I am fooling around with the weather lately and when you do that, you tend to look closer at everything. And right now I am again a bit annoyed by the fact that I can clearly see where the clouds end. I know there should be more clouds in the distance but I only see the clear blue sky far, far away. The ground does a pretty good job of disappearing into the distance, but the clouds and abruptly and way too obvious. I am using OpusFSX right now and it does a great job of creating diverse 'cloudscapes' but this program is also limited to what FSX can do.

 

I am going to try some various REX-skies to see if there are some textures that make the transition from clouds to no clouds less apparent or even invisible and I wonder if someone already has found the perfect sky texture for this. Or maybe someone has another trick to get things done!

 

I have visibility set to 30 miles (sometimes I choose 20) so I don't use unlimited visibility, and clouds draw distance is maxed out but still I see where the clouds end. Tips anyone? It annoys me to see a 'disc' of clouds around my plane and nothing but blue sky in the distance where there really should be clouds. Yes, it is an FSX-limitation, but shouldn't there be a solution for this by now...? :wink:

Jeroen,

 

You are persistent, I'll give you that!

 

Your post in the Opus forum got me thinking and I dont really see this to be honest. It may be that I am just not looking hard enough.

 

Couple of things:

 

1) Are you sure you dont have the 'cloud of doom' issue as mentioned in the Opus forum? This is easily fixed by replacing the required cirrus textue. I did have this and I have found that everytime you change cloud sets within FEX or REX etc that you will need to reinstall the supplied texture from Opus.

 

2) The sky texture I use is called 'ultimate' from FEX. I also use NickN's FEX sky texture (real sky?). Maybe these textures help?

 

3) I only have my vis slider set at 60 miles, yet I still dont recall seeing this problem.

 

 

From your description I really think you may have the doom cloud situation.

 

If not, sorry! Try changing the sky textures.

LOL Yes, when I got my mind set on something, I can be hard to stop. :wink:

 

Thanks for the heads up on the doom cloud situation, but that's not my problem. :wink: I already corrected that by using the provided bmp. Maybe I should reinstall FEX and give Ultimate or NickN's texture a try... but before I'll do that I will give REX a try first (or wait for some REX-suggestions :wink: ).

Can you post a screenshot showing the problem at the opus forum?

Er... I already did? Or do you mean I should post it here? Here it is:

 

 

As you can see the ground fades away into the distance, but you can clearly see where the clouds end.

Oh sorry,

 

That screenshot didn't show up at the other place for me for some reason.

 

Hmmmm......now I will be looking at this myself. Thanks a bunch Jeroen! :lol:

 

I think your sky texture is much darker blue than mine. This will probably make this issue look worse at your end I would think?

 

I will try and take a shot of similar conditions with my setup.

That sky looks awesome to me...

 

If you lower the visibility to something more realistic, you wouldn't even see it.

There is nothing wrong with that screenshot. Many times, IRL I have flown to the end of a front and seen exactly that - a sharp demarcation in the cloud line. I see that occasionally in FSX but not all the time.

That sky looks awesome to me...

 

If you lower the visibility to something more realistic, you wouldn't even see it.

 

I can't set it much lower but even if I would, I would still see that line...

 

There is nothing wrong with that screenshot. Many times, IRL I have flown to the end of a front and seen exactly that - a sharp demarcation in the cloud line. I see that occasionally in FSX but not all the time.

 

The point is: it's not the end of the front!!! When I fly towards that 'line' it never gets closer because as I move toward it clouds are slowly added to it and I can fly for an hour and that line stays at the same distance. This is all even more obvious when there aren't many clouds: you see the clouds end and then there is nothing but blue but when you fly there, the circle of clouds around you moves along with you.

 

I am honestly a bit surprised people don't see this...! It's highly annyoing! :wink:

Hi J van E I have noticed the same. One thing I tried that helped is if you are flying GA set the vis to about 20 or 30 as you said but also try lowering the cirrus clouds to about 30,000 instead of default 40. as they are lower you see more of them further.

Hi J van E I have noticed the same. One thing I tried that helped is if you are flying GA set the vis to about 20 or 30 as you said but also try lowering the cirrus clouds to about 30,000 instead of default 40. as they are lower you see more of them further.

 

Ah, luckily someone who has seen it. I am not mad after all. :wink: I will try to lower the cirrus: the new beta of OpusFSX seems to have that option so I'll see if that will help.

 

To the others: in certain situations, like when there is cloudy weather all around you, you should be able to see the clouds reach and disappear on the horizon. This just never is the case in FSX. Position yourself in the air where you are underneath a nice deck of clouds and notice where the clouds end. Start slewing backwards (backwards because you will see it more clearly then) and notice how the edge of the clouds moves along with you. FSX does a nice job of making the ground disappear in the distance but when it comes to making clouds disappear it sucks. :wink:

Hm, the option to lower cirrus isn't yet implemented in OpusFSX but soon will be. I tried various sky textures: some work better then others but none eliminate my problem. Guess I will have to live with it for now. Bummer...