People, how do I get a solid overcast with ASN and REX4?

[Fi5kuS 57]

Look at these pictures! Do you call this a overcast? Maybe some will, but this is just to trick me into believing that I'm flying above a thick overcast. I live in the area where the screenshots were taken and at the time, the weather was bad with a thick continuous carpet over the whole area, not these "lumps" of clouds stacked together. For me, it really ruins the whole flightsim expericence :(  :(  :(  Any ideas? I have the "enhanced overcast conditions" in ASN ticked and have tried increasing the amount of layers but its still just "lumps" of clouds instead of a realistic carpet covering an whole area. 

 

 

 

[pete_auau 1,154]

in your fsx.cfg  change your cloud density from 8 to 12   don't forget if you change any settings it will revert back to 8, also make sure you have detailed clod checked in your fsx settings as well

[Lashrathius 49]

 

 

I live in the area where the screenshots were taken and at the time, the weather was bad with a thick continuous carpet over the whole area, not these "lumps" of clouds stacked together.

 

I have to agree with you on this one - whenever it's raining hard, ASN gives me broken clouds exactly like your screenshot. And yes, I have tweaked my fsx.cfg. But I found a workaround for it:

 

In ASN, what I normally do is just set the weather on manual and set 3 layers of overcast stratus on top of each other and also the precipitation for a specific station. ASN automatically adds reduced visibility inside 8/8 overcast to simulate the low visibility inside clouds (that's the beauty of ASN!)

[spesimen 135]

seems like there is something amiss with your setup for sure

this is from LGBO at 2014/9/27 - 0624Z

METAR is: LBGO 270600Z 31003MPS 280V340 8000 -RA SCT013 OVC015 10/10 Q1019 RERA NOSIG

 

at ground level the sky is completely greyed out far as the eye can see:

 

 

entering the overcast:

 

inside the cloud layer from around 2000-7000 or so there is zero visibility:

 

at the top of the overcast there is a slight blend of the tops of the clouds but still lower vis:

 

above the overcast. can only see the ground in the mountain in the distance

 

 

now to answer your question with more detail, i would suggest a few things

1. your clouds look really compressed and narrow. do you have widescreen mode on? something funky with your rex setup maybe? i remember seeing a thread about those narrow looking clouds before but i don't really remember the solution. there was maybe something about extreme latitudes also causing that.

2. you don't mention if it's fsx or p3d (my shots are fsx)

3. are you using the newest service pack beta version (5 i think)

4. the textures you used have a lot of contrast between grey and whites maybe a more subtle one will help blend better and also give a more general effect

5. for settings i use max cloud layers 8, min distance 109, max 140, max upper visibilty 100, i'm not sure if anything else is different than the defaults

 

cheers and good luck, with some tweaking you should be able to get more satisfactory results i believe!

 

-andy crosby

 

edit: i should mention, i didn't do any deliberate setting of weather i just leave it on live mode all the time and usually if i'm flyin into an overcast area it looks pretty solid, i do always set a flightplan i don't know if that helps that much

[kterz 49]

Hi,

 

- The issue the OP reports ("squeezed clouds") is latitude related. Nothing can be done about this due to the core fsx grid design. 

 

- Setting the cloud density to 12 will do nothing (as we intercept it on the fly and restore it to 8). All this does anyway is force fsx to render some broken clouds as overcast bypassing the metar report. On the other hand, if the cloud density is < 8, we don't change that, because a user may have performance issues otherwise. Just don't expect overcast conditions if cloud density is set e.g. to 4 (max cloud coverage in this case will be 4/8 or scattered)

 

- When reporting such issues it's always useful to also report the METAR (or the textual representation of current weather conditions in Conditions page), so that we're on the same page. 

 

- I always find it useful to see screenshots of the clouds on ASN's map (but only when the detail button is clicked).  Detailed cloud map, is extremely accurate and may also reveal issues in fsx cloud rendering (like lines or patterns) that are not so easy to see through the cockpit. Almost always if there is a discrepancy between cloud depiction in fsx and what the detailed cloud map shows in ASN, that means graphics driver/shader code issue (e.g. DX10 fixer related issues).

