So could it be an idea for a next implementation to get the metar height from the airports and use this as lower layer? But maybe that’s done already because I’ve seen many pictures with circular areas around airports reaching up to a certain altitude. One of your pics demonstrates thus clearly, like a fog-typhoon.
Would it be better already if they would improve the blending? So go from ovc050 to cavoc at airport level in more, fine grained steps?
Yeah it’s definitely a tricky one to get right. I’m sure they will work on that blending and transitions in the future. I would guess now the METAR only injects up to a certain height. Because I’ve seen for example airports in the USA reporting overcast at FL240 for example but it hasn’t drawn any cloud in.
It’s definitely complex - I’ve worked on weather depiction with scripts and tools in XP and it’s by no means an easy task.
The bigger problem I think is having the METAR which although can be very accurate it’s also static to that timestamp when it was published. Meteoblue has always injected a very fluid and ‘alive’ weather system so trying to blend static METAR data within a fluid ecosystem of weather is never going to be easy.
Yep they look great. But posting screenshots that are time and date stamped from 2020 before the changes took place with SU7 is always going to show nicer results because we didn’t face the issues we do now back then.
Ha ha - yep, thought you would notice that. Interestingly. these are all screenshots that got slated when I first posted them for how unrealistic they look…
Clouds on theb ground, unrealistic formations and all that. You can’t have it both ways.
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Are these recent, Gordon? They sure look amazing.
I think these pics might also be taken in meteoblue areas which at the moment doesn’t seem to have issues. Things go awry when moving from meteoblue to metar areas.
They were from around launch date in 2020. My point being that these were all deemed, by the forum at the time, to be unrealstic for whatever reason.
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I definitely wouldn’t slate them, they look fantastic I think. I can look at them though and think ah yeah that’s before SU7. I’m sure we will get this sort of things back though. For all the quirks and bugs we see now with SU7 it still has its wow moments and still absolutely trumps the weather depiction in any other sim out there in my opinion.
The other problem is when you go hunting for bugs, especially with the weather you can easily find them. The same was for before SU7, it had its issues.
I just hope going forward we can see the bigger issues such as volcanic looking clouds in certain weather situations when it shouldn’t be fixed and I hope we get back the larger variation of formations we saw before SU7.
I think they look much better since this update flying in VR
I really need to get into VR, seeing a lot of good reports about it! 
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Best way to fly IMO…I only fly in VR these days
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I trust them to get it right. They wanted to include the metars because that’s what there was huge demand for and they did that to support the demand of the community. The implementation obviously needs some work, although tbh the beta seemed to fix the big transitions for me and made it a lot better. I think they are doing the right thing as, in many case, beauty is in the eye of the beholder here. If they disappeared for a few months and then popped up with a “fixed” weather, there would likely be outcry. At least by sharing it as we go, they can gather feedback.
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This. And that’s the whole point of agile development. And also the challenge because the users will always be dissatisfied in the first place. They feel they are beta testers, but the company wants to have early input to gauge if they are on the right track.
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Sure, but why not have this in a beta so feedback can be gained before implementation?
Exactly. This is the first pool. But a beta depends on the time beta testers can and will spend. But I have to say that it seems that many beta testers only opt in for having early access to bug fixes. They don’t really come to test. Proof of this is the many posts about wiped sims when they are kicked out automatically.
Secondly, the speed in which su’s are deployed does not give much room for a decent beta period.
And after launch many more people see the result and will give feedback. With this type of software incremental improvement is the only way. Patience on our side and the ability to enjoy everything that works fine is the best attitude on our side
Yeah I do think when big changes are made to such a core system like the weather, having a beta and a way to return to the ‘stable’ version would be a really great choice as a user.
SU7 presented issues which meant we ended up with a BETA anyway, so I do think that would be the best outcome for everyone. That way those that want to just fly in the current version knowing what to expect can and those that want to try new features or maybe test them can opt into the beta and if there’s anything major that stops it from being used just opt back out again.
Yeah this is a very good point. I’ve always opted into betas to test the weather depiction and for any other of the testing objectives that I can meaningfully test (performance, crashes etc)
I do think as you say though many people see them just as early access and then complain when they’re presented with issues, which ends up causing a ton of extra issues and forum posts.
You mean like the dx12 toggle? That could actually be a great idea I think. Maybe a great question for the Q&A: will you provide more toggles in the future to allow for more extended beta testing?
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Yeah something along those lines, a bit like how other sims have ‘experimental’ toggles for flight model. Maybe something like that, where you can just as easy untick it and reboot back to the stable version.
But here I am saying ‘just as easy’ and I know very well nothing with flight sim is ever easy is it haha. I do think it’s an interesting concept though!
Which it was, and there are continual improvements ongoing on this as the mods have shareds from time to time and is obvious from threads like these. You don’t think they are tweaking things in the background and watching for the reaction?
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