Strange weather depiction at departure

[Guest SanH]

Hi,After a long period without FS use, i reinstalled it a few days ago and installed Active Sky. I have installed the latest patch as well.Last night i was flying out of Indianapolis. The conditions should have been overcast at around 20000 feet. The Active Sky meta had the correct data and the Active Sky bar at the top of the screen which says what the current weather conditions are at the local station was correct. However, when i looked out of my window, i could see a thick batch of overcast clouds over the city. This batch of clouds were about a couple of miles long. All around it (and above the plane) it was blue skies. Why dont i get all over overcast? I remember reading a post about how the weather is only shown for 2 miles around a station and the rest is interpolated and i am guessing the surrounded stations were reporting scattered clouds or similiar. This is i think what i am seeing. However the screenshot below shows a very unrealistic picture. Are my settings wrong? or can we have a function which sets 20 miles or so around the departure airport the local weather like we have for the destination. Its just that when the weather is meant to be overcast skies, i kind of expect to be taking off and climbing through these clouds. If i use the default FS weather it seems to do this. Any ideas?//AS2004.5 configuration file B147[General]WindowPosX = 4890WindowPosY = 4065DefaultWeatherFolder = D:fs2004ModulesActiveSky2004SuppressionCeiling = 8000SurfaceWindLimit = 10CloudLayerLimit = 5LocalSuppressionRange = 100MinimumVisibility = 0MaximumVisibility = 55IncreasedWake = FalseDisableWindsAloft = FalseForceTstormsWithCB = FalseAutoConvertPlanFiles = TrueDisableVisGraduation = FalseForceDestinationWeatherZone = TruePreventIcing = Trueonfiltered= TrueExtendedDestinationWindsForce = FalseGlobalWrites = FalseDepictFS9HazeLayer = TrueExtendTstormLayers = FalseDisableDirectWindControl = FalseVoicePlayback = TrueLocalSuppression = TrueStartupSound = FalseDisableGroundUpdates = TrueUseProxyServer = FalseFogLayerGeneration = TrueUpdateSuppression = TrueOvercastEnhancement = TrueIgnoreFSReadyStatus = FalseFSUIPCWindSmoothing = TrueLimitSurfaceWinds = FalseLimitCloudLayers = TrueAutoGlobalWriteToggle = TrueRainWithTS = TrueDisableUpperLayerGeneration = FalseVisibilitySmoothing = TrueDisableMessages = FalseAutoTimeZoneDetection = TrueUpdateInterval = 15VATSIMData = FalseZuluConversion = 0AloftPredictability = 100WindDriftRate = 0TAFProcessing = FalseEnforceVisibilityLimits = TrueWakeTurb = TrueStartPaused = FalseUseSystemTime = TrueDisableCAVOKClouds = FalseProxyAddress = NONE

[Damian Clark 1,261]

Hi San,The clouds you see are cirrus, which AS has determined proper for that altitude. Cirrus layers are generally used when temperatures are well below freezing (they are composed of ice crystals) and this is how FS9 renders them, usually not interpolated much beyond their local region. Much of this is random but weighted by air stability. FS9 real wx will use stratus and cumulus layers up at that altitude/temp zone with I believe a hard AGL height of about 25K without considering conditions. That would explain why you get different representation between AS and FS9-generated wx.As to what is more realistic, that could be very subjective, but we are working on enhanced control of this wx engine logic.. so eventually you would be able to tell AS that you want stratus and cumulus clouds (determined by air stability or purely random) all the way up to XXXXX ft or XXXdegreesC, and render cirrus layers only above XXXXX ft or XXXdegreesC. Plenty more configurable options in this department, including a departure wx zone force are planned! :) Best,

[Guest SanH]

HiThanks for the super quick response. Aside from this issue, Active Sky seems to run perfectly. Great job.