Rain and snow effects coming soon

[Guest]

Currently working on this:

[Guest]

and this:

[Guest]

Now before everyone gets too excited, I want to list some of the limitations to these effects. This is just a taste of what can be done with the special effects that have been provided with FS2002. The only way I have been able to create these effects, so far, is to integrate them with the smoke system. System Limitations:I am currently running: AMD Athlon - 1ghz 640MB SDRAM Gainward Geforce Ti 200 128MB DDR RAM Regardless of what I locked my frame rates to, I saw a decrease TO about 15 or 16 FPS in the rain, and roughly the same in the snow (TO, not OF). My system is starting to get toward the lower end of the performance line and I know that many people have better specs. This should be smoother for people with stronger systems. Setup Limitations: As I noted above, the only way I have been able to integrate this is through the smoke system. I am NOT a programmer; I

[Donmo 6]

MAN!!!!! LOVE THE SNOW!!!!!!!!! Keep on playing buddy! Alaska NEEDS you! :)Don

[Guest]

HOLY COW DUDE!!!!! Whats all this? Man, you're 9one crazy fella! Thats awesome!!!! I cant wait to see theses in action!!!!!! Its that type of upgrades that make FS such a wonderful program! One Q: When?THANKS EH!

[Guest JeanLuc_]

This looks stunning. To my understanding, the SDK is also shipped with a tool to allow the placement of these effects in the scenery itself. This along with the "time appearance" parameters of the effect system, would allow to place a fixed snow effect above runways known to be contaminated during winter, with the effect automatically triggered during certain period of the year. Food for thought...Hope this helps!

[Guest Stratus_Fractus]

Wow! IMHO the rain effects look slightly better than the snow, but that's just my opinion. Keep up the good work! :-)

[jkeye 152]

HOLY COW!Keep it up mateJK

[Guest bones]

If you switch on the smoke key is the snow "instant" or does it build up gradually?It's a good leap forward - environmental effects have been thin on the ground.Extremely well done..

[Damian Clark 1,203]

Nice!!!-Damian[table border=0" cellspacing="30" cellpadding="0][tr][td align = "left"]Damian ClarkHiFi Simulation SoftwareDeveloper of ActiveSkyThe next-generation weather environment simulation for FS2002!http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky[/td][td]http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxresmallbanner.jpg][/td][/tr][/table://http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/ima...][/tr][/table

[Guest]

Excellent Question Bones!The snow effects DO build up gradually over time, but still unrealistically to fast. The reason I did this is so people wouldn't think it wasn't working. What also happens is the snow does not completely cover everything to the point where you can't even see the runway. It fades in in certain areas, and then fades out over time. It is, however, a fairly dense transparent cover.A problem that I have encountered though is areas with varying terrain. The effect occurs within 3600m in any given direction around the plane, but it occurs at the ground level where the plane is at that time. Therefore, you may get the effect of floating textures. It's not very noticeable on the ground or on takeoff, simply because it is all below you. It is, however, noticeable when descending and you are flying over an area that is not the same altitude as the runway. The effect sees that the ground level directly below the plane is say 500ft, when the runway is actually at 450ft. Thus, you get a floating texture above the runway at 50 ft.My fix for now would be to turn off the effect after takeoff, and then turn on again only when very close to the runway when landing.This will all be explained in the readme when I upload it today.

[Geofa 108]

Wow-that snow looks like where I live right now. I have been waiting for something like this for a long time. Terrific work!http://members.telocity.com/~geof43/Geofdog2.gif

[Guest]

Hi, I too have been playing around with the effects engine over the past couple of weeks with the help of the effects SDK, but I have already discovered a number of limitations that prevent it from being utilized to its full extent. The main limitation is that you can only place effects at specific coordinates and can't have them randomly appear around the world. I had already made a decent looking tornado, but I could only get in to sit in one spot. You apparently came up with a clever solution by tying the effects to the smoke system, but apparently that has limitations as well. I have also noticed that some of the entries in the effects files don't work properly, like the offset and velocity settings of the emitter.For your floating texture problem, have you considered using a line controller instead of a standard controller. I haven't done any tests with a line controller myself but the documentation says that this was used to create the waves, which sounds like it might be similar to what you are trying to do. In any case, good luck!-Derek

[Guest]

Bump!

[Guest]

When do you think it will be available for DL?