This is actually very promising! Looks very good on a preview video. I hope that it will not eat to many frames, knowing how hard the smoke can be on the frames. Good job mate, you are on to something!

 

Downside of this effect is that casual simmer will not be interested simply because immersion is not affected much by absence of this effect. Only FSX video makers will love this.

This is actually very promising! Looks very good on a preview video. I hope that it will not eat to many frames, knowing how hard the smoke can be on the frames. Good job mate, you are on to something!

 

Downside of this effect is that casual simmer will not be interested simply because immersion is not affected much by absence of this effect. Only FSX video makers will love this.

Thanks mate; and yeah it unburdens the editing process for the video makers out there, I don't think it eats too much frame because the lifetime of the particles are maximum 1 second so they don't hang around much they fade away although I haven't done a thorough FPS performance comparison. The effect is also visible form the cockpit so no immersion loss there if that's what you mean, but either case i think FSX need a dynamic cloud effects for immersion, what do you think?

bravo, this is absolutely brilliant! :Applause:

Thank you

I wish I could understand how it all worked, thanks for your help though.

 

Well, here is a gauge that checks if you are in cloud and if so it will turn on the smoke system. When you are out of cloud it will turn it off. Haven't tested it so it may not work. Also don't know how well the AMBIENT IN CLOUD variable reports actually being in cloud.

 

Copy the text and put it into a new xml file (say "cloudsinsmoke.xml") and save it to the gauges folder and then add the appropriate lines to your panel.cfg to your partcular aircraft to have it run.

<Gauge Name="Cloud via smokesystem" Version="1.0">

  <Element>
    <Select>
       <Value>

	(A:AMBIENT IN CLOUD,bool)
	if{
		<!-- We are in cloud, next step check if smoke is OFF and turn it on if it is off  -->
		(A:SMOKE ENABLE,bool) !
		if{ (>K:SMOKE_TOGGLE) }
	}
	els{
		<!-- We are NOT in cloud, next step check if smoke is ON and turn it off if it is on  -->
		(A:SMOKE ENABLE,bool)
		if{ (>K:SMOKE_TOGGLE)  }	
	}

	</Value>
    </Select>
  </Element>

</Gauge>

Awesome job! Just a suggestion, but is it possible to make it so that this system is enabled 60-80% of the time when going through a cloud rather than all the time? Sometimes even in real life if the cloud isn't too thick it doesn't always engulf with wings, and if it happens all the time it may actually lower the immersion. Just food for thought. Thanks for your work!

This looks fantastic and very promising, I'm not too tech savvy so I know I couldn't do this!

 

Hopefully we will all be able to use it soon enough!

I tried Ant's gauge. It seems to wait until flying into cloud before turning the effect on, but then it stays on after flying out of a cloud as long as there are more clouds in the area. If I clear the weather the smoke stops automatically. I guess that's why something like ASN is needed that knows the exact cloud boundaries. Very nice idea though.

After Barry's testing I guess one would have to try the simconnect method of determining cloud density rather than the (A:AMBIENT IN CLOUD,bool) variable.

 

That ups the complexity level by about 53 times though.

 

Well, here is a gauge that checks if you are in cloud and if so it will turn on the smoke system. When you are out of cloud it will turn it off. Haven't tested it so it may not work. Also don't know how well the AMBIENT IN CLOUD variable reports actually being in cloud.

 

Copy the text and put it into a new xml file (say "cloudsinsmoke.xml") and save it to the gauges folder and then add the appropriate lines to your panel.cfg to your partcular aircraft to have it run.

<Gauge Name="Cloud via smokesystem" Version="1.0">

  <Element>
    <Select>
       <Value>

	(A:AMBIENT IN CLOUD,bool)
	if{
		<!-- We are in cloud, next step check if smoke is OFF and turn it on if it is off  -->
		(A:SMOKE ENABLE,bool) !
		if{ (>K:SMOKE_TOGGLE) }
	}
	els{
		<!-- We are NOT in cloud, next step check if smoke is ON and turn it off if it is on  -->
		(A:SMOKE ENABLE,bool)
		if{ (>K:SMOKE_TOGGLE)  }	
	}

	</Value>
    </Select>
  </Element>

</Gauge>

Thank you for this, I have created one as you've instructed but how do you cite the xml in panels cfg, I am not familiar with this 

Awesome job! Just a suggestion, but is it possible to make it so that this system is enabled 60-80% of the time when going through a cloud rather than all the time? Sometimes even in real life if the cloud isn't too thick it doesn't always engulf with wings, and if it happens all the time it may actually lower the immersion. Just food for thought. Thanks for your work!

