I have enhanced Atmospherics (True Sky) and Cloud Shadows set active. First I realized them at some ORBX airports: Very large shadow-like squares on concrete ground, barely visible on grass or soil.  My first thought it would be a ORBX thing as their add-ons are not yet free of issues. But then I realized them over water too: Very large squares not easy to see on dark or strong reflecting water. But it are cloud shadows. As soon as I disable Cloud Shadows in P3D, these squares disappear.

What does it mean? IMO, clouds in TrueSky do already produce shadows, but they are badly rendered. Perhaps it is only a wrong setting in the p3d.cfg but I fear it is more than this. Changing cloud resolutions or shadow settings via P3D menu does not have any effect either.

There appears to be some form of generic shadow calculation based on the amount of clouds, so if there's enough clouds, the ground does get darker. However, from what I've seen, there's no rhyme or reason for the shadow outside of that. It doesn't appear to actually follow the sun / any particular cloud. Just creates a completely random dark spot sometimes. Also seen these dark spots be really weird and glitchy, to a point where I'm not even sure it's meant to represent a shadow. They seem super buggy at the moment. 

1 minute ago, Sethos said:

There appears to be some form of generic shadow calculation based on the amount of clouds, so if there's enough clouds, the ground does get darker. However, from what I've seen, there's no rhyme or reason for the shadow outside of that. It doesn't appear to actually follow the sun / any particular cloud. Just creates a completely random dark spot sometimes. Also seen these dark spots be really weird and glitchy, to a point where I'm not even sure it's meant to represent a shadow. They seem super buggy at the moment. 

Not sure if I understood all, but it sounds convincing. Anyway, better to turn off cloud shadows for now.

With the beta Atmospheric feature enabled you do not see clouds shadows but like Seths wrote : with more clouds the terrain appears a little bit darker.

Without it enabled you can see clouds shadows like in V4.

The beta is work in progress ...

Edited April 17, 20206 yr by GSalden

I now did some tests over the weekend, there are definitively cloud shadows visible with "enhanced atmospherics" on, but they look like back in the Nineties, a simple shadow map on the ground with terrible resolution. Check the corresponding thread over in the LM forums for my screenshot on EHAM showing the pixelated edge of cloud shadows. And, it seems that not every cloud casting a shadow...

https://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6312&t=136937

This is really a showstopper. The overall lighting and the atmosphere it produces is way better with "enhanced atmospherics" on, but with those ridiculous shadows, I might not use it... what a pity.