1 hour ago, mtaxp said:

I would say the "looking into it" is WIP, lightning is also "looking into it" and ben said he is working on that for a while now. I also recall ben said on the fsilite interview, a year and a half ago that he already did some stuff for clouds, who knows...

 

Yeah, but lighting is slightly different - its a comparatively small contained project to make massive leaps forwards.

Clouds otoh, could consume all of Laminars resources and not end up as good as XEnviro..... Which also require lighting (among many other things) to actually work work well.

21 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Clouds otoh, could consume all of Laminars resources and not end up as good as XEnviro..... Which also require lighting (among many other things) to actually work work well.

The weather system is about more than what the clouds look like. We've had the same 2-dimensional "layered pancake" weather system in XP for a long time with no revision. It needs a ground-up rewrite of the current weather engine.

In the current system, the weather parameters -- cloud type, winds, temperature -- are generated in a circle around the plane at the center. So the "weather" always moves with the plane until a new METAR is loaded. And then, depending on whether there is interpolation or not, you get new weather parameters moving along with the plane at the center of it all.

That's not how real weather works. What's needed is a 3-dimensional weather system, so I can see a storm front or towering CB over there in the distance, with completely different weather parameters than I'm flying in now, and then steer around it, leaving it behind me. It's the only way we'll get discrete CB stacks and storm fronts.

Modern CPU's and GPU's should be able to handle this without too much of a performance hit. We don't need full NOAA modeling, just a move away from aircraft-centric weather generation.

 

1 hour ago, Paraffin said:

So the "weather" always moves with the plane until a new METAR is loaded.

absolutely not true.

1 hour ago, Paraffin said:

you get new weather parameters moving along with the plane at the center of it all.

again, nonesense. with default weather in real weather mode you can see distant thunderstorms on the horizon for example.

1 hour ago, Paraffin said:

That's not how real weather works.

Or xplane weather.

1 hour ago, Paraffin said:

towering CB

drawing TCU and CB are only supported more than about 50nm away, they will stay on any planes with weather radar like the 744. They will just disappear if you get close to them which... sux.

1 hour ago, Paraffin said:

What's needed is a 3-dimensional weather system

The main problem is that its only a 3 dimensional weather system. Its missing the time aspect, which is why it cant support TCU or CB properly - they only last 20 or 30 minutes irl. And why the first cloud demo video I posted is so clunky.

1 hour ago, Paraffin said:

Modern CPU's and GPU's should be able to handle this without too much of a performance hit.

drawing clouds is mainly suited to a GPU task, its also something that no one (except maybe xenviro) has properly solved - truesky and msffs included. They are all crippled in one way or another.

But hey, enhanced cloudscapes is LGPL, if you really think you can do better its sat there begging for you to fork it. Or you could just like.. buy XE...

 

Edited November 27, 20205 yr by mSparks

3 hours ago, Paraffin said:

In the current system, the weather parameters -- cloud type, winds, temperature -- are generated in a circle around the plane at the center. So the "weather" always moves with the plane until a new METAR is loaded. And then, depending on whether there is interpolation or not, you get new weather parameters moving along with the plane at the center of it all.

That's not how real weather works. What's needed is a 3-dimensional weather system, so I can see a storm front or towering CB over there in the distance, with completely different weather parameters than I'm flying in now

That's not how XP weather works. You repeated this concept often, but it's not completely correct.

The feeling of weather being generated around the aircraft is maybe partly due to the cloud drawing system, which is indeed based on different resolutions centered around the aircraft (and which indeed sucks).

And maybe partly to the fact that weather add-ons use the "global weather" method to draw and update weather.

If you instead use the XP native real weather, based on METARs, you'll see that the weather is three dimensional, with discrete cloud systems on the horizon.

Instead, you are partly correct in the sense that phenomena like rain and fog/haze are not visually localized, in that you can't see volumetric patches of low visibility nor rain shafts from afar. That was also true for FSX, yet it sucks not to have them.

Maybe XP weather system requires a total rewrite, more than three dimensionality it's lacking dynamics and many other things.

msparks dismisses my remarks about the loss of fps, but this is a commonly reported complaint about XE. My system is at the higher level. I can confirm that running XE in all its versions resulted in a serious and unacceptable loss of fps.

Edited November 28, 20205 yr by Brian Mackie

16 hours ago, mSparks said:

default clouds:

EC Freeware

XP default clouds dont look that bad, its only when you start watching them you realise how bad they really are.

I was talking more of the performance issue..

1 hour ago, mjrhealth said:

I was talking more of the performance issue..

