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[fly77]

I am glad to finally release my live-weather mod for outerra that brings real-world current, past and future weather for all locations on earth into outerra ! Try it out as
it really transforms the experience of playing in outerra, making every place never look the same and the whole world much more exciting to explore.
You can now chase real world hurricans, look for locations with snowfall or thunderstorms, or just check the current weather wherever you want on earth
and compare it what you see out of the window or what your friends see.

Also the mod displays the current main weatherdata on the screen for your convenience as well as a forecast message for the next hour.
It also has inbuild weathercharts to get a more detailed overview of the weather for the next few days as well as  1  day into the past.

The mod is based on freely available and very detailed weatherdata from open-meteo.com website which incredibly allows 10000 free weathercalls per day
(link here ) and renders the real weather as closely as I could using outerra's great but still limited atmosphere and cloud system.
I hope clouds will improve in the future but overall they give a quite credible appearance even right now, especially when using this realweather mod.

Weatherdata for the current set outerra location and day as well as one day into the apst and 3 days into the future is retrieved from https://open-meteo.com/  weather-service.
Note that this data is the result of the site's forecast models also for the current weather and is not the "measured" current weather.
Its just as with any weather-forecast service: close enough !

The weather is loaded for the 4 days around the current real day and current set location in outerra, so you can in principle play  for -1/+3 days in a region of 50 km around the initial location
without the need for a single new weather data call.
Indeed for convenience it is assumed in the mod that the weather is not changing a lot within a 50 km radius, so to avoid requiring to freequent calls to the weatherservice.

As it is very likely that you want to explore different locations in a outerra session either using the F2 menu or moving fast in ufo mode
the weather needs to be manually updated for the new location by pressing the + key (not the one on the numpad).
So don't worry just do it ..10000 free calls a day counting the totality of mod users is still a lot so we don't need to overly worry.

This is however not needed if you move while inside a plane, boat or vehicle or character. In this case the mod loads new local weatherdata automatically as soon as your location changed by more than 50 km from the
location of the last weatherupdate, and produces actually a smooth weather transition from one location to the next.
On the contray a manual weatherupdate produces a sudden weatherchang.so do it only when needed : that is when in ufo mode or when changing location with F2.

Importantly the mod also allows you to rapidly see how the weather changes with time using outerra's F2 menu to set the time of day as well as day of year as well as the timeflow
multiplier in F2 advanced settings, thereby inspecting the weather rapidly at a different times (within the -1 + 2 day period from the current day)
or observe it evolve fast when setting timeflow multiplier to big values - which is a very nice option - except that it will make clouds move faster than real - as if there were a lot of wind (this is a bug or special feature of outerra )

The mod also allows you to get a graphical overview of the weather for the  -1 /+2 day period around the current day.
You can get these weathercharts by entering a certain code on the numeric keyboard which is  *101/   First however you need to lock the numeric keypad pressing NumBloc !
you might wonder why not call it by pressing a key on the keyboard!? the fact is that if you have many different mods open at the same time its very easy that their keys will start to conflict
and using a code instead of a single key to call a not-so-often-used menu or chart is a way to avoid this problem.
To memorize the code think of it this way: * is the key that signals the start of a code  , Then enter a numeric code ..in this case 101 and finish the code with / to tell the mod that the number code ends here
It will then open the weathercharts which are fairly self-explanatory except for the timescale ! The time on these charts is in greenwhich mean time (GMT)
- unfortuntely for now - so you can't just look at your local time and expect to see the time-cursor at the right time-number.
Fortunately the mod also display onscreen both your local outerra time as well as the corresponding GMT time. so The time-cursor will allways sit at the indicated GMT time.
Not a big issue, but you need to get used to it. In the future I might simplify this so that the only thing you need is the local  time.
For the past 24 hours in 6 hour intervals, so for the past day thats hours -24 -18 -12 -16 and for the current and future day the numbers are 0 + 6 + 12 + 18 + 24 etc..starting over from +6 for the next day for convenience.
The menu also has buttons to refresh the time cursor which is needed when you change the time or location in outerra as the time-cursor does not update automatically.
Also it has a button for "snow reset" since loading snow in outerra automatically when changing location would be difficult (snow is slow loading since it repaints the whole earth).
You need to press this button only if you change time or location as the automatic snow rendering occurs normally every 10 mins only and fastest every 30 secs when timeflow multiplier is set to very high.
Under normal conditions you might want to update the snow manually when you feel it should have changed already. Anyway snow is not rasy to handle in outerra so don't expect too much of snow rendering.
While it might indeed accumulate or melt you need to find a location where fresh snow of less than 10 cm has just fallen or melts in the real world...not so easy to find such locations, but not impossible to find.
happy snow hunting !