Hi thanks for your suggestion: I think it is possible to do that in multiple ways, first would be to establish a detailed connection between the aircraft and the clouds but that would also depend on how often the plane actually goes thorough cloud particles in FSX which isn't that many times. in order to get that series of getting in and out of clouds engulfing the plane is the effect i believe you have in mind which was exactly what I had started with and i think we can also get that by directly editing the Effect files so that it is emitted intermittently and between certain speeds and that is easy enough to do. I will post my current effects later for those who want to engage it manually until an FSX genius solves our problems

Well, I'm also an ASN user. And I'm very happy with ASN. It's truly a game changer for me and my flight simulation experience. Weather has never been so realistic.

 

It is true, that when flying through clouds visibility will fade in and out, which is a nice feature, that takes advantage of the fact, that ASN nows exactly when, and when not, your aircraft is inside a cloud.

 

But the effect that you guys have created here as seen in the video clips would be very nice on top of what ASN does. What I see in the videos really recreates a sence and feel of diving in and out of clouds. I'm impressed, and in my humble point of view it is not what ASN does - at least not on my computer.

 

Just to clarify to me what is happening???? Are you triggering the almost never used smoke effect - or is it the contrail effect that is used? Because I would really not like to miss my regular contrail effect.

Well, I'm also an ASN user. And I'm very happy with ASN. It's truly a game changer for me and my flight simulation experience. Weather has never been so realistic.

 

It is true, that when flying through clouds visibility will fade in and out, which is a nice feature, that takes advantage of the fact, that ASN nows exactly when, and when not, your aircraft is inside a cloud.

 

But the effect that you guys have created here as seen in the video clips would be very nice on top of what ASN does. What I see in the videos really recreates a sence and feel of diving in and out of clouds. I'm impressed, and in my humble point of view it is not what ASN does - at least not on my computer.

 

Just to clarify to me what is happening???? Are you triggering the almost never used smoke effect - or is it the contrail effect that is used? Because I would really not like to miss my regular contrail effect.

The effect that you see in the first video i have uploaded is the default contrail, the one after that is the final form of the effect I had been working on, basically did some changes for instance the effect particle is bigger and expand larger and is being emitted at speeds between 20-80 meters per second towards the opposite direction in order to simulate the passing through of the cloud, also changed the color of the particles most suitable for dusk and dawn shadowing. It seems that you can put as many as 5-6 different sources of smoke. The effects are named differently so the contrail stays as it is. What happens here is that I have added [smokesystem] line to the PMDG's cfg and with a bit trial and error I have managed to place the source of the effect just front left of the aircraft, so you can see the cloud  closing the window passing about 200 kn, when you look from the wing perspective it is more realistic of course. At the moment we are trying to make it so that FSX knows when to trigger the effect as realistically as possible instead of activating the smoke-system every time you  fly into the clouds.

 

 

 

Well, I'm also an ASN user. And I'm very happy with ASN. It's truly a game changer for me and my flight simulation experience. Weather has never been so realistic.

 

It is true, that when flying through clouds visibility will fade in and out, which is a nice feature, that takes advantage of the fact, that ASN nows exactly when, and when not, your aircraft is inside a cloud.

 

But the effect that you guys have created here as seen in the video clips would be very nice on top of what ASN does. What I see in the videos really recreates a sence and feel of diving in and out of clouds. I'm impressed, and in my humble point of view it is not what ASN does - at least not on my computer.

 

Just to clarify to me what is happening???? Are you triggering the almost never used smoke effect - or is it the contrail effect that is used? Because I would really not like to miss my regular contrail effect.

 

 

I agree that would look much better if the visibility could be reduced to couple of meters as it happens in ASN, because the default or any other weather engines do not provide much contact with clouds, as you can pass through the cloud only one time since it is 2d, I bet it would look much better with ASN. perhaps you can try it and post a video, I would like to see how it looks.

 

 

Thank you for this, I have created one as you've instructed but how do you cite the xml in panels cfg, I am not familiar with this 

 

What I did was add to panels.cfg a line like this in one of the VCockpitNN sections:

 

gaugeNN=cloudsinsmoke,   1,1

 

The NN should be unique from any other gauge number in the section.

What I did was add to panels.cfg a line like this in one of the VCockpitNN sections:

 

gaugeNN=cloudsinsmoke,   1,1

 

The NN should be unique from any other gauge number in the section.

Thank you I will try

This is fantastic!. So its working now just as described? is there anything I need to do to add to NGX?

Actually the whole thing looks very interesting, wonder if there was any further development on this...