Horizon Zero Dawn (2017) (I am sure Forbidden West too) did an incredible job with their cloud tech. Here is HZD Cloud Tech in detail and it pretty much sums up where the differences are and why it doesn’t look natural in MSFS. Cloud lighting looks almost inverted in this sim. That’s why they look like pyroclastic clouds and the coloration doesn’t look right, because there is no sky/ambient colour reflectivity, or multiple scattering in some occasions ?
Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018), has incredible cloud tech also. The volume/density is there and there is also incredibly realistic coloration in every cloudscape. It may be the best cloud tech I’ve personally experienced in a game.
Hell, even War Thunder has better cloud lighting in some occasions than MSFS with their new cloud tech that too suffers from similar problems, but generally they are very close in terms of realism and variety.
Such an embarrassment for a flight simulator really, to find out all these games that actually do clouds better. There should be an SIM update dedicated exclusively on weather and clouds variety/lighting realism. They looked better when the sim released.
Well those games doesn’t need to blend between METAR and Meteoblue right? I agree though but it’s hard to make it like that and at the same time match current real weather. Flight sims needs to be forced into a weather state. Those games doesn’t need that. The weather in the sim shouldn’t be forced in my opinion. Thats how weather works IRL. The real weather is dynamic and doesn’t need to be forced in a state. We make static observations of that dynamic real weather.
I tried to get a Dev Q&A question asked concerning cloud colors/graphics but it only got a small number of votes.
I’d love to see Asobo go in a more realistic direction. Most daytime clouds are somewhere in the blue family – anywhere from hue 180 to hue 300 depending on altitude and conditions. It makes sense that they are blue because the sky is blue and clouds are formed out of what is in that sky.
EDIT: I’m not a meterologist nor a cloud physics expert and it appears that water and ice are blue not because of light scattering as I had thought but rather that they ‘absorb’ lower wavelengths like red.
Its true that the color of the sunlight can be yellow, orange or even reddish but, as shown in pics above, large clouds don’t let that light penetrate very far into them.
Asobo’s current cloud lighting system is just too simple. I would love for them to spend some extra time and compute cycles as Seb is always talking about to create a better flying environment that is more visually affected by that actual environment.
I don’t know how (exactly) the clouds are created in MSFS but I really don’t see any reason why the lighting couldn’t be changed. It shouldn’t matter what type of weather you have to portray – the programmer is still in charge of basic things like the color and intensity of light shining on the face of what should be a brightly lit towering cumulus cloud and the colors used for in cloud shadows. Some clouds look really good so I know it must be possible.
Here is a very short video with a few shots of great clouds including some nice anvils:
BTW - when viewing pictures or videos of real life, its important to remember that a camera can and will change the appearance of a scene based on user settings so you always have to spend lots of time looking at things with your own eyes and using your head a bit. Cameras are great at catching ratios and relative hues if set within lighting limits.
Absolutely agree that the clouds are too dense and have too much brownish tint. Clouds should be absolutely neutral grey to white, eventually with a slight blueish tint. But never brownish like smoke from forest fires or volcanoes. Please, adjust the colors!
