Weather Extension GUI

[qballbandit]

For those of you who have membership at Elvas, well worth a look. Allows you to bring up a GUI (F3 key), allowing you to tweak a load of environmental parameters:
- Adjust (Sunrise/Noon/Sunset) Sun size; Sky viewing distance; scenery viewing distance
- Adjust (Sunrise/Noon/Sunset) scenery and sky fog RGB values
- OVCST cloud opacity
- Precip wind adjustments; particle size
- Veg and scenery Desat/Brightness/Contrast.
- Many new clouds01 and skydome1 files, though I am not sure how you can mix & match these manually - if possible?
- save settings to a .bin file. I guess you could rename and plug and play a bazillion variations this way.

My sincere thank you to the author, ExRail. Great job!

Very cool stuff!

[yellowdog]

Agreed! A bit of a learning curve, but really cool effects. Reminiscent of the old SkyConductor

[niknak]

Presumably it remains unaltered in the folder whenever ORNYMG gets updated to the latest version?

[qballbandit]

It isn't "officially" integrated into ORNYMG yet, but that looks to be the progression.

I want use it past it's intent, with the ability to pick my cloud types for any given day: clear/partly cloudy/mostly cloudy/overcast (the way I do tings now prior tp running an activity by copy/pasting my choice of clouds01 & skydome1 files).
I am getting mixed results doing this. But, I love the way you can customize other things. Kind of like having another dynamic set of Reshade options.

[MMSS]

I agree with you Neil. I think a lot of us were waiting with something along the line of this. I do agree that I would love to use my own cloud types along with this. I am sure the dynamics of this will have this option once it gets its feet wet with users. But for now, I love having this adding a new dynamic for us.

[docmartin]

I am not familiar with this weather extension so I need some help getting it to work. I have looked at the thread on Elvas Tower without much enlightenment.

Does the download replace OR Monogame or do I copy it into my existing Monogame install overwriting as necessary? I have tried both ways and OR works OK in both but with just a clear sky (apart from crazy mouse movements).

Is there anything else I need to do in order to get the Weather GUI to appear? At the moment F3 does nothing for me in either installation.

Are any instructions available anywhere? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Martin

[derekmorton]

Presumably it remains unaltered in the folder whenever ORNYMG gets updated to the latest version?

As you update the ORNYMG, its up to how you do it?

[R. Steele]

with the ability to pick my cloud types for any given day:

This is a good advancement and will give many the option to experience choices of sky & clouds ... however, not really interested unless I can add/substitute my own cloud & sky files.

[docmartin]

I wonder whether anyone can offer some suggestions as I requested in my post #6 of May 3. I would really like to explore the possibilities that this extension offers.

Martin

[R. Steele]

I am not familiar with this weather extension so I need some help getting it to work. I have looked at the thread on Elvas Tower without much enlightenment.

This is bleeding edge, you'll have to struggle along like the rest of us. Devote some time to teaching it to yourself.

Are any instructions available anywhere? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

There is the pdf with the download. But it is woefully short on how-to install instructions...so I looked...it appears you simply open the zip file, inside is a folder named program...copy the contents of that folder and paste ( overwriting ) into version of ORNYMG that you have installed.

Looking at the version texts in the folder shows that ExRail used Rev.151 -- March 14th, 2024. So I would download that version of MG and start there. NOTE...Carlo only has 151.2 available in the most recent versions....current version is 152 --- I would assume that should work.

From what I read in your post #6 you appear to have done everything correctly so if you are still having trouble, I would suggest directing your requests for help to the creator at Elvas...ExRail. The member ( in my opinion ) has an obligation to help...it sorta comes with the territory of envelope pushing. Good Luck.

Please report back here....the rest of us would like to know.

[niknak]

So I finally bit the bullet and installed the weather app on version 152 of ORNYMG. I made a copy of the orig 152 1st then copy and pasted the unzipped weather app into it, allowing overwriting as Gerry has mentioned above. ^^ Well it seems to work when I press F3 ! Got a message when I tried to resume a previous save saying "Restoring a save from v152 may be incompatible with current v152" which doesn't make sense but anyway previous saves do NOT appear to work after the app is 1st installed - a fatal error message states "unable to read beyond the end of the stream". My OR opening screen still shows version 152 at the top which is presumably what it's still running and any saves now that I've started the activity again resume correctly. Getting a few log messages to do with weather sounds missing - log attached. OpenRailsLog.zip Couple of other things I've noticed, some text boxes appear bigger now.

[docmartin]

Thanks for responding to my posts, R.Steele. I discovered that I had mistakenly downloaded an early experimental version of the weather app which did not use F3 to call up the weather menu. I have now installed the latest v3.1 so am now on the same page as everyone else. I can see how to experiment with the various visual effects but am stumped as to how to implement the 8 base weather types and 32 weather settings. I would appreciate a helping hand here from someone farther along the learning curve.

Martin

[qballbandit]

I have asked some questions at Elvas, but I admit, I lose some in the translation on the replies. I would simply like to vary clouds with files I have, but it seems they are designed differently than the authors files for the weather program. I may be incorrect, but I can't follow all of his replies - and that is on me, not the author.

[R. Steele]

Neil, I think the work by ExRail is wonderful, has my support....but also an honest critique....it should be incorporated into the OR GUI, have the ability to call up a Weather Control Panel ingame, and also users should be able to plug-in their own skies, clouds, etc. All big asks, I know, but for a large part of the community part of the fun of the hobby is the ability to tinker around with stuff.

[docmartin]

I have now installed v3.2. Now I can select the different weather types using Alt P but trying to save a new weather setting crashes OR. Is this just my experience or does everyone have the same problem?

Martin