Granted it has been a long time since I used P3D, but I never seemed to recall being dissatisfied with those clouds. On the other hand with MSFS, the clouds frustrate me pretty much every flight.
In any case, the ones in the image you posted look fantastic in comparison with MSFS clouds.
Images, yes. Have a look at some videos of it on YT. They have that familiar issue where as you fly past them they always turn to face you, just as objects did in Doom/DN3D, and so on.
played around with manual weather sliders a bit to create some coverage.
After that i did some processing through reshade to shift the color temp first and then I lowered the highlights so that they don’t clip as much.
did some other minor color tweaks.
Changed the entire vibe of these clouds giving it some detail back.
I think Asobo can achieve quite a lot with visual realism with a proper tweak to their internal tonemapper and colorgrading.
The new cloud type coverages will be a huge bonus on top.
(it’s still a bit red shifted, but it was like a 5min tweak with a couple sliders)
Does REX Weather Force do much to improve cloud varieties and formations? How about the new Active Sky?
Interesting having tested Active Sky today and noticed how much better results they are able to get with the clouds compared to Native Live Weather MSFS clouds.
They still don’t look great in my opinion, but better than the default ones.
I really really hope the clouds are significantly improved in 2024.
but doesn’t activesky make the entire skybox one same metar as the other weather addons?
Best option is to keep meteoblue clouds formations
inject the metar pressure, wind, temp etc.
the coverage of the clouds were actually spot on, it was almost the same every single time i looked out of my window.
That is what they intended METAR blending to be like, I presume.
I was mentioned, in the rare cases when this was actually talked about, that METAR should in no way at all cause any visible changes to weather depiction, that is, it should look the same as pre SU-7 but with less error between reports and conditions on location in the sim.
This is NOT what we got.
The fact that “METAR Circles” can be so easily spotted, clearly indicates that under the assumptions above, something has clearly gone terribly wrong.
There were many players who started calling out “METAR blending is BAD” and similar themes, and they were correct, in a way. But perhaps not the way the meant.
It is probably not the case, that METAR Blending in itself is a Mis-Feature, i.e: a deliberate effort so misguided it is indistinguishable from a bug - Instead it is just that: A Bug.
Which is to say, METAR Blending isn’t BAD - It has GONE BAD.
And that has remained the case for many years, and many players have put the sim aside in the meantime, causing measurable financial loss as these people have not bought anything off the Marketplace in this period.
I’m not making that up. I am one such player. I just have enough foolish hopes that there could one day be an improvement, that I come here to check relatively often… who knows, someday…
Not exactly a good first impression for Active Sky…
Comparison between a live view, live weather and ASFS. In the beginning MSFS was able to get the blue tone and cloud density correct. At some point it added more red tones and made the clouds less dense. ASFS is missing the cirrus and made the cloud tops higher.
Live weather is still better, just require some much needed work on the clouds and lighting.
I personally find the lower-level default clouds to be fine. It’s the higher types that are so inaccurate — it’s not exactly conducive to immersion entering cumulus clouds at FL350! The sim’s representation of cirrus, for example, is pretty appalling and I hope they fix it in FS 2024.
i think you misunderstood what activesky does.
It does not add new clouds, or a new atmosphere etc.
the program simply plays around with the weather panel like you could do manually.
but it does it based on a METAR station value.
Same way REX and xEnviro does.
So lighting and cirrus etc you won’t see added or change.
that’s totally up to Asobo.
The downside of this is, that the entire sky becomes 1 METAR till you move to the next METAR station then it changes the entire sky into that METAR.
(due to the lack of a weather API from Asobo it can’t do multiple zones (fronts) of weather)
Sorry for the misunderstanding, that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to say.
So Active Sky’s weather isn’t truly dynamic as claimed, then?
Seems to be an expensive mod that does very little to improve weather (at least visually). Are the new turbulence types just using the existing weather engine, too?
i’m not sure how good the passive mode is, but yeah the active mode is wildly inferior to native Asobo live weather.
also it claims to have microbursts and other effects, which i doubt still.
Returning to the topic, it is clear that the weather engine is capable of generating layers when we use the presets, but it cannot do so with the live weather, instead it makes a mixture of layers, generating those typical clouds that are not close to reality.
If only they could go back to how it was before and produce separate layers, things would be much better.
FinalLightNL, Unless you are trying to be controversial I would suggest you look at your setup. To me the clouds look pretty good. I havent bought any addon for clouds but if you think the native clouds arent good enough I recommend Floyds Epic Clouds.
If they dont satisfy you then I suppose nothing will. All looks pretty good to me.
Personal Comments and Observations
Live Weather vs Active Sky: BKN at 6400’
There is a very lively Active Sky thread, so please take specific questions there.
The point being is that AS and everyone else is relying on the base Asobo engine to give their own Depiction. In short, the stock WX engine can make these kinds of skies. The limitation is elsewhere in the engine - why can’t it do so dynamically?
