Still no cloud shadow

[Guest Peter Sidoli]

Birds are an important part especially when you fly with them. They are a hazard to jet engines on takeoff but once in the air they are amazing to watch.I can remember seeing an eagle at 12000 feet. The Eagle filled the screen and dived and veared sharply to avoid me.So close was the encounter I could even see it tuck its one wing to get maximum avoidance.It almost appeared indignant that I had forced it to avoid claiming its right as King of the Skies.I also had a loud bang on the screen on a jet black night only to find the screen smeared with blood on landing.That dispelled any thoughts of birds not flying at night.Birds have an amazing ability to avoid a collision even when you are sure they are going to hit they seem to get out of the way. This will make for some interesting programming :-)Peter

[Guest tdragger]

Yeah, you gotta be careful of eagles. They are very territorial and will often not avoid you the way other birds do. We have a large population here in the PNW and I see them all the time. I also know the J3 would be no match for a bird the size of a small dog!

[Guest photon]

I feel cloud shadows on the ground would add so much to the visuals. Personally I do a lot of longer flights and enjoy spending the majority of the flight admiring my aircraft and the surroundings in spot view. I would kill to have clouds cast ground shadows, it would add so much to creating a more realistic environment.

[Guest Turnbull2000]

If I could wish for one graphical enhancement, without a doubt it would be cloud shadows. VFR flying using photographic terrain would look supberb.

[1mikel151 71]

Just to add to this, one of my fav flights is taking the Aerosoft beaver to one of the georender fields, taxi to the house, shut down, load up the kneeboard browser, go hit the backseats and check out the forums while in the beaver listening to the ambient sounds and watching the clouds go by, would be cool if shadows came and went as well.(can't wait to see birds flying around also ;-) )Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/mcdcvabanner.jpgCalVirAir International

[Guest jrobert]

>(can't wait to see birds flying around also ;-) )You know, 10 years down the line, we're still gonna be talkin about how important it is to have or not to have birds! By gawd, when that day comes we'll have FS-XXVIII or something like it where we'll see bug splatters on the cockpit windows rolling down a runway while spotting that tire that's still rolling down the runway from the previous (unfortunate) aircraft who lost it on take-off (only God knows why it would have come off in the first place.)That's a simulator for ya! :)Regards,Joshua Robertson (creator of FS Real Time)3D Softworks Design Studioshttp://www.3dsoftworks.net

[turner112 52]

I've wanted cloud shadows for a LONG time.I don't mind birds at all, but one might argue that cloud shadows are a lot more prevalent than visible birds in regular flight.Cloud shadows can also drastically affect your perception of the land - heck, the first time I remember seeing them, when I was little, I thought they were lakes.I think that cloud shadows would add far more immersion than birds. Of course, the small airfields near me often have deer on the runway... and those pesky ultralights..:)Andrew

[michal 44]

I generaly agree but cloud shadows are in reality very "soft". So far I see no evidence that Microsft can arrange for such soft shadows. If they do that would be great if they don't - it is frankly better with no shadows at all.Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_744F.jpghttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg

[Guest Derek D]

After reading all these posts it occurred to me that FS9 already has a pretty functional shadow system in place (more advanced than the ones cast by objects such as buildings).http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/139886.jpgAs you can see there is some sort of ray-tracing algorithm that casts the shadows from the mountains. Granted I don't know if it actually is ray-tracing, but the effect is believable. I honestly can't imagine why this couldn't be extended to clouds (except possibly for the fact that clouds are textures rather than 3-dimensional objects). Also notice how the shadow can span not only the ground, but the water and the roads.

[Guest tdragger]

<>Trust me, it's not--just a (relatively) simple projection matrix. As you've correctly surmised, though, cloud shadows would require a different technique because (a) they are not solid geometry like terrain is and (:( they'd require more alpha information to get "soft" edges. The former would be easy to "fake" but the latter would mean a somewhat expensive render pass (alpha always is).

