Basically we need a WT (Working Title) treatment for the weather I guess.
Having atmospheric humidity / visibility is NOT a fringe use-case. The whole world isn’t the Atacama Desert.
7 Likes
And just to prove that the weather engine itself is capable of doing low vis if we’re given the right tools, this is from live weather.
Runway threshold is at 0.5 DME, becomes visible at 0.9 DME
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No visibility distance slider for FS24: https://www.youtube.com/live/PYJ2tuhyEEY?si=NBgd54_LvSJ9LFgB&t=3115
Wasn’t really expecting it as weather does not seem to be the emphasis of the new version. But they gave the same answer we’ve heard before that such a slider “doesn’t make sense”, and I feel like we’ve discussed in these threads to death about how such a slider could realistically work with a 3D volumetric cloud layer. Basically, the sim could create a cloud layer at 0 AGL relative to the players location, give it some sort of plausible height based on the boundary layer depth, temperature profile, or even a fixed height if that’s too hard. Then just set the corresponding density of the cloud condensate (how thick your cloud is) to match the desired visibility distance. We’re not asking for the visibility to be the same at all altitudes. And clearly the sim can already do this as METAR values set the surface level visibility. Just automatically generate a cloud layer for us that has the matching visibility distance at the current location’s ground level. Call it “surface visibility distance” to avoid confusion.
2 Likes
Yeah, I don’t feel like the communication has been received when it matters. And of course, that’s chiefly due to there being no room for follow-on dialogue to make sure the receiver is understanding the ask and why it’s relevant and important. He seemed to think we’re desiring it to be set differently in multiple layers and played that off as unnecessary and technically difficult, which is just a red herring. Nope, we just want to adjust the bottom one by setting the layer height and visibility: done.
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Is this really still not available in 2024? No ability to specify visibility value? In a flight simulator?
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MSFS2020.
Own Custom Weather files.
Data from 2023 Meteorology records.
Set Clouds to area average for each month ( every week in new year )
Set wind speed and direction to average for the time. ( weekly from new year )
Temp, set on day.
Pressure, set on day.
HUMIDITY, 1, THE MINIMUM.
( A METAR gives -
The Station Code
Date and time,
Wind Direction and Speed.
Any wind variability.
Visibility,
Clouds,
Precipitation,
Min/Max temp
Q Pressure.
Not humidity. )
Save file and reload.
With 1 as ‘Humidity’, the Sim puts much less refraction around the Sun.
Veiw is much more realistic.
1 Like
No, and I did have a quick play with manual weather in 2024 at the weekend. All you can really do is specify cloud layers down to the ground, their coverage, and density. Turning everything up to 11, the best I can manage is maybe a few hundred feet RVR. Nothing at all like X-Plane, but even without a dialogue box where you can set a specific required RVR numerically, if you could at least set it in some abstract way with the sliders it would be something, but you can’t even do that.
I have no clue why that might be but I wonder if its tied into the requested wing fade thing that some people have asked for. If you can’t obscure the wings due to cloud, it seems reasonable that you can’t do that with the terrain either.
1 Like
I still agree here. The sim weather engine is capable of displaying low visibility conditions required for IFR work.
What we may need is an ‘Advanced Weather’ or ‘IFR practice weather’ panel where you can set for specific airports the exact weather layers:
- At least 3 selectable points/airports in which to specify conditions at.
- x amount of radius around the point/airport (blended or not with the general weather - could simply have a caveat that it will not blend if you chose to use it.)
- Surface conditions and conditions at other user selectable levels at that point. FSX, P3d and xPlane all have similar functionality.
Even if we can’t have access to the weather engine, we should be able to inject data into it for IFR practice purposes. No FAA/EASA or other regulator input required.
6 Likes
Absolutely. When doing this, I couldn’t care less about weather blending, popping, or eye-candy type prettiness. I just want to be able to specify a visibility value at an airport. If that means I fly into a literal wall at 20nm out per the visuals, I’m perfectly content with that.
