Setting aside all the weirdness with the weather engine and the new METAR integration, the clouds still only look good to me under very specific circumstances, like when a large storm is moving in. The complete lack of cirrus clouds is very jarring to me. It doesn’t help that the sim puts little mini cumulus clouds in its place.
I think the clouds look better. Can they be improved? Yes most definitely
Things are headed in the right direction. Now, if they can sort out the transitions…
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Please don’t be so narrowminded!
Nobody is telling you that orographic or frontal convective clouds cannot occur in autumn and winter! But simply :
- they are in the minority in this season in most countries (Europe, East Asia, and most of North America)
- in msfs2020, we see NO stratiform clouds. You could at least admit it!
Here, look right now (it’s 11:50 am Pacific time in Seattle), here’s a capture of the sky there: you can clearly see the large bands of alto-stratus in the background, above the SMALL low-level cumulus.
And this is how msfs sees it:
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This is a zoomed in pic from VR, the graininess is exactly what I see (Clouds on HIGH) and it looks bad - it was not like this prior to SU5, not even on lower cloud settings, it was much easier on the eye and not so pixelated.
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I just tested Seattle since the weather in many other places has been good enough. I can’t find an explanation for this…
The problem is it is everywhere all the time and not realistic at all. I guarantee you the real clouds in that location did not look anything close to those in the screenshot.
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I hope you’re right.
But in the same time, I simply wonder why you are not able to recognize that, in msfs, for the moment at least, there is no other type of clouds than the cumuliform type…
Because, honestly, at the moment, I don’t see any screenshots with stratiform clouds. None at all! Either you are seeing wrong or you are acting in bad faith…
But : YES, there is a little improvment, I agree, in the sense that these cumuliform clouds we see in msfs seem to look nicer. But that’s not the point, please understand it !
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I have never heard so much concern and quibbling over “Clouds” in a game !
…
Maybe they should not have included “Live Weather” for the entire planet earth.
…
If they had just given us a 10-Step choice of canned weather and told us to select one and change at your leisure, they would have time to fix some of the core flaws that have been present since MSFS was released.
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People have the right to complain, this is a real and valid concern. First because the weather was very good before su7, we know what is capable of and the limitations it has at present, and, because such update was “pushed” on us…moreover Asobo is not addressing our concerns about the weather. The clouds, or the weather, is what brings this game alive, otherwise we might as well play with plastic model in our garden and pretend is even more real than the game.
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Yes, after flying around in Chicago, Louisville, and San Francisco East Bay Area this morning (Jan. 8th) each of these areas showed varying weather, and cloud formations were a substantial improvement . Flying through patchy fog around San Francisco Bay, through some clouds, it was much more realistic than even the beta.
At first I wondered if it was placebo effect, because no release notes mentioned improvements between beta and permanent release. But I believe something is different.
Also, other visuals look sharper. Reflections inside the plane on the panel (C152), shadows, scenery, everything looks sharper.
I’ve been a flight simmer from all the way back to Sublogic monochrome days, and every update from then till now. I believe my judgment to be accurate.
Things have improved from beta till today.
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I’ve only been using the sim for a few weeks now with live weather. I can say for my local conditions, it looked spot on with what I saw outside today. The prior week was near cloudless and it always matched.
I had beautiful clouds yesterday but tonight I flew and got the weird volcano ash stuff. That circle of clouds and their depiction just doesn’t look right does it?
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The Seattle pics are funny. I took this on base just north of Elliott Bay this morning on the way home from the islands. The clouds don’t have the contrast I would have liked, but yup - definitely a band of cu on the convergence zone.
Now, are the ones in the sim screenshots depicting far too strong of an updraft? Yes, like I said, they often do that… though not as often as they used to. I’ve definitely more often seen better-looking cu to go with my fog and stratus lately. You could at least admit that. 
EDIT: removed cockpit shots. They were from an approved system but it’s probably not worth making people wonder lol. But yes, there was a band of Cu across the 16R final this morning.
You seem not to understand why this is important for people who intend to use the sim a certain way. That’s fine - just know that it IS important. Accurate live weather very much is a core fix to those of us who intend to use the sim this way. If that doesn’t include you, well… you’ve had canned weather presets since the beginning, yes? So why the annoyance?
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Stearmandriver2,
Oh, I understand alright, I suspect you did not understand what I really said. What I said was that I have never seen so much concern and quibbling over “Game” clouds, I never said that I did not like the live weather and I never said I was “Annoyed”. I realize it is important to some, however, live weather is not always used in Multimillion Dollar Flight Simulators used for professional training because, they too, like us, have the choice to make weather any way they want. The importance is varied, somewhat like the flight controls, nav and fms flaws that have existed since the sim was released. A Nav flaw can totally ruin my IFR flight where a discoloration or a few pixels out of place in a puffy little cloud will have little effect on my approach. The bottom line: We all still really love the new MSFS, period !
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Haze is back. I see the release notes but practically speaking, what was fixed? Haze and oil painting volcano ash clouds weren’t targeted to be included with this fix?
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Either this image is the result of the weather you created yourself (but not the online weather).
Or it is just mist close to the ground (you are only 1000 feet above sea level).
In short, they are not altostratus.
You understand that big bands of altostratus are really different from haze or mist or fog at ground level.
We just would like to see any type of clouds (especially the stratoform ones who are missing in the online weather).
I’m sure you know what I mean…