Overcast

[Guest venquessa]

I know this is an FS2004 bug, and it's been talked about in here over and over, but...Are there any solutions or part solutions that are worth trying?I have tried stacking 4 layers of overcast 500 feet apart and still I can see through. Occasionally when flying above a few overcast layers from real weather, in a localised region around the aircraft I can't see the ground, but any distance away in different directions there are open holes in the cloud. Most of the time the instant you fly above the layer, the sky turns blue instantly and the clouds become a 2D layer of white fog, without any cloud shapes or forms.I know there have been attempts to make a pure white texture for overcast clouds and the like, but have been in compatible with real weather.Anything more I can try?I have tried just setting the visability to almost nothing with the top being the top of the cloud layer I wish to simulate, but I can't seem to set the bottom to higher than the ground. Even if it did work.FS2002 does overcast skyes doesn't it? Anyone any piccies? or links to FS2002 screen shots that show it?

[JSkorna 137]

Active Sky 2004 with Overcast Enhancement option turned on.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

[Guest aca_dia]

If you just want overcast to practice approaches there is a fix in the file library by John Cillis. It replaces the cirrus overcast files with ones that are not see through... you can then create a 1' thick layer at the base (and top) or a cloud layer and make it solid. It

[Guest JeanLuc_]

Hi Paul,in my opinion, this is not a bug: this is a feature!Let me explain, or better, let Microsoft explains:http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimul...CloudPercentageHere is why:For example, if your computer is equipped with high-end graphics hardware, and you set an 8/8 cloud layer in the User-defined Weather dialog box, you will see a solid overcast layer in the simulator. On a less-powerful computer, Flight Simulator might draw a 6/8 cloud layer, even if you set the cloud layer to 8/8. To override these adjustments for slower computers, you can use the Cloud coverage density slider to force an 8/8 layer to look solid by moving the slider to 100 percent. However, high settings may result in decreased simulator performance.Hope this helps!

[JimmiG 244]

But if you move the slider to 100% the clouds are still see-through...

[Guest aca_dia]

I have a P4 3.2 800FSB HT with 2GB Ram & A Geforce 6800 256mb video card...No matter what settings I use I can never under any circumstances create a non transparent overcast with the default cloud textures.

[oktorn777 0]

FS2002 did render an overcast layer with a 2-dimensional texture layer at a certain altitude. The overcast layer had no vertical dimension. In fs2004 overcast is a accumulation of many many clouds forming an overcast layer. It looks much more realistic but needs a huge amount of processing power, because every single cloud is made of a multitude of sprits and there are thousand single clouds to form an overcast layer.In realworld its both methods of rendering dont come close to the real thing although the weather engine in fs2004 is a huge improvement over fs2002. In real word overcast mostly consists of "one" huge cloud (accumulation of tiny water drops in the air). But remember the atmoshere is highly dynamic and infinite complex, so overcast can brake up at certain points and form different single clouds or dissipate...Bottom line is, it's not easy to simulate weather because its infinite complexity and chaotic behavior. The only thing we can try is to model things we know, but again it will never come close to real world weather behavior. Don't expect that highly simplified information like this "191250 LSGG 191250Z 34002KT 5000 RA BR FEW005 BKN010 OVC040 10/09 1010 TEMPO 9000=" can capture the true character of weather.regards,Claudio

[Guest Edam]

And it's free.

[Guest JeanLuc_]

Well, assuming you have 3D clouds percentage set to 100%, the factor documented above is: Cloud Coverage Density.The issue does not lie in a bug in the Weather code in FS, it seems to lie in two areas:1) the stratus cloud type, at 8/8, is designed in 3D not to be totally 8/8 but something like 7.6/8 (hence a couple semi holes there and there)2) the sprite system used to render a cloud is rotating the sprites for them to be always facing the eye point, but, it only does so in rotating the sprites along the vertical axis, not any axis. In this case, when looking the cloud layer from above, the sprites are seen from their thin edge, not their large face, hence, they are not covering the holes in the display.When not looking too much down, stratus 8/8 layer of 4000ft high, gave me very convincing results.Hope this helps!