3 dimensional clouds, really?

[alfletcher 5]

Hi everyone,I don't know if I’m missing something, but according to Austin himself (as your can hear in this video

- all 4 part), the clouds system in XP10 is described as 3 dimensional. If you listen carefully he tell us that every pixel of cloud in the sim are render in 3d.But I have a big doubt about it, since in the ressources folder, there are some bitmap files containing sample of puff cloud resulting sometime (as you can see in this screen capture) in obvious pattern. So what about the 3d cloud engine. Is it already implemented or a future development?

[JSkorna 137]

It's more marketing hype.

[alpilotx 505]

Still, I have to see a flight sim, that makes real 3D clouds. Where I mean, 3D volumetric(!) clouds ... And because they are very "expensive" - performance vise - nobody really does it (until now ... this might change in the future). Nor do you really need them, if you are good enough at cheating the human eye. FSX (I think even FS9 ... please correct me, I might be wrong on this) is doing these tricks, and X-Plane does it of course too (and both of them can be more or less successful in doing this :( - depending on many factors).But I wouldn't go as far as questioning if they are 3D ... the definition of this could be very vague (again, depending on ones viewpoint etc.). All of them place their stuff (textures), in a 3D space, and XP10 is definitely trying to do it in - again - new ways (different from XP9s more billboard-ish approach for sure). It tries to use much smaller cloud puffs (of course, those are textures), which are placed around in a big point clouds (where the points are kind of a 3D blob ... so here we have some 3D) ... and it tries to work with a lot of LOD tricks (making the puffs larger as they are farther away ... so they need fewer of them, and smaller close by). Sometimes it works quite well (tricking the eye ... as always :( ), and sometimes it does not ... but I think, this fresh approach might become quite good after some iterations of tuning/optimizing/improving.Aaah yes, I have found the fascinating infos about how FS2004 did it (by Niniane Wang ... a rare appearance, as women are not so common in this industry). Here you can see, how MSFS does its own eye tricking (and does quite well - but still not volumetric of course):http://www.ofb.net/~niniane/clouds/

[JSkorna 137]

Good post about things! You have a nice handle on how things operate.

[alfletcher 5]

So for those who have not yet spend 80$ on this promising product, I would suggest to wait a little more. I watched the video many times and I truly believe Austin is fooling us with his big explanation of 3 dimensional clouds.For me the system is very simple and very similar of what XP9 used. A bunch of flying facade sprite, nothing more. So don't be fooled like me, and wait for a real 3d environment system if it ever come.

[alpilotx 505]

As I told, all sims do "fool" around with what you see ... some do it better, others less good (and none are always perfect). But I have to say, that the XP10 way is a big improvement - at least from my point of view - compared to XP9 (there might be similarities, but it definitely works in a different way). At least for me, it works quite nicely many times (of course, not always ... but thats where I think future improvements might/will bring progress).

[lightplane 0]

For me the system is very simple and very similar of what XP9 used. A bunch of flying facade sprite, nothing more. So don't be fooled like me, and wait for a real 3d environment system if it ever come.

That's not true. You should visit the xplane developer blog and read the mateiral there on the clouds. The close up clouds are 3D and oyu can fly through them - to save graphic power, the distant clouds are 2d smaller. Nothing like Xplane 9's engine.

[N1G 88]

Reminds me of a car salesman I used to know.Bob

[alfletcher 5]

Ok but how could you explain the pattern just above (not very far) the aircraft? If as Austin said, the clouds are 3 dimensional that pattern phenomenon should not be possible. That’s what he promised in the video btw.Here is a very simple test. Make a back-up of all 5 cloud sprites (cloud_puff0.png and so on) found in the resources folder/bitmaps/world/clouds. Open them in Photoshop and delete their content. Save them back using the same name.Fire XP10 and set the weather manually with 3 layers of overcast clouds... Guess what you will get...A perfect blue sky. Could you explain that too.Don't get me wrong, what I am questioning here is not the graphic quality of the simulated cloud but the fact that Austin lied to us when he said that the system is 3 dimensional. This is not true obviously.I would be happy to read about what the developer have to say. Could someone point me in the good direction? I found nothing on the X-Plane developer Blog.

[alpilotx 505]

Sorry, but did you read what I have written? About how a "point cloud" describes where the little clod puffs (esenitally those textures) are placed, combined with a healthy dose of shader trickery to achieve the 3D look? And how it is not a very good idea (at least not now, maybe/hopefully some day in the future) to make real volumetric clouds (as they eat 3D hardware for breakfast :( ). ... And hey, if we had real 3D close up, then it would still be very likely, that it uses some textures as an - data - input for generating the clouds via shader tricks (a texture can be used for much more things than meets the eye!)

[Arklight1 140]

They seem pretty 3d to me ingame. Better than FSX at least.

[alfletcher 5]

For me the case is closed. Looking forward with this promising sim.

[Mountain Man 142]

2D sprites in the distance, 3D up close. Makes sense.

[Muskoka 104]

Guys, while on the topic of clouds, I have a question that probably nobody but Austin can answer, but I'll ask anyways. I think I have before, but didn't get an answer. I'm wondering why the clouds, under what looks like in the ops screen shot to be overcast conditions, don't go to the horizon. You get this dome of cloud around the aircraft that does not extend out near far enough to represent realistic overcast conditions. I think the clouds look fantastic (unless your right in them and everything turns white), but in overcast conditions they need to extend out to the horizon.The screen shot clouds look nice to me, but you get the feeling that the "front" is close to passing, as you can see the horizon in the distant. Move 10 miles and you still see the same thing, move another 10 and it's still the same. And, it's not only in the front view, pan around and you get an even amount of cloud in all directions. Something that needs to be addressed I feel at some point and time, it really distracts from overcast weather conditions.Are you guys seeing the same? Maybe Jim can speak to this, he's involved with the HiFi products, and perhaps it's a computer limitation or something, I surely don't know. If it's only being done for performance reasons, that's a shame, because XPX runs just fine if given a decent amount of hardware, and maybe can be addressed with some user controls?Glen

[alfletcher 5]

Regarding the dome effect, I can confirm that this happen on my system too. Clouds never touch the horizon, clearly visible in the first picture posted at the beginning of this thread (whit a 3 layers of clouds overcast set manually). I read a post about it somewhere. It’s probably a bug.