Skip to content
View in the app

A better way to browse. Learn more.

The AVSIM Community

A full-screen app on your home screen with push notifications, badges and more.

To install this app on iOS and iPadOS
  1. Tap the Share icon in Safari
  2. Scroll the menu and tap Add to Home Screen.
  3. Tap Add in the top-right corner.
To install this app on Android
  1. Tap the 3-dot menu (⋮) in the top-right corner of the browser.
  2. Tap Add to Home screen or Install app.
  3. Confirm by tapping Install.

X-Plane 10: Experimenting with art controls (Raleigh scattering)

Featured Replies

Hi,

Thanks to AUA425 in this thread, we are now able to recover the lost cloud shadows. I tried many interesting art controls for clouds to get rid of the ugly dark-grey clouds. When exploring deeper the art controls with dataref editor, my attention was drawn to a few of them containing the word "raleigh". I started to tinker with these, and here's what I got. Especially, look at the distant landscape colors:


ATR72_94.jpg

ATR72_102.jpg

ATR72_121.jpg

ATR72_129.jpg

ATR72_197.jpg

ATR72_244.jpg

Notice the blueish hills in the far. I have yet to find the ideal setting, but this is already way more realistic than X-Plane's default. Combined with cloud shadows, we now have some beautiful atmospheric effects, already present in X-Plane's engine, just not used at their full potential. Some would say ironically, with some reason, that X-Plane's beauty is an inside beauty. :)

But that's not the end of the story. Like everyone here tinkering with clouds shadows, I had to regret the volatility of the process. I then remembered that datarefs can be set when you open a plane if you follow this marvelous advice by Dan Klaue. Just had to figure out which prefix the art control need.

Now, I have a plane which is loaded with some experimental settings. I just put the SASL plugin inside, create an "avionics.lua" file containing some lines like:
 

defineProperty("CloudShadowLightenRatio", globalPropertyf("sim/private/controls/clouds/cloud_shadow_lighten_ratio")) set(CloudShadowLightenRatio, 1.0

When I open the plane, all the values are applied to the art controls, and stay so for the current X-Plane session. This is a bit weird, but it works.

Pascal

PS: Important notice: Raleigh and Mie scattering atmospheric effects only work with HDR.

  • Replies 343
  • Views 143.2k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Great findings Pascal!

Flying gliders since 1980

Flightsimming since 1992

AMD Ryzen 5600x, 32GB RAM, GPU Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB, 1 TB and 500 GB nvme2 SSD drives, HP 27" 60Hz LED monitor @ 1920x1080, T16000, Hotas from old X52 Pro, Saitek Combat Rudder Pro (2010 model)

dude these are great shots. wow those cloud shadows look amazing. 

Hi,

 

Thanks to AUA425 in this thread, we are now able to recover the lost cloud shadows. I tried many interesting art controls for clouds to get rid of the ugly dark-grey clouds. When exploring deeper the art controls with dataref editor, my attention was drawn to a few of them containing the word "raleigh". I started to tinker with these, and here's what I got. Especially, look at the distant landscape colors:

 

Great! Can you share the DataRefs values you used in your shots?

"Society has become so fake that the truth actually bothers people".

Whoa, thats a great find and those screenshots look unbelievable. I'd be ready to ditch my skymaxx in a heartbeat for that atmospheric scattering (i believe that is the correct term for the blue hue in the horizon?) and cloud shadows!

From Ben's blog...

 

The art controls are mapped into the domain sim/private/controls/…. by X-Plane. 

 

Like all sim-private datarefs (sim/private) these datarefs are undocumented and unsupported and may not be there in future builds.

 

Your plugin, panel, or object should not depend on any sim/private datarefs!  They should only be used for diagnostics/debugging.

 

 

Also see this.

Pascal;

 

Those shots look dazzling, I definitely got to give this a try.

No; could these effect be included in 10.30 update.

Alan Twiggys

AOPA Member

"All Things Aviation"

Looks Great!

  • Commercial Member

That looks incredibly realistic.  Keep investigating to see what you can find.  

 

I hope this sort of visual beauty helps more third parties check out the xpx platform.

spacer.png

REX AccuSeason Developer

REX Simulations

WOW, fantastic! Ben & co should implement your settings as default in XP10.

  • Author

From Ben's blog...

 

Also see this.

Well, now, this is documented !

 

Frankly, this, and cloud shadows totally changes the atmosphere of the sim. Like a new sim. This is too late to ask me not to use it, sorry if this is a big problem for you, JGregory.

 

Pascal

Great! Can you share the DataRefs values you used in your shots?

I didn't write down these in particular, and I'm still experimenting. Will share.

I've noticed some potential problem with the horizon and the planet rendering. I'll look if this is caused by my tweaks, or some other mod I installed.

Look for "atmo" in the dataref editor to find the art controls.

 

Pascal

Whoa, thats a great find and those screenshots look unbelievable. I'd be ready to ditch my skymaxx in a heartbeat for that atmospheric scattering (i believe that is the correct term for the blue hue in the horizon?) and cloud shadows!

 

Thanks, yes, that's atmospheric scattering.

 

Pascal

On my end I hope to have cloud shadows implemented with SM......

 

 

This other option seems to make high altitude more realistic......I have to ask what kind of hit on frame rates do you have? 

Congratulations, Pascal! After much indecisiveness, I have finally resolved to buy X-Plane because I can see what stunningly realistic visuals are achievable with your tweaks. What ground textures are you using, by the way?

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Account

Navigation

Search

Search

Configure browser push notifications

Chrome (Android)
  1. Tap the lock icon next to the address bar.
  2. Tap Permissions → Notifications.
  3. Adjust your preference.
Chrome (Desktop)
  1. Click the padlock icon in the address bar.
  2. Select Site settings.
  3. Find Notifications and adjust your preference.