Suggestion: Make an updated basic seasons.bgl

[Afterburner]

Hello,

I have a question - or rather a wish: I have been using Simelite Solutions Season Manager, and it very accurately represents the seasons around the world. However, sometimes it doesn't match the displayed season of a local airport or region. For example, on the forum of Drzewiecki Design, I have posted the following about Moscow X:

"Hello, I have a question: When I set the date to November 4 in the simulator, it is all snowy in Moscow. I use Simelite Season Manager, which corrects the default seasons by providing real-time seasons, and according to the manager and to my observations in Moscow (where I currently live), it is not even soft winter here, and not all leaves have fallen. I know that Moscow City X has only two seasons, but is it possible to switch the season to summer, which is at least not snowy?"

To which the developer replied:

"Sure, you can switch the date in the sim settings.
Unfortunately in FSX-P3D there is no way of defining the precise date when the ortho changes to a different season - this can only be done monthly."

I wrote then:

"Yes, changing the date in the simulator is obviously the simplest way of changing the displayed season of the area. I understand that seasons in FSX/P3D are defined monthly, but could something be done to avoid having hard winter in November? Recently, it has been rare to have snow during that month. December, January and February would be more realistic. Just an idea..."

To which he replied:

"Yes, that would be possible however we need to make it compatible with the simulator's season schedule."

Here is the link to the thread: https://drzewiecki-design.net/forum/vie ... &start=270


So I wish that you could make an updated simulator's season schedule that covers all months worldwide more accurately. It doesn't have to be as precise as the Season Manager (those who wish to get the most accurate season at a date can still buy a subscription), but at least it would be helpful if it showed more realistic seasons at the beginning of each month. As you know, the most critical months are October, November, December, March and April. The default season schedule has winter too early in November and too late in April in regions where it is still fall or spring. Your new season schedule could be used as a good reference for all airport developers. I am sure people would be willing to buy it as a product.

I hope this idea will be taken into consideration.

[victor.papa]

Hello,

I have a question - or rather a wish: I have been using Simelite Solutions Season Manager, and it very accurately represents the seasons around the world. However, sometimes it doesn't match the displayed season of a local airport or region. For example, on the forum of Drzewiecki Design, I have posted the following about Moscow X:

"Hello, I have a question: When I set the date to November 4 in the simulator, it is all snowy in Moscow. I use Simelite Season Manager, which corrects the default seasons by providing real-time seasons, and according to the manager and to my observations in Moscow (where I currently live), it is not even soft winter here, and not all leaves have fallen. I know that Moscow City X has only two seasons, but is it possible to switch the season to summer, which is at least not snowy?"

To which the developer replied:

"Sure, you can switch the date in the sim settings.
Unfortunately in FSX-P3D there is no way of defining the precise date when the ortho changes to a different season - this can only be done monthly."

I wrote then:

"Yes, changing the date in the simulator is obviously the simplest way of changing the displayed season of the area. I understand that seasons in FSX/P3D are defined monthly, but could something be done to avoid having hard winter in November? Recently, it has been rare to have snow during that month. December, January and February would be more realistic. Just an idea..."

To which he replied:

"Yes, that would be possible however we need to make it compatible with the simulator's season schedule."

Here is the link to the thread: https://drzewiecki-design.net/forum/vie ... &start=270


So I wish that you could make an updated simulator's season schedule that covers all months worldwide more accurately. It doesn't have to be as precise as the Season Manager (those who wish to get the most accurate season at a date can still buy a subscription), but at least it would be helpful if it showed more realistic seasons at the beginning of each month. As you know, the most critical months are October, November, December, March and April. The default season schedule has winter too early in November and too late in April in regions where it is still fall or spring. Your new season schedule could be used as a good reference for all airport developers. I am sure people would be willing to buy it as a product.

I hope this idea will be taken into consideration.

Hi,
As you mentioned flight simulator's Season system is working on monthly basis but we could somehow overcome that limitation with our own method and it is matching the month's Season based on the day's Season in each update. I mean our daily Season covers the whole month for each location and in this way we can be sure that you see the correct Season for that day. For example if the day is 4th of November and it is fall in one city, we assign Fall to November in our Season and you see Fall, on 12th of November, Fall ends in that city and it will be Winter so we assign Winter to whole November in our new updated Season so in this way we can control each day of month.

The problem of those companies and addons is that they integrate Season based on wrong flight simulator's default Seasons and the Snow makes everything wrong because as you mentioned you will face Snowy airport when it shouldn't be any Snow at all. If they can make two versions of sceneries for Winter period (the months you mentioned) and switch those sceneries based on the situation (exactly what we have done) everything will be fine.

Your suggestion is good but because Season is a dynamic thing it wouldn't work correctly for next years because in a region in one year, it is Snowy at the beginning of a month (for example in November) and the next year it is not so nothing works correctly and we will have the same problem there.
It is easy for us to create a better static Seasons for flight simulator as a reference but I doubt those companies change their products based on our Seasons.

[Afterburner]

Thank you for your detailed response! I agree that seasons are dynamic and that they naturally change from year to year. However, I am convinced that the default seasons in P3D/FSX are probably some decades behind the real seasons that have been impacted by global warming (whether it's man made or not...). In this regard, making an updated static file based on the information from the last years or so will very likely reflect seasons in the next years more accurately than the default seasons do. And about third party companies, who knows, if they get to learn about your season files, maybe they will at least be open for adjusting their sceneries to these seasons. I know that ORBX, for example, has come up with their own seasons correction for their FTX Germany North/South products that is effective in December (nowadays, it is very rare to see hard winter in northern Germany in December).