 

- The "overcast perception" is always angle related in fsx. When we look at a significant vertical angle, chances are we'll notice "gaps" (and rotating clouds). This is also texture dependent. Some textures are more transparent than others, so the possibility of these small "gaps" increases. The "enhanced overcast conditions" option improves this at a cost of significant overdraw (aka fps drop)

 

- Another thing that can reduce these "gaps" is to increase the thickness of the clouds (scaling the clouds in all 3 dimensions). This applies (in fsx) only to stratus (and non-detail) clouds, but overdoing this we increase the chance of ugly cloud/terrain intersection when the ceiling is low (as has been demonstrated in P3D 2.3 recently). So, a weather engine has to find a way to balance things in relation to that.

 

Hope this info helps.

[Fi5kuS 57]

now to answer your question with more detail, i would suggest a few things

1. your clouds look really compressed and narrow. do you have widescreen mode on? something funky with your rex setup maybe? i remember seeing a thread about those narrow looking clouds before but i don't really remember the solution. there was maybe something about extreme latitudes also causing that.

2. you don't mention if it's fsx or p3d (my shots are fsx)

3. are you using the newest service pack beta version (5 i think)

4. the textures you used have a lot of contrast between grey and whites maybe a more subtle one will help blend better and also give a more general effect

5. for settings i use max cloud layers 8, min distance 109, max 140, max upper visibilty 100, i'm not sure if anything else is different than the defaults

 

cheers and good luck, with some tweaking you should be able to get more satisfactory results i believe!

 

-andy crosby

 

edit: i should mention, i didn't do any deliberate setting of weather i just leave it on live mode all the time and usually if i'm flyin into an overcast area it looks pretty solid, i do always set a flightplan i don't know if that helps that much

1. Yes I'm using wideAspect.

2. This is FSX (with DX10 scenery fixer).

3. Yes I'm using the newest version of ASN.

4. Doesn't seem like any of the cloud textures of REX4 change anything in regards of colours and contrast tbh. 

5. I use max cloud layers, yes.

 

The pictures you have shown are fantastic. Its exaclty the type of deep overcast I want. Do you use REX4 for textures, and what is your settings in FSX? Do you use the DX10 fixer? 

 

Hi,

 

- The issue the OP reports ("squeezed clouds") is latitude related. Nothing can be done about this due to the core fsx grid design. 

 

- Setting the cloud density to 12 will do nothing (as we intercept it on the fly and restore it to 8). All this does anyway is force fsx to render some broken clouds as overcast bypassing the metar report. On the other hand, if the cloud density is < 8, we don't change that, because a user may have performance issues otherwise. Just don't expect overcast conditions if cloud density is set e.g. to 4 (max cloud coverage in this case will be 4/8 or scattered)

 

- When reporting such issues it's always useful to also report the METAR (or the textual representation of current weather conditions in Conditions page), so that we're on the same page. 

 

- I always find it useful to see screenshots of the clouds on ASN's map (but only when the detail button is clicked).  Detailed cloud map, is extremely accurate and may also reveal issues in fsx cloud rendering (like lines or patterns) that are not so easy to see through the cockpit. Almost always if there is a discrepancy between cloud depiction in fsx and what the detailed cloud map shows in ASN, that means graphics driver/shader code issue (e.g. DX10 fixer related issues).

 

- The "overcast perception" is always angle related in fsx. When we look at a significant vertical angle, chances are we'll notice "gaps" (and rotating clouds). This is also texture dependent. Some textures are more transparent than others, so the possibility of these small "gaps" increases. The "enhanced overcast conditions" option improves this at a cost of significant overdraw (aka fps drop)

 

- Another thing that can reduce these "gaps" is to increase the thickness of the clouds (scaling the clouds in all 3 dimensions). This applies (in fsx) only to stratus (and non-detail) clouds, but overdoing this we increase the chance of ugly cloud/terrain intersection when the ceiling is low (as has been demonstrated in P3D 2.3 recently). So, a weather engine has to find a way to balance things in relation to that.

 

Hope this info helps.

 

Well, it makes sense what you're saying, but it doesn't offer any concrete solution. I can try increasing the thickness of the clouds, but tbh I think I have wrong settings. 

[spesimen 135]

 

 

1. Yes I'm using wideAspect.
2. This is FSX (with DX10 scenery fixer).
3. Yes I'm using the newest version of ASN.
4. Doesn't seem like any of the cloud textures of REX4 change anything in regards of colours and contrast tbh. 
5. I use max cloud layers, yes.
 
The pictures you have shown are fantastic. Its exaclty the type of deep overcast I want. Do you use REX4 for textures, and what is your settings in FSX? Do you use the DX10 fixer? 