Not quite clear which issue that is.

Flying with default clouds used to be impossible for me without it killing fps, that was fixed nearly a year ago with vulkan, its just taken a while longer than anyone wanted to fix vulkan.

____

On the what to expect next wrt clouds: I would for example expect the effect seen in the top video to be fixed as a minimum, also give them some movement based on wind.

These two for me are horrific bugs that ruin VFR flight.

(Enhanced Cloudscapes does overcome them so I am happy for now, aiui Xenviro goes even further)

Beyond that though there is a very long feature list that is missing but I dont expect to see soon:

Rain/sleet/snow visualisation

TCU/CB

Better Thermals and visualisation of them for the glider guys

Turbulence off buildings

lenticular clouds and valley fog

Haze

supercells

Kelvin Helmholtz waves

Real clouds a beautiful (cant remember the name of this one)

Plus a long list of others.

Keeping it on topic, I'm still unclear which of those XE has and which it doesnt. e.g. I Know it does something with snow buildup (from known issues) but never seen a video of it.

Edited November 28, 20205 yr by mSparks

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

Not quite clear which issue that is.

Flying with default clouds used to be impossible for me without it killing fps, that was fixed nearly a year ago with vulkan, its just taken a while longer than anyone wanted to fix vulkan.

____

On the what to expect next wrt clouds: I would for example expect the effect seen in the top video to be fixed as a minimum, also give them some movement based on wind.

These two for me are horrific bugs that ruin VFR flight.

(Enhanced Cloudscapes does overcome them so I am happy for now, aiui Xenviro goes even further)

Beyond that though there is a very long feature list that is missing but I dont expect to see soon:

Rain/sleet/snow visualisation

TCU/CB

Better Thermals and visualisation of them for the glider guys

Turbulence off buildings

lenticular clouds and valley fog

Haze

supercells

Kelvin Helmholtz waves

Real clouds a beautiful (cant remember the name of this one)

Plus a long list of others.

Keeping it on topic, I'm still unclear which of those XE has and which it doesnt. e.g. I Know it does something with snow buildup (from known issues) but never seen a video of it.

Had that happen in Mt Read in Tassie, quiet fascinating

6 hours ago, Brian Mackie said:

msparks dismisses my remarks about the loss of fps

For multiple reasons.

Firstly, complaining about fps on windows is like complaining you can't win a Formula 1 race in a 1920s Ford model T. Windows simply isn't targeted at complex realtime simulation.

Max settings with custom reduced tree density, enhanced cloudscapes and heavy AutoATC traffic on Vulkan and my discontinued in 2013 Intel 2700k and a GTX1070 from a few years ago on CentOS 7.5, I get around

Expecting much more from the 5900X and RTX3080 I just ordered.

Secondly, much like Greazer's constant moaning, you say nothing about the settings used, any detail about why and how that fps loss occurs, what hardware you are running on or what other plugins you are running with it, complex realtime simulations are complex beasts,

All I hear is "I didn't win the last F1 season in my 1920 ford model T because I fitted it with a wind turbine", and I'm like, dude, the wind turbine is probably the least of your problems.

Edited November 28, 20205 yr by mSparks

16 hours ago, Murmur said:

That's not how XP weather works. You repeated this concept often, but it's not completely correct.

The feeling of weather being generated around the aircraft is maybe partly due to the cloud drawing system, which is indeed based on different resolutions centered around the aircraft (and which indeed sucks).

Tell me how it can be anything other than the weather centered on the aircraft location and moving along with it, when the sim can load only a single METAR as the "active" weather?

Weather systems you could see on the horizon, different than the current weather you're experiencing, would necessarily require more than one set of METAR data being active in the sim at the same time.

When you fly from one METAR area report to an area where another one is closer, a good weather plugin like ActiveSkyX will mask the change with interpolation, but it's still just a single METAR (or whatever alternative data a weather plugin uses). When the weather changes, it changes behind you as well as ahead. It changes in the area you just flew through. Seeing distant clouds on the horizon that appear to be different than the weather you're flying in, is just smoke and mirrors used by some weather plugins.

BTW, I stand to be corrected on all of this, but lacking more solid evidence I'll continue to believe the sim is loading only one "active" set of weather data at a time, and when the weather changes, the weather shifts all around the plane, including the area you just flew through. 

Edited November 28, 20205 yr by Paraffin

2 hours ago, Paraffin said:

when the sim can load only a single METAR as the "active" weather?

default real weather also seems to use the taf and terrain elevations plus a couple of others.

Also a metar is centered on the airport; how much do you know about meteorology? worth grabbing a book on it, it was my favourite topic of the ppl exams.