Another benefit of an updated static season file would be the following: Normally, when I fly in real-time and set the sim date the same as the system date, I can download the real-time seasons definitions using the Season Manager, which provides the best realism. However, sometimes I just want to set a different date in the sim and, for example, experience the fall season in November when the system month is June or so. I would have to download historic seasons for that specific date, which takes up a lot of time and effort (and I forget it sometimes). An updated static seasons file would at least allow us to have more realistic seasons in each month, although less precise that the historic ones for each day (due to the seasons.bgl file having the first date of the month as the transition) - but I would just need to deactivate the real-time seasons file in the scenery library.

The best solution, in my opinion would be the following - but I don't know how big of an effort it would be for you to realize this: The default seasons.bgl file, as you know, has seasons defined for all 12 months. The real-time files by your Season Manager only have one season for the whole year, which serve their purpose well if you want to fly in real time. However, could it be possible to "attach" the seasons for the last 12 months to these files, according to what they were on the first date of the month? For example, I want to fly on November 18th, and I download the real-time seasons for this date and set the sim time correspondingly. The month of November (1st) in the real-time seasons file would reflect the live seasons. However, if I set the date to summer in the simulator, because I want to enjoy summer flight, right now with the status quo I would have the season from November 18th still, unless I download the historic seasons files from the summer date, or deactivate Season Manager altogether and use the default seasons file. If each real-time season file would also include more realistic seasons for each month over the last 12 months, this would reduce the need to download the files for each single date in the past (and those who want maximum realism for historic flights can still download them individually). I think most people would have no problems having the seasons a little bit off on November 30th sim time, which would use seasons from November 1st - it would still be more realistic than default.

I admit this text is quite long, but I wanted to make sure that I have expressed my thoughts correctly and clearly.

[victor.papa]

Thank you for your detailed response! I agree that seasons are dynamic and that they naturally change from year to year. However, I am convinced that the default seasons in P3D/FSX are probably some decades behind the real seasons that have been impacted by global warming (whether it's man made or not...). In this regard, making an updated static file based on the information from the last years or so will very likely reflect seasons in the next years more accurately than the default seasons do. And about third party companies, who knows, if they get to learn about your season files, maybe they will at least be open for adjusting their sceneries to these seasons. I know that ORBX, for example, has come up with their own seasons correction for their FTX Germany North/South products that is effective in December (nowadays, it is very rare to see hard winter in northern Germany in December).

Another benefit of an updated static season file would be the following: Normally, when I fly in real-time and set the sim date the same as the system date, I can download the real-time seasons definitions using the Season Manager, which provides the best realism. However, sometimes I just want to set a different date in the sim and, for example, experience the fall season in November when the system month is June or so. I would have to download historic seasons for that specific date, which takes up a lot of time and effort (and I forget it sometimes). An updated static seasons file would at least allow us to have more realistic seasons in each month, although less precise that the historic ones for each day (due to the seasons.bgl file having the first date of the month as the transition) - but I would just need to deactivate the real-time seasons file in the scenery library.

The best solution, in my opinion would be the following - but I don't know how big of an effort it would be for you to realize this: The default seasons.bgl file, as you know, has seasons defined for all 12 months. The real-time files by your Season Manager only have one season for the whole year, which serve their purpose well if you want to fly in real time. However, could it be possible to "attach" the seasons for the last 12 months to these files, according to what they were on the first date of the month? For example, I want to fly on November 18th, and I download the real-time seasons for this date and set the sim time correspondingly. The month of November (1st) in the real-time seasons file would reflect the live seasons. However, if I set the date to summer in the simulator, because I want to enjoy summer flight, right now with the status quo I would have the season from November 18th still, unless I download the historic seasons files from the summer date, or deactivate Season Manager altogether and use the default seasons file. If each real-time season file would also include more realistic seasons for each month over the last 12 months, this would reduce the need to download the files for each single date in the past (and those who want maximum realism for historic flights can still download them individually). I think most people would have no problems having the seasons a little bit off on November 30th sim time, which would use seasons from November 1st - it would still be more realistic than default.

I admit this text is quite long, but I wanted to make sure that I have expressed my thoughts correctly and clearly.

Hi,
The method you mentioned is logically correct but there are a big problem regarding Snow layer. As you know there are 5 different Season layers (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Hard Winter[Snow]) We usually update those first 4 layers each 10 days (three times per month) and for some period like middle of Summer and Winter they are unchanged for a month until the next Spring/Fall start to emerge but Snow layer needs to be updated on daily basis because Snow can fall from sky today and it can be melted the next day. In your method we can somehow have fixed 4 first Season layers for a year (set estimated season for the first day of each month and it can works on yearly basis but for Snow we can't do that except for only those distinct always Snowy regions (like Canada, Russia ,... in the middle of Winter time) but for other places it can't be done like other 4 other Seasons because it will be unreal like flight simulator default Season layer.
We designed our Season Manager based on users normal workflow in flight simulator. As we know if someone wants to do a flight in flight simulator in most cases for most users there are different tasks to do like opening weather, flight plan,... programs, set correct settings in different parts like airplane's fuel, payload,... and most of the flight simulator users became experts in these years dealing with flight simulator addons and settings (just like a real pilot who prepares airplane before each flight) so there isn't a big deal to download daily/historic seasons along with other different tasks a user do.

We will think about your suggestion later and it is possible we make a fixed seasons for those who don't want to use our Season Manager program.
At the moment we are busy working on a new project and we will announce the details in the next month(s).

[Afterburner]

Yes, I agree that the issue of snow and hard winter is not easy to solve with a static file, but it would be a huge improvement if the file would at least make use of the 4 seasons less hard winter (and to use hard winter only in those regions that really have stable snow every year). Also, consider this: The P3D simulator has a nice function, which turns textures around you automatically into hard winter if there is snowfall, so this takes somewhat care of the problem, even if you use only 4 seasons.