In the Seasons topic I mentioned that if XPlane 11 engine can handle dynamic seasons, MSFS certainly can.

Some are still thinking in terms of texture switching like ESP. This is obsolete in modern engines...

So below, is a rough and quick video I recorded showing XEnviro plugin settings...

I went to a region where it snowed yesterday here in Canada and when the flight loaded, the plugin automatically rendered the snow coverage with snow falling, all this from the loaded weather data.

But then using the settings we can override the ground coverage (seasonal effect) using the slider as shown in the video.

Same goes for the Fall season, it turns any ground texture dynamically, to a brownish tone. And then over the fall tones, snow can happen as well...

It works for default generic textures as well as satellite/aerial photography as well. 

All this is in fact a kind of real time Photoshop like hues/tones tweaking... The only thing that is not done (yet) in the plugin, is switching the trees shapes (with and without leaves)

So again, I think MSFS engine being more advanced, could use similar techniques and might go even beyond this trick...

Demo video:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xXjEjQ67KDP8TTKJQYuD6mudoGtUuiH4/view?usp=sharing

Edited November 2, 20196 yr by Claviateur

Thanks for this information.  This is exactly what I and others have proposed for seasonal changes in the new MSFS.

The difficult part of this, in my opinion, lies in determining what the season is in a particular location on a particular date.  The FSX seasons.bgl file contains this data, but is woefully lacking in its accuracy.

A possible solution, albeit not completely accurate, would be to set the seasons based on both date and latitude.  For example, the Fall season would begin on September 1, but it would only apply to latitudes >60 for example. An algorithm would then set this season 5 degs. or so lower every 2 weeks or so.  Not perfect, but maybe better then what we have now.

Dave

If using real world weather... seasons would be automatic and not require any algorithm at all.  There's even weather information that details whether an area has snow on the ground.  To get more accurate, they would have to track ground temperatures and moisture content.  That gets crazy complex.

I don't think it should go as far as ground temperature however, looking at Asobo's attention to details in their world engine, I am not surprised if their implementation of seasons and snow coverage and precipitation % is based on such complex algorithms.

Yet anything that is equal to this plugin for XP (data + slider to finetune based on real life) could be great for the R1 of MSFS.

I am curious how they will handle the photogrammetry trees.  It seems those will be difficult to remove leaves from...then again maybe with seasons on, those trees would turn to autogen? Seems like there would be a solution.

Asobo could do way better IMO.  xEnviro is like one guy coding out of the basement. The 70 dollar price for the plugin is quite unbelievable. It's only part finished and has only one cloud layer.

46 minutes ago, Greazer said:

Asobo could do way better IMO.  xEnviro is like one guy coding out of the basement. The 70 dollar price for the plugin is quite unbelievable. It's only part finished and has only one cloud layer.

And if you are on a 4K monitor it's like 10FPS in the clouds....

1 hour ago, TravelRunner404 said:

I am curious how they will handle the photogrammetry trees.  It seems those will be difficult to remove leaves from...then again maybe with seasons on, those trees would turn to autogen? Seems like there would be a solution.

From what little ive seen those photogrammetry trees are going to be an eyesore!

1 hour ago, Greazer said:

Asobo could do way better IMO.  xEnviro is like one guy coding out of the basement. The 70 dollar price for the plugin is quite unbelievable. It's only part finished and has only one cloud layer.

Shhh..dont let anyone hear you saying that over at the org forum.

On a side note, ya'all need to check the fs2020 thread at the org. Top notch clown fiesta.

Lets keep in mind that summer vs winter with its snow and ice is not the only issue. In India, for instance, the landscape is radically different before and after the monsoon.

 

11 hours ago, Greazer said:

Asobo could do way better IMO.  xEnviro is like one guy coding out of the basement. The 70 dollar price for the plugin is quite unbelievable. It's only part finished and has only one cloud layer.

That one guy did all that 

11 hours ago, Greazer said:

Asobo could do way better IMO.  xEnviro is like one guy coding out of the basement. The 70 dollar price for the plugin is quite unbelievable. It's only part finished and has only one cloud layer.

Pretty insulting don't you think? This one guy, despite having a sim that doesn't give enough access has managed to code some of the best looking clouds in any sim (and not just 2D textures). It's a comparison between a single coder and a team of 100s of people and practically unlimited budget.. Pretty impressive to me

14 hours ago, WarpD said:

If using real world weather... seasons would be automatic and not require any algorithm at all.  There's even weather information that details whether an area has snow on the ground.  To get more accurate, they would have to track ground temperatures and moisture content.  That gets crazy complex.

Theoretically they could use historic weather information to predict a lot of these things. If it has been very cold in a region for days and it has been snowing occasionally and it is still below freezing point today, you can bet there will be still snow now even if no snow has fallen in the past day. They could also use this information to predict whether a lake is frozen over or not. They should even be able to predict whether some tree types should start turning brown based on the historic temperature at a location. This might not be 100% accurate but it should be accurate enough for a flight sim. 

15 hours ago, Greazer said:

Asobo could do way better IMO.  xEnviro is like one guy coding out of the basement. The 70 dollar price for the plugin is quite unbelievable. It's only part finished and has only one cloud layer.

Feel free to offer noise generated clouds (not offered by any of the main civilian flight simulators and currently only from one combat flight simulator) and shader based seasons on your own. We'll be waiting your results since you clearly know better.
It also doesn't have one cloud layer and it would take you a minute by checking most recent screenshots around to see that.

14 hours ago, Baber20 said:

Shhh..dont let anyone hear you saying that over at the org forum.

On a side note, ya'all need to check the fs2020 thread at the org. Top notch clown fiesta.

Awful people are on Avsim too. We don't need your comment just like we don't need the "XP bashing P3D" and "P3D bashing XP" comments.

Edited November 3, 20196 yr by france89

3 hours ago, tonywob said:

Pretty insulting don't you think? This one guy, despite having a sim that doesn't give enough access has managed to code some of the best looking clouds in any sim (and not just 2D textures). It's a comparison between a single coder and a team of 100s of people and practically unlimited budget.. Pretty impressive to me

Pretty insulting indeed. Some people have no appreciation for creative minds . . . no one has been able to offer for X-Plane what X-Enviro does. Are there challenges ahead, sure, but lets applaud what's been achieved so far.

JJ