[Guest SpectroPro]

>>as they are>>part of the same environment planes live in.>>True, same environment. However if considering priorities ->one should compute probablity of actually encountering the>"things" that are part of the environemnt. Light, clouds, sky,>runways, terrain, etc .. (list is long) are BIG part of the>environment. I would not be surprised if a probablity of>actually seeing any birds on a praticular flight is tiny>(birds may be there but pilots don't necessarily have to>notice them). I have about 300 hours total experience (ok, not>much) and I never saw a single bird from my cockpit (per my>imperfect memory). Ummmm.... As a student pilot in New Hampshire, I was known as the Bird man. I went to an Aviation college. 2 times in under 2 months I flew through a flock of seagulls on take off from Manchester airport. If you have never done this, thank God. If you have done this, and can talk about it....thank God. The first time my instructor grabbed the yoke kicked the rudder and spun the plane (Piper Warrior II) completely around, declared an emergency and we landed right back on the runway. A DC9 had to move out of our way...and that was interesting... We were no more than 300' off the runway when all this occured. I was never so scared in all my life. The sucky part came when we landed and pulled right off into the grass..the engine had died already. Guess who got to clean out the engine and cowling... hint, wasn't the instructor...hehewhen we got back to school an hour later, I landed and pulled up to the fuel pumps. The guy that was taking the plane after me was out there to fuel it up and asked why there were bird feathers, meat and blood all over the wings on both sides, not to mention the cowling and windshield.. I hit my second flock while landing at school a few weeks later... Didn't cause any problems that time, just sputtered the engine a bit. That one happened about 30 feet up and I was just about to flare.. Not a biggie... Again, I got to clean it up..ICK!Where I live now, KHAO (Hamilton, Ohio USA) I see birds at the airport every day. When I flew in the Coast Guard, I saw them every day there as well. All that happened with under 1000 hours. Now with over 3500, I still notice them. Trust me, you hit them once, you will notice them everywhere..... The little things are what make the nuance of the sim better... Birds will be GREAT in mho...

[Guest SpectroPro]

>as this is an alpha build, birds can easily be pulled, along>with many other things.>>If you want to use the "well you might see it while flying">test, what about UFOs? I'm sure some pilot outthere has seen>them, I demand UFOs in the game!! Screw all the important>stuff!Important to you and important to me are 2 very different things. I have no use for cloud shadows. Will they enhance the sim...absolutely... for me, fill the air with what is there... Heck, add bees and butterflies too. 8) Don't make what you want seem any more important than what others want, because it simply isn't. Cloud shadows are not all the important stuff... Again, as was stated, the birds are already there... how are they affecting your stupid clouds. They are not taking up time now. It will however, take time to remove them. If you think it is like 1 line of code, or won't affect other things already programmed in, you have no clue about programming.There are 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary, and those who don't!***************************************Gregory D. Swagler, PresidentFlight Simulator Design UniversityKHAO - Hamilton, Ohio USA (Cincinnati)

[Guest SpectroPro]

>I never said how dare you, I just said there are so many>features and fixes that could be implemented to make it a>better "simulation", talking about moving cars, animals, etc>is just pointless eyecandy that makes it a game rather than a>sim>>very interesting how you "stopped going to the FSX forums", is>this your identical twin responding?Do you understand the word SIM as in SIMULATION.---------------n 1: (computer science) the technique of representing the real world by a computer program; "a simulation should imitate the internal processes and not merely the results of the thing being simulated" [syn: computer simulation] 2: the act of imitating the behavior of some situation or some process by means of something suitably analogous (especially for the purpose of study or personnel training) 3: representation of something (sometimes on a smaller scale)----------------If you don't have birds, animals, people, cars, trains, waves on the ocean, etc..... you do NOT have a simulation...you have a GAME!!!!There are 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary, and those who don't!***************************************Gregory D. Swagler, PresidentFlight Simulator Design UniversityKHAO - Hamilton, Ohio USA (Cincinnati)

[John_Cillis 2,406]

"Trust me, it's not--just a (relatively) simple projection matrix. As you've correctly surmised, though, cloud shadows would require a different technique because (a) they are not solid geometry like terrain is and (:( they'd require more alpha information to get "soft" edges. The former would be easy to "fake" but the latter would mean a somewhat expensive render pass (alpha always is)."I'm late to this discussion, but I have often wondered whether this is possible:If you can "fudge" cloud shadows by simply looking at the type of clouds, , layer thickness, coverage, and time of day/position of the sun in the sky, and project shadows onto the ground that approximate what one would see for a shadow cast by cumulus, stratus, etc. I don't know if I am even articulating that well, but I recall an old DOS sim that had very believable cloud shadows well in advance of today's crop of 3-d cards. I have to believe they used a method similar to what I describe.I am amazed when it comes to these mountain shadows that even on my old box, they never have hit my performance or fps. I tend to fly within 2 hours of dusk/dawn just due to the incredible realism they offer.-John

[Guest tdragger]

Frankly we try to avoid having to do this since there are a few users who will notice and flame us on the boards for not being "as real as it gets".