Ceilings and multiple cloud layers

[MobiFlight 1]

Hi everybody,

I am using XP11 and I am really happy with it, the only thing I don't like that much is the weather rendering. An overcast stratus layer can look quite nice, but cumulus clouds not so much. Cirrus clouds? Haven't seen any.

Anyways, I was playing with the weather settings and created my own cloud layers setup.
I noticed that when, say for example, I add a Broken cloud layer with base a 4000ft and tops at 6000ft - clouds will show but not at that altitude. Rather the base and tops will be higher by many thousand feet.
I also noticed that multiple cloud layers are not really working either. The layers will rather overlap. I can't see cirrus clouds either, at least the blurry whites in the sky don't look like cirrus clouds at all. 

I added the Soft Clouds lua script and updated the bitmaps which make look clouds a little better but don't fix the problem with the base and tops altitudes.

If I cannot manually set the layers correctly, does it work for METAR (real weather) better? - I personally had not noticed it that badly off when using real METAR data, so I would say yes, but then again my observation in manual mode doesn't really make sense.
Anybody who can confirm this behavior of wrong bases and tops for clouds and incorrect rendering of multiple layers and cirrus clouds?

Thanks!

[Paraffin 2,197]

I haven't seen that problem with cloud layers not appearing at the correct altitude. When climbing into a cloud layer, it starts at the right altitude, and I exit where the cloud layer ends (referring to cockpit altitude instruments). That's with both XP default weather and using the ActiveSky real weather injector.

Something sounds off in your setup, especially if clouds are thousands of feet off target. Are you sure you have a default installation, no other weather programs or anything other than cosmetic (sky color) Lua scripts running? Are you testing this with more than one aircraft, in case the altimeter is way off? 

Regarding cirrus clouds, default weather isn't great at showing those. They look better in add-on weather programs like xEnviro and SkyMaxx Pro, that paint a greater variety of 2D cirrus wisps on the sky.

[Murmur 3,941]

Hi MobiFlight, most of the .lua cloud scripts induce wrong altitudes for clouds top and base.

(Technical explanation: this happens because such scripts usually either extend outer cloud rings inward, and the rendering engine places outer cloud rings at a higher altitude; or they make cloud puffs bigger; or often both).

So the culprit is probably some .lua script.

[Pochi 68]

Hi,

I bump up this post in reaction to @Murmur post regarding wrong clouds height due to lua script dataref modification.

I am currently using Vivid sky lua script and got this altitude problem with clouds which is bad when you are expecting a 200ft ceiling but you exit clouds at 1500ft...

So I would like to try editing the vivid script and find out which dataref modification should be cancelled in order to solve the problem.

Any help to identify these dataref would be appreciated,

Best regards,

Pierre