This is the problem with devs that come from gaming vs more operational simulation disciplines - over and over, they display that they’re unable to understand that sometimes in this kind of software, function trumps form. I couldn’t care less what it looks like, as long as it WORKS. When I say I want 1/2sm vis, I want to literally see A light at exactly 1/2sm. I don’t care if it fades in, pops in, whatever. Why can’t we just make it WORK?
8 Likes
And to be more exact for the devs, if the visibility is 1/2sm then that is when unlit objects should pop into view. In metres that visibility is 800m.
If the object, like the runway, is lit, it will probably cut through the mist a lot more, and allow a lower visibility before that runway can be seen. It’s called Runway Visual Range (RVR) and may allow you to see that runway from only 550m. But other unlit objects won’t be seen until they are much much closer.
Correct Visibility/RVR and a cloud ceiling are VITAL to move this sim from a VFR play thing to a usable sim, like FSX and prior were.
6 Likes
There could be a couple of reasons for this:
- They just haven’t got around to implementing this.
- The engine just isn’t capable of it.
I suspect the real reason is a blend of the two. There are a ton of of issues left over in 2020, and some new ones in 2024. Some of these have been around for literally years, since release even, so a possible third reason would be they just never considered it a priority.
This however is not something like a text box not being given focus for text entry when clicked on, but something more fundamental to a flight simulator: the ability to precisely configure the atmospheric simulation you wish to fly in.
This is one aspect that X-Plane does well.
Or more accurately, even after 4 years: It just isn’t that important to them.
(Not their core market target)
8 Likes
It’s one of the very few things that really irks me about MSFS, and this may actually be the first complaint I’ve expressed here. FS 2000 was capable of visibility. How it isn’t in a game 25 years later is just ridiculous. Come on, Asobo. This should be a no brainer.
8 Likes
Currently, when setting custom weather, we can adjust cloud levels and atmospheric conditions, but not visibility. It would be very helpful to have the ability to set visibility as well.
This feature would be particularly useful for training RNP and VOR approaches, where visibility is a key factor in decision-making. Specifically, being able to simulate scenarios where the pilot reaches DA (Decision Altitude) or MDH (Minimum Descent Height) and must determine whether the required visual references are available to continue the approach or execute a missed approach.
Thank you for considering this enhancement.
Best regards,
15 Likes
I just learned that yesterday, I was so surprised that there is no visibility / humidity slider anymore in FS2024. Not that the humidity slider was a good solution, but what an odd choice to remove the only tool we had.
The only way to reduce visibility is to place clouds at ground level which is not at all precise. Mainwhile the “other” simulator gives users complete and precise control of visibility / RVR.
In live weather I’m starting to notice that the horizon is always clearly visibile and never obscured, in real life this is hardly ever the case. Eventhough meteoblue shows the visibility is below 20 km, I always have 100 km+ in the sim.
I suspect that 9999 in the METAR is interpreted as unlimited visibility where in fact this is almost never the case. The absence of haze makes it look unrealistic. I was shocked when I saw what the “other” simulator is capable off regarding atmospheric effects.
Examples from other threads:
These atmospheric effects, haze, clouds and lighting make MSFS look inferior. I think it is the haze that makes all the difference. Having unlimited visibility with unobscured horizon 99% of the time is just not realistic.
I did experiment with placing an overcast cloud layer on the ground and play with ceiling and density and I was able to get close to those results, MSFS weather engine itself seems to be capable of achieving the same stunning visuals (appart from creating real stratiform clouds).
5 Likes
Yea this is very annoying. It is very rare in the real world you can see all the way to the horizon.
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This is what the MSFS 2024 engine can actually accomplish. Took Rex Atmos Core to give us the sliders that Asobo should have incorporated in both live weather (using extensive meteoblue and METAR data sources for particulate matter etc) and in custom weather.
1 Like
Pucked it up today and only played around with it for a few minutes. Will wait for some good user presets and then have a good base to work from. Looks great though so far.
Check out my preset: It is called “HazeControlPreset”.
I’ve made a guide on how to adjust these params as well here :-): A GAMECHANGER for MSFS 2024? REX Atmos CORE Initial Impressions and Review
That’s the frustrating thing; it looks like the engine is actually quite capable. So is the data from Meteoblue just poor quality?