 

1, maybe try toggling wideaspect off and see what happens? the reason i mentioned it is i remember somewhere the 'narrow cloud' issue being possibly related to that ,although my memory is foggy and it could just be my imagination.... yeah the latitude thing i think it should only be a problem at extreme latitudes anyway..

2. my textures are from an earlier version of rex.. "rex essential plus" i think is the official name. i use lately the "cumulus 22/ strato cumulus" and "18/ cirro stratus" set...i don't know if the numbering is the same in rex4 or not.  what i meant about the contrast is that the sort of bigger fluffy looking ones seem to work better than the stormy ones that have darker shadows in the texture.

3. just using regular dx9, i havent really tried dx10 yet....perhaps there's a difference there?? my fsx settings are cloud draw distance 100mi, detailed clouds, cloud coverage density maximum, thermal visualization none, the simulation settings in weather page both off and rate of change at none ( i think ASN overrides those anyway)

cheers,

-andy crosby

[kterz 49]

Hi,

 

Easiest test to to perform: Try at an airport with - latitude (-45-+45) . This pattern you get is typical of northern Scandinavian areas and/or Iceland and unfortunately we can't do anything about it.

[Fi5kuS 57]

Hi,

 

Easiest test to to perform: Try at an airport with - latitude (-45-+45) . This pattern you get is typical of northern Scandinavian areas and/or Iceland and unfortunately we can't do anything about it.

 

Hm, yes the latitude of Tromsø is 69 but why can't ASN render a typical and solid overcast just because its located far north? Is it because of the high rate of changing weather? I noticed once on final for landing in Tromsø that there were literary no clouds above the airport, even though it was raining heavy outside my window (again, live just above the airport). After I landed I loaded the airport again to check the weather and to my surprise it was more clouds and some rain. Not the solid overcast that were supposed to be but still. That has made me wonder if my settings are out of the order.

[Fi5kuS 57]

This picture is taken just above Oslo Gardemoen (ENGM). Look at the clumpy clouds that are stacked together. Really unrealistic appearance in my opinion. Yes I have 1024 resolution textures via REX4 but I've seen videos of others using ASN and REX4 1024k clouds and they look alot better than this.

 

 

 

Look at this video: This is a realistic redering of clouds. Maybe I should purchase AS2012 instead but I thought ASN was the next big thing.

[spesimen 135]

i really think there's still something you can improve with your settings.

i never really flew much around norway before so i did a flight and some experiments with ASN at ENTC and ENSB..

 

real world weather loaded at tromso on the ground:

 

different angle, this is pretty thick looking coverage even tho the metar is scattered (4/8)

 

climbing out from tromso:

 

for a test, i edited the cloud layer to make it overcast. honestly even with the narrow clouds it still gives a very nice coverage (this is ovc 3000 height 2000)

 

then i tried a different overcast setting, this is 5000 height 10000

 

at ENSB i did another forced overcast to test. looks pretty solid as well even at another bit more north in latitude. i forgot to write the numbers down it's 3000 with 2000 height maybe

 

this is at longyaer/ENSB switched back to live mode! the manual overcasts are boring compared to this!! i forgot to write down the metar but i think it was scattered 3000 and another broken layer at 5000 maybe?

 

on approach ENSB right after i got under the clouds

 

these shots look a lot different than yours and i swear i'm not doing anything special other than just playing with a few of the sliders in asn so hopefully you can experiment and maybe find some better results..

cheers!

-andy crosby

 

 

edit: heres the video of the climbout these shots are from

[zmak 331]

in your fsx.cfg  change your cloud density from 8 to 12   don't forget if you change any settings it will revert back to 8, also make sure you have detailed clod checked in your fsx settings as well

This really does work well.

 

I actually tried it with OPUS and got horizon to horizon solid overcast for the first time on the next flight. Using a program such as Simstarter allows you to permanently keep a 12 setting even when making other changes 

[Fi5kuS 57]

 

edit: heres the video of the climbout these shots are from

 

Hi! Thank you for the reply, spesimen. Yes, your rendering of weather looks a lot better than mine. I don't know why but your clouds seems more stretched out than mine, which looks like small lumps of marshmallows. I really don't think changing any setting within ASN should make this type of difference. I've only tried to change the min/max cloud draw distance and cloud thickness layers. I also tried to revert my REX4 textures to default, but the difference wasn't that big. Only thing is that REX4 adds more contrast and dark/black colors to the clouds. I'm gonna try changing the cloud density in my fsx.cfg to see if it makes any difference, maybe even reinstalling both REX4 and ASN.