Rain Drops in VC?

[alike 0]

Will PMDG (and others...) be able to animate rain drops in VC with P3Dv2, or is it not possible like in FSX? 

[n4gix 4,947]

It is possible, even in FSX. It has to be created by the developer using a custom system though.

[Rocky_53 1,581]

One of the main reasons why developers are disinclined to animate raindrops is for the very good reason of it's detrimental affect on performance. PMDG is a clear candidate, with all the animations and rendered effects in the VC, adding raindrops would be a high hit on resources which need to be used more efficiently elsewhere.

[gboz 157]

Will PMDG (and others...) be able to animate rain drops in VC with P3Dv2, or is it not possible like in FSX? 

 

It's not a 737 but Orbx's Vans RV4 has animated rain drops on the canopy in P3DV2 and FSX.

 

gb.

[TomEDDW 1]

Don't get me wrong here...I totally love PMDGs products...

 

but wouldn't it be a great addon to realism etc. to leave some of those trillions of perfectly animated locks, hatches, switches and so on behind

and add effects like VC Rain/icing and some stuff like that?

In my opinion flying with a smooth framerate and less VC animations is a better experience/realism than flying in a VC that immerses me with animations

and high resolution textures ans struggling with frames around 25-30 even in a high end PC.

Looking at Majestics Dash 8 i know it is possible to get a descent VC and really ( i mean REALLY) smooth graphics in FSX.

 

Best regards,

Tom

[FLEX1978 373]

Completely agree Tom. Am pretty sure another reason is animation limits, I completely disable the outside model of the 777 since I don't fly from the outside.

 

Would be nice to have an option to enable rain drops instead of glowing brakes/spoiler and flap animations etc etc.   

[Rocky_53 1,581]

I also agree. While like many I suspect, I fly the NGX as realistically as possible, but sure, there are still loads of animations which IMO would be a good candidate to drop in favour of some nicely animated windshield rain. I would have thought it would have been an easy enough option to include in the options CP.

[Jordi Blumberg 34]

Howard,

 

If I remember correctly PMDG reached the animation limit with the NGX and as such had to cut down 'nice-to-have' animations, sticking with operationally required animations.

 

I have no doubt a talented team like PMDG could easily create some fantastic window rain effects (as proven on the JS41 and some GA aircraft by other developers), however there is (in my opinion) little point in putting much effort into this effect until a proper refraction shader/technique is available (not least one that doesn't downgrade you to flying in PowerPoint)- otherwise any rain effect is just changing the opacity of some areas on your windscreen, not causing the blurry distortion that is the true annoyance when flying in precipitation. 

 

However even if the above was achievable, it does not negate the issue of the hardcoded animation limit, so the only option (for FSX at least) is to use a gauge file...remember I said something about flying in PowerPoint?

 

Perhaps with Direct2D utilization, or some very clever cubemap trickery, something that looks nice/performs acceptably would be possible- however if the fundamental issue of precip, being a distorted and blurred view, isn't at all possible within FSX/P3D at the moment, there's really little point in putting much effort into it in my opinion.

 

In the future if LM allow us to execute custom shader code, and support refraction/real time reflections etc then the idea of rain on the windscreen is more of a possibility.

 

TL;DR: This effect currently requires heavy use of animations or performance crushing gauge files. Core 'effect' not even possible due to requirement of advance shader functions not present. In future LM may introduce these and the ability to make custom shaders. Let me know when its time to dig out FX Composer.

[JB3DG 225]

It can be done without animations, without performance impacts, totally procedurally. But it takes some skill.

[Jordi Blumberg 34]

Care to explain Jonathan? I remember reading one of your FSX-related posts on a DirectX development forum, and IIRC you were basically asking how to hack into the game while it was running? This is not an acceptable commercial development practice, or any way to go about implementing a stable feature for FSX/P3D IMO.

[alike 0]

I agree with all above. I hope the limit is removed/increased in P3Dv2, and that we some day get this. It's annoying me every time i fly during rain/snow...  

[cenkcnk 24]

it would be milestone

[n4gix 4,947]

@Jordi: it can now be done without any form of "hacking" into default files. It's still tricky, but it can be done.

[Jordi Blumberg 34]

True refraction? If that's the case, that's very exciting. I'd assume such a thing would be P3D only?

[DylanM 1,069]

Now you've got me excited... :lol: