
  • Wake Turbulence with realistic moving wake trails effected by wind
  • Cloud Turbulence synchronized with cloud sprite positions
  • Enhanced Wind Turbulence with direct aircraft attitude control vs. simple camera head movement

Cloud Sprite Awareness For Accurate In-Sim Depiction Synchronization

• In-cloud visibility reduction
• Cloud-related turbulence
• Accurate ambient precipitation localization and control
• Accurate radar precipitation graphics
• Accurate cloud position graphics

New Precipitation Radar Graphics

• New levels of realism are provided with totally accurate precipitation radar that is aware of actual cloud sprite positions in the simulator
• See and avoid dangerous conditions on the radar that accurately match the in-sim depiction

Graphics Compatibility

• ASN works with any graphics add-on, or default graphics textures 

Included Radar and Weather Mapping Gauge

• Easily installs into any aircraft using the Installation Wizard
• Realistic satellite-wx-based mapping display with NEXRAD precipitation simulation
• Predictive Wind Shear system provides aural wind shear alerts

New Thunderstorm/CB Simulation

• Thunderstorms are bigger, higher, and more consistently depicted
• Integrated Turbulence, Wind Shear, Microburst, and Vertical Air effects
• Strong thunderstorm cells can be difficult if not impossible to fly through
• Different effects depending on position relative to the thunderstorm clouds

Uncoupled Audio/Voice System

• Allows playback of audio on either client or server in networked configuration
• Allows selecting the desired audio device
• New voice sets and new voice weather briefings
• New voice SIGMET and AIRMET warnings

Comprehensive Weather mapping With New Overlays:

• Precipitation Base Reflectivity and Echo Tops
• Detailed Cloud Positions
• Predictive Wind Shear
• Other Aircraft (includes wake trail representation)
• Winds, Visibility, Sigmets, Airmets, Pireps, Stations, Airports, NDBs and VORs
• Flightplan Route and Waypoints with integrated flight plan editing capability
• New high performance display with click and drag panning and track-up display mode

Integrated Real-Time Sigmets, Airmets and Pireps (Both USA and International)

• Sigmets and Airmets provided by actual data for all global regions
• Sigmets and Airmets provide influence in weather synthesis (i.e. appropriately injecting forecasted turbulence)
• Pireps provided by actual AS user reports

Aloft Inter-layer Interpolation

• Provides smooth and realistic vertical transitions of wind direction, wind speed and temperature as you climb and descent

Weather Cell Awareness and Depiction Control

• Complete awareness and synchronization of weather cell-based cloud model drawing for the ultimate in cloud depiction accuracy
• Prioritization of inter-cell weather station data depending on departure and/or flight plan relevant stations

Forecast Weather Integration Including New Forecast Aloft Data

• With the click and drag of a mouse, see forecast conditions, graphically and textually, hour by hour, up to 24 hours in advance
• Improved winds aloft planning accuracy
• Dynamic weather changes based on forecast conditions when METAR information becomes stale

Brand New User Interface

• Multi-monitor support
• Resizable and undockable windows
• Multiple weather condition window support

Access to the Improved HiFi Weather Data Network

• Multiple high-performance servers in different regions for excellent redundancy and availability
• Always-improving coverage and resolution
• High-resolution surface and wind aloft data collected from multiple sources
• Newly incorporated multiple forecast-window wind aloft data (real-time and historical)
• Historical data access for the past 2 years

Accurate Winds Aloft

• Using World Area Forecast System data (a.k.a. GRIB data), developed and improved since 2002
• Enhanced high-altitude wind and temperature simulation above 50,000ft
• Completely smooth transitions at all times with no wind shifts

Hurricane Simulation

• Realistic hurricane simulation based on actual hurricane data
• Overrides surface weather station data (which is usually erroneous during hurricanes)

Full Flight and Weather Planning

• Manually enter, import, or build a flight plan using auto-routing
• Easily change waypoints/route during planning or while in-flight
• Receive updated navigation log, weather briefing text, or voice weather briefings
• Receive favorable wind/altitude information, dynamic ETAs per waypoint and live conditions updates

Integrated Voice Features

• Receive realistic voice weather updates via ATIS, FlightWatch and FSS simulation by tuning your radio to 122.0, 122.02 or 122.05

Enhanced Weather Search

• Easily find weather conditions with improved station/range filtering

Smart Data Interpolation

• More robust data interpolation for more realistic weather conditions and depiction in areas with fewer reporting stations

Station Database Management

• Easily add, edit or disable different types of stations (Weather, Airport, NDB, VOR)

Additional New Features

• New Hail simulation and included hail audio effects
• Automatic Simulator Flight Plan Import (optional)
• Customizable User Option Presets and EASY/REALISM mode option sets
• Favorite Weather Stations (add, remove, and recall any station’s conditions from the favorites menu)
• Quick Start-up (ASN loads in less than 10 seconds in most cases)
• Persistent Windows (all screens position, size, and docked/undocked status restored at startup)

First-class Customer Support

• Ticket-based technical and order support system
• Official staff-moderated forums
• Unofficial AVSIM HiFi forum