Finally the menu shows the last time realworld weatherdata was retrieved from the web ...the indication takes at least one minute to update however so let 1 pass after you saw a weatherdata update
(remember the red box popping up in the left upper screen corner !) before you say "its not showing the last update time!"


download the mod from here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sc2ElkUOHNXOKh-Ph0ss0jZojUFmMfCF?usp=sharing

installation:
1) drop all the files of the plugin folder into the Anteworld/plugins folder, accept overwrite for the fly77-plugin.dll as its backward compatible.
2) click on the self-installing realweather.otx file

use:
under vehicles in the outerra F2 menu look for "realweather" and spawn it. You're done.. Real-world weather is now in outerra ! Enjoy ! and explore !

summary of control keys:

+ key (not on numeric keyboard) to call fresh realworld weatherdata when changing location in outerra by more than 50 km

*+-+/  key combination all typed on the numeric keypad to show the weather charts.

[andfly]

A HUGE scripting work to define the atmospheric parameters, retrieved from the web, into "something edible" for the world of Outerra, considering the vastness of cases and reciprocal interactions.
An equally accurate research work to interpret these parameters and consequently define their "realistic" effectiveness.
All widely documented, even with references to web sources used for parameter calculations and transformations !!!
(and without knowing, but imagining it, the work in C++, to interact, through the Plugin, with the source of the weather data and their transcription in the text file that can be interpreted by the Javascript code)

Acc ...
A beautiful job! ... Congratulations!

But ... as always, the end user only cares that the Mod works well ...

I quickly experienced some situations in different locations and times.
It seems to me that this Mod is much more accurate and realistic than the default "Dynamic weather" in Outerra.
Without detracting from the work of the developers, I have the impression that the "realweather" draws on more complete, more accurately updated data and is able to determine a more realistic weather.
In particular I love the haze and the feeling of realism that manages to convey!
I haven't experienced the snow yet but it intrigues me a lot and I plan to do it soon.

As "icing on the cake" there is also the possibility to consult the updated graphs of all the atmospheric parameters...

What to say ?

Really GREAT  !!!   

[fly77]

A HUGE scripting work to define the atmospheric parameters, retrieved from the web, into "something edible" for the world of Outerra, considering the vastness of cases and reciprocal interactions.
An equally accurate research work to interpret these parameters and consequently define their "realistic" effectiveness.
Aty to consult the updated graphs of all the atmospheric parameters...
..
What to say ?
Really GREAT  !!!   

hehe ! Thank you a lot andfly: I am glad you like it. While it may in some situations not match the real weather appearance or state its a vast improvement in terms of "ambience" and "never the same" which makes outerra feel much more real and exciting to explore.  With more effort in tuning parameters - which indeed have overlapping/competing influences on the rendering - it might be possible to improve further the rendering, but it may not be worth the extra effort. After all what matters is the "look and feel" which if good enough is good enough. 

Still I want to upgrade it in the future adding pollution and wildfire/smoke data from the same open-meteo.com website as well as their data to render the real seastate as well ! Plus eventually historic weather ! Lots to do !

step by step ... in the meantime happy exploring our planet's real weather !   

[fly77]

Important note:  I just now corrected the mod so that entering the numeric code for the charts is easier to remember: now you just  have to type *101/ instead of *+-+/   But to do so first you need to press BlocNum that is lock the numeric keypad  first !

So please redownload now from above !

[fly77]

New update to the realweather mod:  Added realword seastate and seastate charts  (main wave height, period and direction : swell wave height, period and direction).
So now you can experience the gigantic waves according to realword  seastate data when you are near a hurricane, or just sail with realworld wind and waves using the marvellous Sailboat mod of andfly.
Also seastate forecast can be shown using the numpad: after activating NUMLOCK press *102/ keys on the numeric keypad.
(Note: always open just either 101 or 102 charts never both. SO if you opened weathercharts exit them with ESC
(keeping the mousepointer on the charts) before opening the seasate charts with *102/ and viceversa.)

So please redownload now from above !


installation:
1) drop all the files of the plugin folder into the Anteworld/plugins folder, accept overwrite for the fly77-plugin.dll as its backward compatible.
2) click on the self-installing realweather.otx file


use:
the controls remain the same as before the update :

+ key (not on numeric keyboard) to call fresh realworld weatherdata/ realworld seastate data
*101/ to see weather charts
*102/ to see seastate charts

ESC (with mouse over charts) to exit the chart window