Fix Cloud Density and any Resulting Effects (wing fade)

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Are you using Developer Mode or made changes in it?

No

Have you disabled/removed all your mods and addons?

Yes

Brief description of the issue:

LIVE weather seems to only use the “zero” density value to draw pretty much all the clouds formations in the sim, making skies to look ultra low quality, blurry, lacking detail and ugly in comparison with the presets

When in LIVE weather, specially since SU7 arrived, and thus metar implementation in the live weather system, clouds depiction has got terribly bad, avoiding many of us to really enjoy the sim. 99% of the time, all I get is puffy semi-transparent clouds that seem to look the same everywhere and are so low density that seem to be in 2d. This affects the depiction of the clouds formations in a way, that they won’t resemble to real world formation anymore. Instead, the skyscapes just look like a messy, tangled, blurry pile of white stains over a blue background.

When testing with the weather presets, to see if it was related to the clouds rendering itself, it seems like the sim is capable of amazingly beautiful, realistic and detailed clouds depiction, so this leads me to think that the problem is the way the LIVE weather draws these clouds, and not the clouds rendering itself.

Testing a bit more, is very easy to recreate how the LIVE weather clouds look, just by using a similar cloud layer and turn the density parameter of it ALL THE WAY DOWN!. Then, clouds look pretty much identical (and uterly bad of course) to the LIVE weather clouds.

So, I guess it’s not crazy to believe that maybe that’s the reason why LIVE weather clouds formations look so terribly bad now.

Comparison screens to demonstrate all this:

Random LIVE weather:

Captura de pantalla (2466)
Captura de pantalla (2466)1920Ă—810 108 KB

Similar preset setup weather with “0” density for the layer:
Captura de pantalla (2467)
Captura de pantalla (2467)1920Ă—810 115 KB

Now, custom presets again, but with half max density:
Captura de pantalla (2468)
Captura de pantalla (2468)1920Ă—810 120 KB

Now full density:
Captura de pantalla (2469)
Captura de pantalla (2469)1920Ă—810 124 KB

Much better as the density rises right?.

To me, it is clear that the LIVE weather seems to only use the “zero” density value to draw pretty much all the clouds formations in the sim (density and layer thickness linked?), and thus, only extremely thick cloud layers seem to look clear, cast shadows, etc. Maybe that’s why we never ever see thin but DENSE clouds layers too, which are quite common in real life.

According to the little presets test I did, I think the system should almost never go below “half” way the density slider when rendering clouds. Otherwise, clouds rendering goes to hell.

Provide Screenshot(s)/video(s) of the issue encountered:

Above

Provide coordinates (DevMode > Options > Display position)

Anywhere

Provide time & date of the observed Weather issue

Any time and date

Detailed steps to reproduce the issue encountered:

N/A

PC specs and/or peripheral set up if relevant:

N/A

Build Version # when you first started experiencing this issue:

SU7 specially, although it has always been an issue.

:loudspeaker: For anyone who wants to contribute on this issue, Click on the button below to use this template:

Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?

Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:

If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:

2

To add more immersion and realism.
I present to you: Wing fading effect when flying through clouds.

Ugh I wish!

See below For example:

3

I believe you’re referencing this video:

However, your post is very un-clear!

Do you mean that, through clouds, the wing should be less visible when the cloud is more dense, as in the case around the 0:55 - 1:00 mark?

Please make your post clearer so the developers can better understand your request!

=)

10 Likes
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Yes this video. The post didn’t allow me to add links for some reason.

Exactly what you said. Lol, I dont know how more clear can it be.
Wings fades as you pass through clouds.
The video gives it all.

13 Likes
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I brought this wing obscuration topic up 15+ years ago, before YouTube & before FS9 was available, and I was laughed at by 90+% of the community. Only a few people agreed, but that was the limit of their contribution. All kinds of things were said like, either I was wrong about clouds obscuring wings, or the effect would have too high an impact on frame rate. Needless to say I was baffled then.

This kind of thing, many years later, was added by Hi Fi Technologies in Active Sky. DEFAULT P3D eventually implemented better clouds to give the effect as well.

MSFS takes us backwards so that we remain STAGNANT. A developer now has to re-develop this old tech all over again, rather than move on to something like realistic cirrus/stratus, or realistic contrails, or PCL or SOMETHING realistic that we never seem to ever get.

From my observations, since this kind of feature has no real value for taking screenshots, It is very unlikely that it will be even considered for MSFS; too many things to FIX anyhow.

A $5 game on a wristwatch has more potential to have this effect done realistically.

9 Likes
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I am sure that if we get lots of VOTES.
They might consider it. I think with the technology of today it will be a piece of cake for them to implement it. Otherwise it will be pity.

12 Likes
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If clouds are truly volumetric and dense enough, shouldn’t we get an obscured wing?

14 Likes
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I guess not

1 Like
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At first I thought that this was about the wake vortex at the wingtip (1.Video 1:44). Btw, we need visible wake vortex as well. https://www.google.de/search?q=aircraft+wake+vortex&tbm=isch :thinking:

2 Likes
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I am pretty sure it will come with 3rd party airplanes (pmdg and such)

11

OMG. Wing looks so real :grinning: PBR? I suppose no. It must be something much, much better…

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What are you referring to?
The video above is a real flight lol

3 Likes
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He is talking about the effect that when flying through clouds, the visibility is so short that you can even see the wing fading into the clouds.

Which currently is not the case on FS. Clouds do not or only barely obscure the view over short distances. Try switching to external cam and move the cam away from the plane (showcase cam). Even inside heavy clouds you will be able to see the plane with almost no fade until it gets very small anyway.

2 Likes
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This topic should receive so many more votes ! It’s so important to acheive realism through clouds. They added turbulence which is a great plus already but this is a must need.

That video of cloud surfing is just insane ! If you tried to do that in MSFS your plane would be covered in white icing :smile:

7 Likes
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Spread the word let’s make this happen !

6 Likes
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MSFS takes us backwards in terms of cloud rendition? Are you serious?

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Why would you lie by saying that you can see the MSFS aircraft wings disappear?

Can you read the topic title?

Do you know what the word context means?

2 Likes
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I know perfectly what you meant, but I think you are making a mountain out of a grain of sand with this subject. It would be great to have this effect? Of course! But we finally get clouds that actually look like clouds when you are close to them, and you come up angry with this? Really?

4 Likes
19

And

And I know what you meant by trying to treat me like you are my master. So I treated you in like manner.

All you have to do is STICK TO THE TOPIC. Don’t make me your subordinate as the topic.

Do you know what I mean?

The topic was not the clouds, The topic is wing obscuration in clouds.

Do you know what that means?

3 Likes
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It’s fine man, I just thought that there is no need to get angry, and your post sounded really angry, that’s all.

Of course I don’t try to be the master of anyone here, we all share the same hobby and the same passion.

And I repeat, it would be great to have this effect in MSFS and we will most probably end up getting it. Have some trust in Asobo, they already gave us many hints about them being totally commited to make this the best flightsim experience ever. Cheers!

7 Likes