7 hours ago, Paraffin said:

Tell me how it can be anything other than the weather centered on the aircraft location and moving along with it, when the sim can load only a single METAR as the "active" weather?

Just use the default XP real weather option (no weather plugins).

It could take some attempts to find the right weather scenario, but you can certainly have different weather based on different METARs for different airports: say dense cloud cover or big cumuli somewhere, and clear skies somewhere else.

Most weather plugins AFAIK use the global weather setting where weather is indeed uniform everywhere.

As I said you're not completely wrong though, the 3 dimensionality is mostly limited to cloud depiction. Things like rain shafts and volumetric fog aren't there. Cloud structures, textures and lighting are extremely poor. Weather is completely static in space and time.

As we often acknowledged, even FS9 weather was much better in most regards.

 

On 11/28/2020 at 10:14 AM, mSparks said:

default real weather also seems to use the taf and terrain elevations plus a couple of others.

Also a metar is centered on the airport; how much do you know about meteorology? worth grabbing a book on it, it was my favourite topic of the ppl exams.

I know how a METAR works, thanks, I used to hire fixed and rotary wing aircraft as a commercial aerial photographer in real life before I retired. I have hundreds of hours in small GA aircraft of both types, mostly helicopters, and the client would only pay when we knew the weather was favorable.

The point here is that XP can only load one set of METAR data at a time, and not several different ones at different distances from the aircraft, which is what it would take for a fully 3-dimensional weather system.

Austin himself is on record somewhere saying that what's really needed is a 3-dimensional weather system.

 

On 11/28/2020 at 3:24 PM, Murmur said:

Just use the default XP real weather option (no weather plugins).

It could take some attempts to find the right weather scenario, but you can certainly have different weather based on different METARs for different airports: say dense cloud cover or big cumuli somewhere, and clear skies somewhere else.

Yes, but you're still missing my point. The sim can only load a single METAR at one time. It's right there in the folder structure. Just one file, that's all XP will access.

A full 3-dimensional weather system would need to load the METAR you were flying from, and also load the METAR you were about to fly into, and show both those things in the world outside the cockpit!

I don't know why this is so hard for people to understand, but it's how the real world environment works that we fly in.

 

1 hour ago, Paraffin said:

The point here is that XP can only load one set of METAR data at a time, and not several different ones at different distances from the aircraft, which is what it would take for a fully 3-dimensional weather system.

thats is 3 dimensional.

Metar/taf gives them a snapshot of the local conditions, winds, dewpoint, cloud bases and any specials like snow etc.

From that they build a pretty accurate 3d weather system for that location.

they also grab metar/tafs from nearby airports.

That gives them the current and future weather for a fairly large region in 3 dimensions, lat, long and altitude.

What it misses is that real weather is constantly changing over time, I suspect they may create the weather as you move over time based on the taf, mainly because Ive done sim flights that ran into a thunderstorm at the time given in the local taf that never actually made it into the metar, but if you stay in one place it doesnt change unless you trigger a new weather download.

1 hour ago, Paraffin said:

it's how the real world environment works that we fly in.

 

Actually its not. METARs are only valid for 30 minutes, so a metar at a destination more than 30 minutes away is worthless to everyone. I think you may mean TAF, but just updating the metar is a fine approximation for simulation, it just needed more gradual transitions which is what I did with my ec fork. (still no fronts but they should come)

On topic

Does xe do rain?

Edited November 30, 20205 yr by mSparks

3 hours ago, Paraffin said:

I know how a METAR works, thanks, I used to hire fixed and rotary wing aircraft as a commercial aerial photographer in real life before I retired. I have hundreds of hours in small GA aircraft of both types, mostly helicopters, and the client would only pay when we knew the weather was favorable.

The point here is that XP can only load one set of METAR data at a time, and not several different ones at different distances from the aircraft, which is what it would take for a fully 3-dimensional weather system.

Austin himself is on record somewhere saying that what's really needed is a 3-dimensional weather system.

 

Yes, but you're still missing my point. The sim can only load a single METAR at one time. It's right there in the folder structure. Just one file, that's all XP will access.

A full 3-dimensional weather system would need to load the METAR you were flying from, and also load the METAR you were about to fly into, and show both those things in the world outside the cockpit!

I don't know why this is so hard for people to understand, but it's how the real world environment works that we fly in.

 

The thing is XPLANe does read all the data, just works on one at a time, and than I believe add on weather systems, will update as you fly, so you do see changing weather, not perfect at least it changes. Sure he did a video on an APP he was playing with??