Any way to "hack" weather generation to manually force fog?

[CoastalGamer]

@Stearmandriver2

I’m not sure you properly understand what “volumetric” means.

I think you’re projecting, considering you don’t seem to understand why a single global “visibility” setting with no fixed reference point is nonsensical in the context of a 3D volumetric atmosphere simulation, despite me explaining it in simple terms multiple times. I even included images, which apparently didn’t help. I also went as far as to try to reword your suggestion to make it applicable to the current volumetric engine (being able to modify individual cells of the atmosphere) and even that didn’t help.

@Stearmandriver2

Yes, the FAA does “command” that a “distance fog” rendering method is used, in the sense that they’re dictating precisely what distance you’ll be able to see when below the ceiling

That is not what defines distance fog and can be achieved far better by having precise control over the atmosphere grid. Distance fog is simply setting the transparency of objects based on the distance to the viewer, which makes it look like a fog effect. The color of the fog is based on the color used to clear the buffer. This was a simple method used because there were no other options at the time and it looked better than objects popping in out of nowhere, not because it was ideal or had anything to do with realism or “simulation”. Thankfully we’ve moved far past that.

@Stearmandriver2

Have you flown many instrument approaches in low vis in a real airplane? You just… don’t see anything, until you break out.

You described a single scenario where distance fog somewhat looks okay and conveniently didn’t mention the long list of cons that come with a one-dimensional distance fog system with a ring of visibility that follows the viewer. That long list of cons is why it was ditched a long time ago in favor of the far more realistic volumetric fog\atmosphere, which is thankfully what we have now.

@Stearmandriver2

Now, like Nijntje91 says, I don’t care how this is accomplished. If Asobo wants to let me specify the weather for a 50nm ring around a given airport, in which I can specify every parameter and they’ll all be rendered precisely and with zero variability… that’s fine. If these conditions are just rendered globally the way they are in level D sims, that’s fine. If my weather is a bubble that follows my plane, that’s fine too.

Those are radically different solutions that require radically different discussions and radically different changes to the simulation, which is my entire point. If they do address this (which I hope), I hope they do it the right way, and not the “old standard way” that other simulators use, which was the least-realistic way of doing it.

@Stearmandriver2

But we need to be able to precisely specify a visibility distance that then needs to render precisely, with 100% coverage and with no variability. This is a given requirement for any simulator training.

Which could be done if we could precisely control the atmosphere grid and precisely set the weather around an airport and position your plane wherever it needs to be to satisfy those requirements, which is the point I keep trying to make. Everything you want can be done without having to downgrade to the old antiquated system that made it possible to have a single “visibility” slider.