Great shots!  I have yet to see any weather quite that spectacular in my XP flying.  A bit off topic, but I'm curious which aircraft that is in the second shot??

 

Actually, X-Plane native weather engine has quite an unexpressed potential. It just needs some good artwork and a couple of tricks to shine much better. Here are some unedited shots made with a couple of art controls tweaks (giving also better FPS) and some texture tweaks:

 

 

 

 

 

Nice looking sky!

 

One thing ive noticed btween skymaxx and default is, when flying through the clouds, the default clouds give me a better sense of flying through them. They feel more 3d like.  With Skymaxx, its closer to FSX, they look better and are nicer for screen shots, but up close, dont look quite as pretty. In addition, the default clouds reflect the sunset really well, as your shots above show.

 

Rob

Actually, X-Plane native weather engine has quite an unexpressed potential. It just needs some good artwork and a couple of tricks to shine much better. Here are some unedited shots made with a couple of art controls tweaks (giving also better FPS) and some texture tweaks:

 

 

 

 

 

Wow ...

Could you please share how did you got this?

I.e what textures and what art controls

Wow ...

Could you please share how did you got this?

I.e what textures and what art controls

 

Of course, backup all the original files first.

 

.) Download this modified cloud texture:

 

http://wikisend.com/download/285656/cloud_puff0.dds

 

Delete all the cloud_puff(x).png (from 0 to 5) inside the "\Resources\bitmaps\world\clouds" and replace them with the above texture (so, you have to copy the above texture 5 times, and then rename the other 4 copies with the final number going from 1 to 5).

 

The cirrus puff in this texture has been replaced, so you get better cirrus depiction. Also, having 5 identical cloud_puff textures minimizes the otherwise ugly transition between closer clouds and more distant clouds. You also have better depiction of far clouds. Using .dds instead of .png, should increase performance a little, in theory.

 

.) Download Tom Knudsen modified sky colors

 

http://forums.x-pilot.com/files/file/139-sky-color-x/ (must be registered to x-pilot.com)

 

I also modified the part of the skycolor texture that determines the lighting of the clouds, but unfortunately I cannot share the modified textures without the consent of the original author. So the cloud lighting you'll get, will be different than those in my screenshots.

 

.) Use DataRefEditor http://www.xsquawkbox.net/xpsdk/mediawiki/DataRefEditor to change the following art controls (this must be done at every restart of X-Plane):

   .) Increase "clouds/first_res_3d" to 2; this eliminates the first 2 closest level of clouds, also eliminating the ugly transition between closest and more distant clouds; it also improves frame rate.

   .) Increase "clouds/plot_radius" to 1.5 or 2. This makes bigger cloud puffs and hence "fuller" clouds. In theory this should decrease FPS, but it actually allows you to decrease the cloud slider in the rendering settings and actually, at the same apparent "cloud volume", it increases FPS. My advice is setting plot_radius at 1.5 and cloud slider at 50% (as in my shots), or plot_radius at 2.0 and cloud slider at 10% (possibly better FPS).

 

.) You'll get good visual results if you use "set random and only semi-controlled weather patterns" in the weather screen with "coverage" and "system size" set to max. Alternatively, you should also get good results if you simply set uniform weather with a thick layer (e.g. from 10.000 to 30.000 ft) of scattered or broken clouds, plus a hi-altitude cirrus layer.

Ok, here's also the modified cloud lighting texture.

 

http://wikisend.com/download/433446/CloudLighting.png

 

You should open each of the 3 skycolors textures (those from Tom Knudsen) with an image editing software, then copy this modified cloud lighting image, and paste it in each of the 3 skycolor textures (replacing that part of the original texture with the old cloud lighting). Easier done that said, actually.

I came from FSX, in the beginning I criticized many things and thought I'd never become a satisfied X-simmer. Meanwhile FSX is gone. Sometimes the little things make the difference. I can't imagine flying with an outdated navigational database and without the num keys for changing customized views in the virtual cockpit. I had a great time flying MS Sims since FSII. But times changed.

Of course, backup all the original files first.

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.

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Thank you very much Murmur for your detailed explanation, I'll test it as soon as possible.

Thx Murmur,

 

I think I'll give this a try. Looks really good !

Yes, thx Murmur,

 

I haven't completely tried this yet, but I do love these sky colors from Tom Knudson. I had these a while ago, but I think Skymax overwrote them and I forgot who made them and where to get them.  They are awesome!

 Ill give the cloud tweek a go later today, when I have some time.

 

For now, here are some shots with the sky colors part only.

 

Rob

 

 

 

 

Murmur - you are a genius, I swear. I was looking for those modified sky colours for ages, and I finally found them thanks to you!

 

This is why I love the X-Plane community - everything is free, and everyone pitches in to help. The only things missing are committed devs, but we've started to get them, too - in the form of Aerofoil Labs and PMDG, as well as Carenado. I honestly hope it remains the same, even after the large payware devs come in.

 

And to do that we need to donate - I'm saving up $10 for everyone who's made something free which I use - from Pumper's excellent B777 cockpit mod to Tony with his W2XP, and AlpilotX with his even more excellent HD/UHD Meshes, as well as MisterX6. Not to mention JoanPC's NOAA plug-in. That's at least $100 in donations. Need to save up the cents.

