I recently ditched my high resolution clouds in favor of 512 x 512 32-bit FEX clouds (Hybrid White 12, I think). When coupled with a good weather engine like Opus FSX or Active Sky Next, I am amazed at how much more I like them as compared to the higher resolution clouds! I too like the softer look to the clouds, especially up close. Some of the high resolution clouds looked too much like an oil painting to me.

 

Gerald

Something else to consider is the way different sky textures alter the "lighting" effect on the clouds.. as your screenshot demonstrates, there's a lot of contrast between the clouds where some of them are very dark gray and others are almost white. With the default sky textures the variation is much more subtle, which also eliminates the "textured squares" that people see when flying over heavy overcast. You would think this would be part of the cloud texture itself but the lighting is actually computed based on the colors in the sky textures.

 

For me the overall best is still the freeware HDEv2 clouds and skies.. I have REX 4 and after trying everything I went right back to HDEv2. I only use REX for the other textures it offers (airport, markings, etc)

Yep... I started checking hde v2 yesterday and god - what an upgrade from Rex 4 in the matter of realism and less problems with cloud flashing which you described.

 

Do you also use hdev2 sky colours or took them from REX?

Agreed that anything above the standard rez is not an improvement. Edges too sharp and details too well-defined. I am using original REX clouds at 1024 with ASN and I'm happy. I am trying to remember why everyone was so excited about 4096 clouds to begin with. I have no incentive to move to REX4.

 

 

For me the overall best is still the freeware HDEv2 clouds and skies.. I have REX 4 and after trying everything I went right back to HDEv2. I only use REX for the other textures it offers (airport, markings, etc)

 

Same here. I still have the original REX but only use it basically for the runway, taxiway and water textures. No need for me to go out and spend more money on REX4 just for those few things, especially when I rarely fly to default airports which makes the improved runways and taxiways a mute point.

 

 

 

recently ditched my high resolution clouds in favor of 512 x 512 32-bit FEX clouds (Hybrid White 12, I think).

 

I used to run those for a long time as well. One day years ago I tried downloading one of the community sets from the FEX UI called ChewTest and have been using it ever since. Although I did modify it slightly using the built in cloud builder tool. I run that set at 512 to take the sharpness off a little, plus it hardly effects VAS at all in bad weather scenarios.

 

 

Some of the high resolution clouds looked too much like an oil painting to me.

 

That's a good way to describe it, more like an oil painting that was done with a palette knife. Sticks out like a sore thumb against the sky colors and doesn't look natural in the sim.

 

 

 

 

Agreed that anything above the standard rez is not an improvement. Edges too sharp and details too well-defined. I am using original REX clouds at 1024 with ASN and I'm happy. I am trying to remember why everyone was so excited about 4096 clouds to begin with. I have no incentive to move to REX4.

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I have no idea either how the HD clouds got so popular. For me they mainly just wreck VAS and performance in general as well as looking way to sharp and defined. Sometimes things that are HD just dont transfer well to the sim. HD ground and building textures on the other had I like better than the clouds.

I recently got back into flying FSX again. I was looking into Active Sky 2012 recently and in the screenshots posted in the reviews I saw the FSX default sky, clouds, and textures were much better and more realistic in my opinion.  I even wondered if the reviewer had posted the images backwards, but this was not the case. I will stick with the defaults.

I recently got back into flying FSX again. I was looking into Active Sky 2012 recently and in the screenshots posted in the reviews I saw the FSX default sky, clouds, and textures were much better and more realistic in my opinion.  I even wondered if the reviewer had posted the images backwards, but this was not the case. I will stick with the defaults.

With AS 2012 there are thousands of different possible combinations all with the option of different texture resolutions. They will also look differently in-game than in some screenshots.

I agree about freeware textures such as HDEv2. Really my favorite cloud texture set.

 

I only use REX for my water animations and water colors. That's literally it.

Totally agree with REX 1024. They do the job right and don't kill your frames. The razor sharp 2048's and 4096's (useless, imo) are only out of place attention whores.

 

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u198/Lurk1968/2014-7-7_3-44-33-849_zpsb01ca1d9.jpg~original

I also like the default cloud textures