HighSkyTech has released their latest addon for X-Plane 11, xAmbience Pro. This is a powerful weather and environmental enhancement application for the simulator. Designed from the ground up to make flying in X-Plane 11 more immersive, more thrilling and awe-inspiring.
True “Eye Candy” skies, XAmbiance provides a full-cycle sky simulation with smooth rendering, taking altitudes and climate variations into account.
HST’s simulation of the sky includes replica rayleigh scattering, mie scattering and earth shadow, to bring a true-to-life rendition of the skies to your simulator. The simulation of the mentioned scattering occurs at all levels, of course, depending on climatic and weather conditions. xAmbience has worked hard to ensure a realistic colour and smooth sky transition between different climatic states.
The development team has also worked hard to incorporate realistic clouds into xAmbience, and they have stated that it’s “a major enhancement. From now clouds do not look like usual 2D-sprite billboards”. They have also equipped the system with a “clouds passing effect”, which affects the contours of the aircraft wing.
They stated that passing through a cloud feels just like in real life, and that will also be aided by their faithful lighting effects, which work with the atmospheric system to deliver the most accurate lighting it can. Clouds will also render in from further away “clouds render until the horizon“, also introducing an enhanced haze effect.
xAmbience also provides users with a built-in weather engine, which controls the whole simulator’s weather. The system imports real-time global weather with “smooth” injection, the feature also showcases its dynamic and smooth transitions which also hosts the ability to control changing times, to ensure no sudden changes in the local weather conditions.
At this time of year, we are used to experiencing the seasons changing, whether you’re deep into winter, or thinking about a trip to the beach, this is also featured in xAmbience’s built-in seasons. The injector imports real-time seasonal changes depending on the current weather situation. Features include advanced simulations of the seasons, as well as their climates that now affect visual representations of the surrounding environment. And if you want to change it, you can, all seasons can be controlled manually.
xAmbience includes a custom barrage of built-in custom 3D effects, from rain flying through the air, snow softly floating past as passengers load, to puddles forming after a heavy shower (OpenGL only, for now). Precipitations effect also features 3 real-time changeable presets.
This system also features a rich modern user interface, featuring all of the utility settings in one system for ease of use. It features a fully customised design, and a full sim-based interface so you don’t even have to leave the window, just head to plugins and it’s there.
It also provides weather briefings to you with raw METAR and TAF information and it also decodes METAR for each airport. There are over 30 manipulators, so you can be in total control of the weather whenever you like, the is supported by detailed settings, with separations of times, and each settings page has manipulators to tweak it to be exactly as you wish.
In summary, xAmbience Pro takes immersion in X-Plane 11 flight simulation to unprecedented levels through its realistic volumetric cloud system, physically-based lighting, smooth weather transitions, and full seasons implementation.
It creates an incredibly lived-in atmosphere never before seen, allowing pilots to truly experience the full range of conditions from serene sunrises to tense storms. Leveraging the latest techniques in rendering and weather simulation, xAmbience builds a cohesive, organic world that envelops the user for more authentic and thrilling flights.
If you want to experience these skies for yourself, head to HST to purchase, by clicking here. Currently, it is only available for X-Plane 11, at the price of approximately €18.50.