Reading through the posts here is very interesting.

 

Revealing a great deal of information to a person, like myself, who is looking to upgrade from FSX.

 

One point that is apparent is that the X Plane product I buy is not really a finished product. Neither I suppose is P3d. There is a need to have a great many add ons to bring out the best.

 

When I read here about "modified cloud lighting textures","modified sky colours","modified cloud textures", I am somewhat puzzled, by where to find them,how to install them and will they continue to work with newer versions of XP? Indeed, will they be necessary with newer versions of XP if the developer chooses to add them?

 

 

Added to that, are " airport add ons" ,"custom airport scenery", " photo scenery", "w2xp" etc?

 

 

The "mesh" looks straightforward, as does the w2xp scenery. The glorious photo scenery, the mysteriously named "ZL17" files, are a complete mystery. I can not seem to find them. I see there are payware sceneries on Aerosoft for the UK (expensive piecemeal sceneries) but none for Europe. Perhaps I am looking in the wrong place! Won't be the first time:-)

 

MTaxp, I do care about ATC since I do not fly VATSIM. Also when flying simulated commercial airliners, I prefer to fly with a First Officer, (and a Flight Engineer, where he is required) with procedure flows and checklists. MCE provides a plug in for this along with RC4. So that part of my sim world is catered for in XP! There is something within me that says it just doesn't feel right to fly a 737/Airbus alone!

 

Anyway, interesting discussion and I thank you all again for the input.

 

Finally, for those of a certain age. XP reminds me of Meccano! You can (if you assemble all the parts), build yourself an Aston Martin Lagonda. But you had better have all the bits, the skill with a spanner and a whole load of time and patience:-):-)

 

best regards

 

David

 

 

The "mesh" looks straightforward, as does the w2xp scenery. The glorious photo scenery, the mysteriously named "ZL17" files, are a complete mystery. I can not seem to find them. I see there are payware sceneries on Aerosoft for the UK (expensive piecemeal sceneries) but none for Europe. Perhaps I am looking in the wrong place! Won't be the first time:-)

 

Hello David,

 

The glorious photo scenery can be found at zone photo.x-plane.fr  It is ZL16 (ZoomLevel 16) and is really just as good as ZL17 and the files are around 1.5GB as opposed to 5GB; i.e. much quicker download time.  Not to mention the amount of HD space that gets eaten up if you download a large swarth of landmass.  My custom scenery folder has grown to over 450GB mostly due to European photo scenery.  But it's worth it.

 

An added benefit of photo scenery is the ability to run in "extreme" resolution for a much clearer view of the terrain below.  I'm not sure why this works, but if you load up the sim in say "normal" or "high" resolution for good frame rates, you can then simply change the screen resolution to "extreme" and the photo scenery comes in to clear focus with absolutely no hit to fps.  It really makes flying low much more realistic as you're flying over the actual terrain.  

Actually, X-Plane native weather engine has quite an unexpressed potential. It just needs some good artwork and a couple of tricks to shine much better. Here are some unedited shots made with a couple of art controls tweaks (giving also better FPS) and some texture....

 

I agree XP has potential for weather.  XP can do some cool things I've noticed with clouds.... clouds can slope up or down (really common where I live on top the hill... and the elevation changes by about 800 ft down by the harbor).  As clouds/fog hug the hill I've found XP will sort of render this - pretty neat!

 

Generally XP10 has a better feeling when flying through clouds... or yields a better visual result than FSX/P3D.  But the clouds looks worse (less realistic in XP10) so I agree also that it needs some better artwork.

I for one always hated the default cloud in XP , but I gotta say after using Murmur's tweaks (thanks!) , IMO it gives the best experience out there in any simulator (and yeah including REX in FSX)

Yeah.. when taking a picture it's doesn't look so impressive , this is one of the thing that you need to be there and feel it to understand how awesome it is.

 

we just need an advanced weather engine , it'll be really amzing.

 

Some shots above zurich's area (hd mesh v3).

I use other sky colors and cloud textures though...

 

 

 

 

 

This is how it looks when flying through them (disabled this white-wall effect via a dataref , so you really can feel moving through a cloud):

 

 

 

 

 

This moment , when in real life yoy fly above an overcast layer and then there is a little hole ...

 

 

 

 

 

And last ..I really liked the lightning and the smooth transitions :

 

One of my biggest issues with the weather depiction, and one I don't see present at all in any of these screenshots, is when the weather is depicted as overcast.

 

Not being totally familiar with how X-Plane does things, and I haven't yet taken the time to really inspect it and see if / how it can be tweaked, but when the weather is read as being overcast, there seems to be a darker 'overcast' wall that's above and behind the cloud layers.  Occasionally this looks okay, but at certain times of day, it looks absolutely awful in my opinion.

 

Perhaps it's a simple function of the view distance changing?  I use SMP with the overcast quality set to highest.

 

The other night I was doing a nice little sunset flight from CYEG to CYYC in the ViperJet, and the weather was changing back and forth from this really nice light cloud cover with RTH providing a nicely coloured and realistic looking haze at the edge of my viewing distance, to being 5/6 cloud cover, and a ugly very dark 'wall' above the cloud layer at at the edge of the viewing distance which had also reduced dramatically.

 

The first was very immersive, the later was not, to say the least!