Requirements:

• Windows XP or later (Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 10 compatible)
• Microsoft Flight Simulator X (Standard, Deluxe or Gold DVD editions) with SP2 or Acceleration (for FSX version of ASN)
• Prepar3D v2.5, 3.x (for Prepar3D version of ASN)
• A single ASN license permits either or both FSX and Prepar3D versions to be installed and used on a single machine
• Pentium 1GHZ processor or better
• 1GB RAM or better
• 300MB free hard drive space
• Minimum monitor resolution to access all user interface features: 1024x768
• Online internet connection (for weather data access)
• Sound device (for sound and voice features)
• Requires an online internet connection with automatic online activation in order to use online features.  License is valid for one computer/installation only.  Moving software to another computer will deactivate the previous computer.  10 automatic reactivations are permitted.  Multiple-computer installations will require an individual ASN license for each computer that it is installed on.

Recommended:

Service Pack 4 Now Released Officially for FSX and P3D!

Active Sky Next has just been upgraded officially to SP4 and brings dozens of new features, improvements and adjustments to raise the bar even further in high fidelity weather simulation for Flight Simulator X (boxed), FSX: Steam Edition, and Prepar3D v2.5 and v3.  Here are some of the newest items:

SP4 Revision Log:

ASN for FSX Service Pack 4:

• Fixed issue with date handling when loading saved weather file
• Fixed issue related to BR, FG plus RA or SN in a METAR resulting in no precipitation
• Icing depiction adjustments for more consistent and expected results both in and below clouds (i.e. freezing rain)
• Fixed an issue regarding surface temperature interpolation
• Additional RVR/Runway Conditions handling adjustment
• Fixed issue regarding 9999+ meters decoding when vis close to threshold (5.6SM)
• Fixed issue with radar API leading to excessive intensity levels in lighter rain for areas close to the aircraft
• Adjusted invalid simconnect version message warning from ASConnect to specify that the simconnect.msi file is located in REDIST or SDK folders (it depends on which Simulator type/version)
• Adjusted “Ambients error” message to be more accurate, descriptive and refer to a special URL (www.hifisimtech.com/ambients-error) which goes directly to our knowledgebase article
• Adjusted documentation regarding ambients error and SimConnect and networked configurations
• Fixed issue with METAR visibility parsing related to RVR and “Runway Conditions” elements being mis-identified, resulting in improper visibility

ASN for P3D Service Pack 4:

• Fixed issue with date handling when loading saved weather file
• Fixed issue related to BR, FG plus RA or SN in a METAR resulting in no precipitation
• Icing depiction adjustments for more consistent and expected results both in and below clouds (i.e. freezing rain)
• Fixed an issue regarding surface temperature interpolation
• Additional RVR/Runway Conditions handling adjustment
• Fixed issue regarding 9999+ meters decoding when vis close to threshold (5.6SM)
• Adjusted documentation regarding ambients error and SimConnect and networked configurations
• Fixed issue with METAR visibility parsing related to RVR and “Runway Conditions” elements being mis-identified, resulting in improper visibility
• Disabled Visual Fix: Cloud Pop Fix feature from P3D version as it is no longer supported or needed in P3D v3, and could potentially cause issues with P3Dv2.5
• Adjusted invalid simconnect version message warning from ASConnect to specify that the simconnect.msi file is located in REDIST or SDK folders (it depends on which Simulator type/version)
• Adjusted “Ambients error” message to be more accurate, descriptive and refer to a special URL (www.hifisimtech.com/ambients-error) which goes directly to our knowledgebase article
• Adjusted ASConnect default install path search order to P3D v3 vs V2
• Miscellenous installer fixes and adjustments related to P3Dv3
• Added detection of new P3Dv3 install + P3Dv2 paths set in ASN = Notification message that paths should be checked/set to the intended P3D version
• Added new v3 variant of xgauge.dll for new path/registry locations
• Added new ASN client handling to support installation of proper xgauge.dll variant
• NOTE: P3Dv3 users should uninstall/reinstall XGauge via the XGauge Installation Wizard (TOOLS menu) to ensure that gauge files are properly updated
• Added compatibility with P3D 3.1.2.15841

 Important Notes:

• You will need to set your paths appropriately in ASN for P3D (simulator installation and simulator appdata path) and restart ASN.
• It is recommended to run P3Dv3 “As administrator” or you may experience logging/ambient errors.
• P3D v3 base install no longer includes legacy simconnect interface. You will need to install the simconnect client from here: [P3Dv3 folder]\redist\Interface\FSX-SP2-XPACK\retail\lib\SimConnect.msi
• ASNext utilizes traditional FSX/P3Dv1/P3Dv2 add-on configuration and file/folder locations – P3Dv3 recommends that add-ons use a brand new system with add-on content and files located outside of the P3Dv3 installation location in order to avoid potential issues during updates.
• Until such time that Active Sky is redesigned for specific P3Dv3 recommended locations, we recommend uninstalling ASN before applying P3Dv3 updates, in order to avoid any potential update issues.