Witnessed an odd behaviour in cloud shadows

[alex 12]

Steve, 

 

Just reporting what could be some kind of bug.

 

I was flying over the ocean, the sun was setting, I switched to the copilot seat camera and with my hat switch pointed the camera to the setting sun. The clouds passing over the sun's reflection had their shadows, as expected. 

 

As the sun lowered close to the horizon suddenly the cloud shadows froze in position and stopped following the clouds. When I moved the cam around, all the shadows followed, as if "baked on to the camera's sensor".

 

If I switched to any other camera, the issue disappeared. Shadows were behaving normally. But if I switched back to the copilot's camera, the baked cloud shadows were still there in the same positions.

 

I also saw an occasional shadow without a cloud .

 

Thank you for developing this, i will not fly without it any more. I find this quite epic, actually, despite its limitations (mainly the shadows always being under the clouds).

 

I noticed the shadows don't darken default airport polygons and auto gen building - is this expected? (witnessed at Las Vegas)

 

Alex

[SteveFx 258]

Was this with standard fsx cameras?

 

To answer you last question shadows appear on land and water only and so will not appear on airport polygons or autogen.

[alex 12]

Thanks Steve.

 

To answer your question, yes, it was the standard FSX cameras, flying with the PMDG MD11.

 

Cheers,

 

Alex

[kdfw__ 539]

Hi Steve,
 
i'm also seeing the cloud reflection image (and not the cloud shadow) baked into the views at dawn over the sea.  this is with standard fsx vc and external views.  as you can see in the video, it's faint and depends on viewing angle.  during daylight, all looks good, including the cloud shadows.

 

https://youtu.be/AV23Aem59XQ

 

with the cloud shadow addon turned off, i don't see this visual artifact. 

[SteveFx 258]

Yes you are correct, I can reproduce the same by changing the clock backwards. Shadows are not meant to be shown during dawn and dusk so something is clearly wrong.

[SteveFx 258]

I have located both problem(s).

 

The dawn issue arises because the SimConnect documentation is wrong on the values of the TimeOfDay variable. To see

the issue you either have to fly day->dusk->night->dawn or having flown during the day reset the time backwards to dawn.

 

The dusk issue is that the specular shadows are not being disabled correctly - so the issue only exhibits if you are looking towards the sun.

[SteveFx 258]

There is a new version of Cloud Shadows to address these issues. Instructions of how to update are posted on my wordpress blog. Please read carefully as both the fixer andcloud shadows must be updated.

[kdfw__ 539]

Hi Steve,

dawn and dusk look great, thanks for the quick fix.  

[alex 12]

Thanks very much for fixing it, have just installed and going to test it.