my opinion that the updated clouds are now dull

[sightseer 895]

I don't care for the new cloud lighting.  These are screenshots from FSW with its first update and also some XP11 shots and a few real life shots taken by me. There are a great many real life shots and videos on the web that one can look at but I only have the rights to share these (and it should be noted that they are NOT overblown -- reality can be blinding and I think a realistic sim should also be capable of being blinding)

anyway first its FSW shots and then XP11 and then my real life examples (from the small selection I have - sorry)

first - FSW updated.  the clouds in this shot are what I see with Fair weather on a flight from KIPT to KHMZ.  its summer at 1pm

and the clouds have a dull reddish yellow.  I also set the weather to Cold Fronts on May 22 at 11am at KSJC and while I like the darker underbellies of the clouds, the tops are that similar off reddish yellow.  and the sky is darker and more purple now.

 

now here are some XP11 shots.  The ground is much warmer.  I don't think its much darker but it is warmer and there are cloud shadows and such to make it look much nicer.  The clouds are actually darker than the last time I ran XP11 but they look much better than the updated FSW clouds.

 

and finally, a few real life shots taken from high altitude.  I have intentionally chosen shots where the cloud highlights aren't overblown even though

in real life you need sunglasses to avoid the headaches the brightness can cause.  Real life clouds can be very bright.

 

I think I am misunderstood concerning the brightness that the original FSW release had.  It wasn't that runways and clouds were not too bright...they were.

it was that there were much better ways to handle that problem than reducing the base sims capabilities.  Textures can be changed and I think they should be.

It is a new sim after all.

When more shadows and gradient shading get introduced, I think people will wish that extra brightness was still there to work with.

but for now, my FSW clouds are ugly.  the sky is uglier than default FSX.  its a downgrade imo.

[fs4fun 366]

I did notice that everything looks gray now, for example on approach into KSJC this morning, all the buildings looked like dull gray boxes.

[Paraffin 2,197]

The cumulus shapes could be better, but I'm not seeing "the clouds have a dull reddish yellow." They look reasonably white to me. I'm using a color-calibrated monitor for graphics work (BenQ PG2401), so I think I'm seeing the intended colors.

The big problem I'm seeing is that the sky color has a lavender/light purple tinge, the same way it looked in Flight School. I remember this was pointed out back when Flight School was released. 

The reason the sky is blue is due to Rayleigh Scattering, which causes the short wavelengths of scattered sunlight to reach our eyes when we look at the sky in the middle of the day. There is no mixing of color from the red end of the spectrum that would cause a lavender tinge at noon.

You can see the difference by comparing FSW's lavender-tinged sky to the color in both the X-Plane and real-world images, where the sky is blue as it should be. In the spirit of constructive criticism I hope they can fix this, and I hope it's not being done on purpose for aesthetic reasons. 

[Jimm 437]

41 minutes ago, sightseer said:

I don't care for the new cloud lighting.  These are screenshots from FSW with its first update and also some XP11 shots and a few real life shots taken by me. There are a great many real life shots and videos on the web that one can look at but I only have the rights to share these (and it should be noted that they are NOT overblown -- reality can be blinding and I think a realistic sim should also be capable of being blinding)

anyway first its FSW shots and then XP11 and then my real life examples (from the small selection I have - sorry)

first - FSW updated.  the clouds in this shot are what I see with Fair weather on a flight from KIPT to KHMZ.  its summer at 1pm

and the clouds have a dull reddish yellow.  I also set the weather to Cold Fronts on May 22 at 11am at KSJC and while I like the darker underbellies of the clouds, the tops are that similar off reddish yellow.  and the sky is darker and more purple now.

 

now here are some XP11 shots.  The ground is much warmer.  I don't think its much darker but it is warmer and there are cloud shadows and such to make it look much nicer.  The clouds are actually darker than the last time I ran XP11 but they look much better than the updated FSW clouds.

 

and finally, a few real life shots taken from high altitude.  I have intentionally chosen shots where the cloud highlights aren't overblown even though

in real life you need sunglasses to avoid the headaches the brightness can cause.  Real life clouds can be very bright.

 

I think I am misunderstood concerning the brightness that the original FSW release had.  It wasn't that runways and clouds were not too bright...they were.

it was that there were much better ways to handle that problem than reducing the base sims capabilities.  Textures can be changed and I think they should be.

It is a new sim after all.

When more shadows and gradient shading get introduced, I think people will wish that extra brightness was still there to work with.

but for now, my FSW clouds are ugly.  the sky is uglier than default FSX.  its a downgrade imo.

So I have one question for you: what part of early access is unclear? 

[Paraffin 2,197]

10 minutes ago, Jimm said:

So I have one question for you: what part of early access is unclear? 

What part of giving constructive feedback during early access is unclear?

[Jimm 437]

Just now, Paraffin said:

What part of giving constructive feedback during early access is unclear?

I didn't read it that way.  the term "ugly" isn't constructive, it's negative opinion.  Perhaps if more people would approach this new sim with an open mind, as well as keeping in mind that it is being worked on, then more constructive feedback would come in.  You of all people should know about constructive feedback, during the beta run of XP11. 

[carbonbasedlifeform 179]

Comparisons to real life seem like a stretch.

I'm OK with slightly updated clouds and DLC like REX. Just like with ground textures: OrbX global is a step up but you have to buy DLC to truly make sims shine. 

