LAST EDITED BY AUTHOR ON Jan-28-01 AT 04:23 PM (EDT)

I have found that in each of the sims that I use (FU3, FLY2K, X-Plane, and FS2000), there are specific cloud groups or types (a specific group or type each individual sim does better than all the others) they each do very well. No one sim is superior (overall with all cloud types) to another when it comes to clouds though, because nature herself has a way of offering infinite possibilities and it would probably require a harddrive of equal size to contain all the possible combinations. The one cloud set that MS (FS2000) got right on the dot are those puffy cumulus with high cirrus! These particular clouds are most common in the tropical areas of the world and frankly, more often than not, right here in Reno too!

I've had several requests as to how I set these clouds up, as I mostly use them when making the screenshots I often post here, so this is how I do it. You need to follow this because Microsoft has a glitch in setting clouds (programming glitch) in FS2000 and I'm assuming most have run into it without having realized it!

Bear!

Setting Clouds in FS2000:

1. We'll start with the default Mooney Bravo parked at Nassau in the Bahamas for our starting blank sky..!

2. Next, click on your "Weather" menu from the dropdown menu under "World" on the top bar. Then look for the "Advanced Weather" button circled here.

3. Once you have the "Advanced Weather" screen, click on the little cloud + icon to add a cloud layer!

 

4. Once my new cloud layer box appears, I drag it up to high altitude and set it with Cirrus. The default sky coverage is always 3/8, so I generally change this to a setting between 4/8 and 7/8.

5. After having set my high altitude cirrus, I move the slider (right hand side of the altitude box) to a lower altitude and add another cloud layer box. Note that the default always starts with "Stratus" with "3/8" sky coverage! More about this later!

6. Switch the "Stratus" to "Cumulus" and the sky coverage from "3/8" to maybe "4/8".

7. Once my low altitude layer has been set, I want to modify the "Visibility" ranges.

8. The default on my sim is set at "10,000 feet" for the top of the limited visibility and "20 miles" for the horizonal limit.

9. Now I set the altitude limit on visibility at "18,500" an increase the horizontal range to "40 miles". The easist way to do this is my grabbing the top edge of the layer box in the altitude window and dragging it up to 18,500 feet with your mouse.

 

10. I click on the clouds tab and double check that my low cloud layer is set with "Cumulus" at "4/8" sky coverage, then I click the green check mark in the lower right of the cloud window.

11. Wala..we've got clouds...but wait, what's this? Where's my high altitude "cirrus"? These circled clouds look like stratus to me! Oops...this is that glitch I mentioned early!

12. Go back to your "Advanced Weather" clouds screen and you will note that the high altitude "cirrus" setting we made earlier has, for some reason, defaulted back to "Stratus" with a "3/8" sky coverage..! It will almost always does this for some unknown reason too.

13. So, just switch it back to your "cirrus" setting and reset the coverage to something "4/8" or higher (I've choosen 5/8 sky coverage in the example below)!

14. You should also move the slider down so that you can double check your lower layer, to make sure it too hasn't defaulted back to that "Stratus" setting with "3/8" coverage, but in this case it's still at my original settings! Now click on the green checkmark and....

..bingo! We've got a very nice and realistic appearing tropical cloud set of high cirrus with scattered puffy low altitude cumulus..you can almost feel the warm tropical tradewinds too..!