Overcast Near The Horizon

[Guest CYOW_pilot]

Jase439,Tried that but it didn't help (actually made no difference whatsoever). A I am beginning to think this is just a "feature" that we will have to learn to live with in FS2K when the weather is broken to overcast and the vis is more than a few miles.The other solutions involve playing around with the weather but for those of us who use FSMETEO (or other live weather programs) that is not an option.Too bad. It really detracts from the visual representation in my opinion.Kevin in CYOW.

[Guest]

Thanks for that. But can you have clouds overlapping each other? For instance can I have a layer of cumulus at say 3000 to 7000 with overcast set, and then have a layer of cirrus from ground to 3500 or whatever? And I still have to say tou should not need to do this. If the setting is overcast than its overcast. And that is that. I have tried all the various suggestions, viz to 60 max, weather set to 10 miles viz, etc and still I get this blue sky. I will try the cirrus, but I have to say, for me it makes flying in overcast skys look completely unrealistic.Keith

[Guest]

This sounds like the answer, finally. Thanks. Here's an idea...I'll try this out, and if it works for me, I'll write to Pete Dowson and ask if he can incorporate something similar into a future version of FSUIPC.Matt

[Guest jase439]

I agree...the above pictures seem more appropriate for flying in forest fire conditions like those earlier this summer. The effect shown above is a bit more pleasing if you extend your surface visibility out to about 20 miles or so - it doesn't look quite so "smokey".And no, you can't overlap clouds.The heart of the issue here is that while logically, the FS world is a sphere...on your screen, it's flat as a board. There is no curvature of the earth. Earth and sky are parallel to one another. It's alot less expensive computationally to texture a plane than a hemisphere - which is probably why it was done this way. So I think what you're seeing here is the point at which the "sky plane" meets the far clipping plane (the limits of the imaginary box that is your virtual world - everything outside this box is never rendered).Certainly there are other ways they could have achieved the desired effect - other sims have (I can think of a couple inexpensive techniques I would probably have used). But when you're dealing with a relatively high deck of overcast with nothing undeneath (especially in 10+ SM visibility conditions) you're inevitably stuck with blue sky unless you employ one of these "tricks".J

[Guest jase439]

Do you by chance have an ATI video card?

[John F 2,401]

But I'm finding (thanks to some of the above posts) that if you select cirrus 7/8 coverage from ground level up, and then put in a cirrus overcast layer directly above this first layer, you get a well-defined cloud ceiling skimming by above the plane, plus no more blue out towards the horizon.For me, this is very convincing. Seems more like an overcast day rather than the forest fire effect you would get with just the first (ground up) cirrus layer alone.

[Guest jase439]

I did the same thing with a stratus overcast layer and cirrus 1/8 coverage from the ground up...it does work, it's not optimal, but it's better than solid blue. And as I mentioned in my previous post - the effect is "less smokey" if you elect for a lighter cirrus layer and allow your visibility be extended to around 20-30 miles.Unfortunately, FS Meteo won't give this to you, nor will ActiveSky as far as I'm aware. Additionally, if you have FSSW installed, your cloud thickness is limited to 7000' (as per Chris Willis' instructions)...so if you have a high cloud deck and want to fill in the cloud area below it, you have to create multiple cirrus layers between the ground and the cloud deck in inrements of 7000 (or whatever you've set as your maximum cloud thickness in FSUIPC).For those who enjoy hand programming their weather environments, I suppose this is an acceptable workaround - but I would venture that most use a Real Weather environment.Cheers,J

[Guest CYOW_pilot]

Jase439,Uh, Yep. Radeon 7500. Oh, oh. Is this a known issue with the card?Kevin in CYOW

[Guest jase439]

I'm not sure if the 7500 is affected by this or not, but Microsoft has a KB article about ATI incompatibilities and FS2K2. I don't recall the specifics or the exact symptoms described in this article, but it has to do with areas of fog/haze effects on the horizon showing up as solid blue on ATI cards. I think some ATI users on here have called it "the blue curtain effect" :)I'm just wondering if this is what you're fighting.JPS. I don't think the new 9700 has this problem.

[Chris Willis 8]

Hi, " you have FSSW installed, your cloud thickness is limited to 7000'"Fsw clouds are not limited in clouds height,you can set them at any height altitude, only advice to reduce the anomalies in fs2002 stretched clouds when they are more then 15 000 feet in height.ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFshttp://fsw.simflight.com/fsw.jpg

[Guest jase439]

Sorry, Chris,, I should have been more clear:If you have FSSW installed, the *recommended* cloud thickness height - as it appears in FSUIPC's cloud dialog - is 7,000 feet. This is not a limitation imposed by FSSW - only a *recommended practice*. You can increase this value from within FSUIPC (you can make it 20,000' if you'd like), but your FSSW cloud textures will tend to look somewhat goofy - and your performance will probably tank.J

[Chris Willis 8]

Hi, Ah ok,thanks, yes this is why reduce the cloud height in FSUIPC to stop the "goofy" clouds in Msfs engine.ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFshttp://fsw.simflight.com/fsw.jpg