[sightseer 895]

41 minutes ago, Jimm said:

I didn't read it that way.  the term "ugly" isn't constructive, it's negative opinion.  Perhaps if more people would approach this new sim with an open mind, as well as keeping in mind that it is being worked on, then more constructive feedback would come in.  You of all people should know about constructive feedback, during the beta run of XP11. 

 

I've been very positive...until now.  I have defended FSW against many who attacked it for all manor of reasons.

 

I have the right to speak up about a move that I consider wrong.  It isn't possible to look at these clouds, knowing what the original release looked like, and claim they are just not now dimmer and less bright.  I was able to modify the sky texture and create new clouds that looked quite good with the original lighting.  I cant imagine it would have been difficult to create a new runway texture (one that wasn't 10 years old and made for much older technology and lighting).

 

What is the point of making a new sim that doesn't even look as good as the one its supposed to replace?

 

If DTG were trying to make me stop flying FSW, I think they have succeeded.

[sightseer 895]

43 minutes ago, carbonbasedlifeform said:

Comparisons to real life seem like a stretch.

I'm OK with slightly updated clouds and DLC like REX. Just like with ground textures: OrbX global is a step up but you have to buy DLC to truly make sims shine. 

You're kidding right?  You want a base sim that's intentionally not very good?  so you can buy addons?

[Chock 17,769]

I'll be honest with you, I think what you are describing seeing on shots and in the sim is indicative that your monitor needs calibrating. There is no 'Reddish Yellow' on those clouds in your screenshots on any monitor I've viewed those pics on, and I did so on three different ones just to be sure.

The machines I checked the pics on are:  a desktop PC with an ATI Radeon Card going to a calibrated Technics monitor, at my home which I use for flight simming and stuff i.e. the machine which I am on right now. The other two computers were Apple Macs at my training centre, one a MacBook Pro laptop and the other a desktop Mac which is one of my training machines for delegates. My company is an Adobe and Apple Authorised Training Center, and I have to teach closely-monitored authorised courses there, so the machines have to be colour calibrated or Adobe and Apple would not be happy with me and could revoke my authorised training centre status.

So I think you could probably do with getting hold of either a calibration spyder or a test card, or if you do a google search you can find some stuff online to help calibrate your monitor if you don't want to pay for some test gear.

[sightseer 895]

5 minutes ago, Chock said:

I'll be honest with you, I think what you are describing seeing on shots and in the sim is indicative that your monitor needs calibrating. There is no 'Reddish Yellow' on those clouds in your screenshots on any monitor I've viewed those pics on, and I did so on three different ones just to be sure.

The machines I checked the pics on are:  a desktop PC with an ATI Radeon Card going to a calibrated Technics monitor, at my home which I use for flight simming and stuff i.e. the machine which I am on right now. The other two computers were Apple Macs at my training centre, one a MacBook Pro laptop and the other a desktop Mac which is one of my training machines for delegates. My company is an Adobe and Apple Authorised Training Center, and I have to teach closely-monitored authorised courses there, so the machines have to be colour calibrated or Adobe and Apple would not be happy with me and could revoke my autorised training centre status.

So i think you could probably do with getting hold of either a calibration spyder or a test card, or if you do a google search you can find some stuff online to help calibrate your monitor if you don't want to pay for some gear.

So buy me a new monitor, Chock.  Im glad you offered to do that.

Look at the cloud in my avatar pic and compare it to the clouds in the FSW pics.  are they the same?  are they close?  No.  they were closer before with some love and care. (new textures and adjustments)

 

thanks for your input Chock.  maybe it is my monitor.

 a season in hell.

[Chock 17,769]

5 minutes ago, sightseer said:

So buy me a new monitor, Chock.  Im glad you offered to do that.

I am just pointing out that it is an avenue of investigation since you have had two people on this thread say the same thing. If you are tweaking colours, you need to be sure that your monitor is displaying correct sRGBIEC61966-2.1 hues (i.e pretty much the worldwide standard for digital repro and monitor profiling), or your efforts to investigate hue, saturation and lightness will not produce accurate results.

[barrel_owl 304]

My two cents and a little off topic. It seems to me that you're using the default LOD. Why don't you try to set that bar a little higher? 6.500000 anyone?
Believe me, it makes a huge difference in terms of visuals while having a negligible or low impact to your performance (after all, this is one of the benefits of the 64-bits). 

Unfortunately, this will hardly make any difference on sky and clouds colors. Your comparison to X-Plane, well, is unfair at the very least. X-Plane and P3D are mature products, so obviously they take the lead in several aspects. There is very little we can do at the moment. I tried yesterday using some reshades. While this someway improved the texture colors on midday, it probably worsened the situation on dusk. So, no easy way out.

As I said earlier today in another thread, I am afraid we'll have to be a little patient. I am positive that several good things will come. Meanwhile I can survive with such colors. I will not say that I like it, though.

[Murmur 3,941]

I also find the color of the clouds in these FSW shots good. I even prefer some of them to those in the X-Plane shots.

[scotchegg 4,170]

6 hours ago, Jimm said:

I didn't read it that way.  the term "ugly" isn't constructive, it's negative opinion.  Perhaps if more people would approach this new sim with an open mind, as well as keeping in mind that it is being worked on, then more constructive feedback would come in.  You of all people should know about constructive feedback, during the beta run of XP11. 

Given the increasing body of contributions from you that seem to bump up against other users, have you considered your 'reading' might benefit from some recalibration?

He clearly said how he felt about a key aspect of the sim and illustrated his feedback with pictures from 3 different sources. I think he's done his due diligence in elevating his criticism to the level of constructive.