Just now, birdguy said:

I guess I am easily attracted to shiny objects.

Who's not 😛

1 hour ago, BiologicalNanobot said:

however these videos are misleading - in most games camera will always be on the ground, which means cloud details (noise frequency and amount of transmittance & lighting samples) can be significantly increased without introducing repetition or reducing performance

I totally hear what you're saying

but is this video misleading? Intro  from flight scenes. Looks 100 times better than LM:s implementation

 

Edited March 13, 20215 yr by SAS443

Interesting thread!. While I like TrueSky and EA in P3DV5.1 there are times when it is not quite right - it seems correct about 90% of the time. I also use FSWX as a weather engine not set the clouds or visibility. 

I also think having lived with FSX for over a decade we have become used to an unrealistic sky anyway. Super clear well formed cloud shapes etc which of course the real world is not like at all. As a retired professional pilot I am also a qualified meteorologist one of those most frustrating concepts for pilots to understand is the issue of visibility which is measure by how far you can see not how well you can see. The major problem with any synthetic rendition of the sky and visibility is in the real world there a large number of factors and variables at play shifting the mix of water vapour - dust - smoke particles about in the atmosphere - up and down as well. Basically the more water vapour or dust in the atmosphere the poorer the clarity and vis. The clearest skies I have ever seen were down in the Southern Ocean area where it is very cold but everywhere else it took a major pressure change or the passage of super cold air such as a front to give clear skies but even then only for awhile. 

I think there is room for improvement with EA and TrueSky (such as LM updating the software) but we are never going to reproduce perfectly or sometimes at all the conditions we see daily in different places, the physics and mathematics of working that out would need a super computer to do the calcs!. 

My overall impression and comparison is what I see in the sim and what I see outside if I do a quick comparison on most days is about right!. Except for the sunrise and sunset colouring but that is a different issue again!

Edited March 14, 20215 yr by coastaldriver
spelling correction

1 hour ago, coastaldriver said:

My overall impression and comparison is what I see in the sim and what I see outside if I do a quick comparison on most days is about right!. Except for the sunrise and sunset colouring but that is a different issue again!

Thanks for this.

8 hours ago, coastaldriver said:

I think there is room for improvement with EA and TrueSky (such as LM updating the software) but we are never going to reproduce perfectly or sometimes at all the conditions we see daily in different places, the physics and mathematics of working that out would need a super computer to do the calcs!. 

My overall impression and comparison is what I see in the sim and what I see outside if I do a quick comparison on most days is about right!. Except for the sunrise and sunset colouring but that is a different issue again!

I fully agree that during the day, the depiction can be very convincing (apart from the excessive haze, which should be more flexible depending on reported visibility and humidity). The biggest problems are sunset/dusk and dawn/sunrise, which happen to be my favorite times to fly, that's why I am so critical of the implementation, not really the technology itself. The pixelated EA clouds may be a technical limitation, but the biggest issues are related to imperfect implementation. They really need to have a competent artist adjust the lighting and colors at the different times of day/night to make it right.

Yep I agree. I recently simulated a flight from Rekyavik to Glasgow in an old prop liner. The arrival at Glasgow was bizarre because on sunset the whole area was bathed in a yellow golden glow - In 40 years of aviating I have never seen a sunset like that one - seen some beauties where the sky was altered by smoke or similar blood red almost. I have flown the oceans, deserts and mountains so you see a lot of different skies over the years. The changing sky is the one thing I miss now I no longer fly for a living. Now if they can reproduced the green flash as the sun drops below the horizon after last light - then they have nailed it! You got to do a lot of flying at low level over the oceans to see it - the emerald flash out!

Edited March 14, 20215 yr by coastaldriver
grammatical correction

Speaking of the green flash -- https://www.aaas.org/catching-elusive-green-flash#:~:text=The green flash is a,earth's atmosphere like a prism.

pgde - yep thats it. Curiously only ever used to see it over the Indian Ocean and then rarely. Doing a late nighter with night coming you would wait and look for it - then change procedures to night ops.

One is supposed to see it in Los Angeles when the sun goes below the Pacific. Unfortunately, I never saw it 😞

On 3/12/2021 at 3:47 PM, birdguy said:

Problem solved.  I turned off enhanced atmospherics and reduced the cloud cover to 1/8 cirrus at 38,500ft to 40,200ft and I can see both Capitan Peak and the very top of the crest of the Sacramento Mountains.  My visibility is 100mi.  Turning off enhanced atmospherics also restored the cirrus layer.

Thanks guys.

Noel

Where do you turn EA off?

Pic below is pure P3D v5.2HF1, Summer, midday, weather set to Clear Skies, East of Leeds-Bradford.

Would like to get rid of the haze.

Thanks

T45

 

T45...under controls/world/weather uncheck enhanced atmospherics.

Noel

11 minutes ago, birdguy said:

T45...under controls/world/weather uncheck enhanced atmospherics.

Noel

No good for me and AS.

I'm sorry.  It works for me.  I am certainly no expert or even a novice when it comes to advising people  on flight simulation.  I asked the question my self and on the first page, 9th response, 4th paragraph are the instructions I followed from Marcus.  I jut repeated them here.

I unchecked enhanced atmospherics (EA) and my haze cleared right up.

Noel

Edited August 11, 20214 yr by birdguy

So I flew on a 737-700 today from Chicago to San Juan, PR and later from San Juan to Vieques on a C402... I was specifically paying attention to what things look like outside and comparing it to what I see in all 3 sims. I gotta say - there was A LOT of haze... there were certainly parts we flew that were fairly clear, but there was A LOT of haze above 10,000 on the 737 and a whole ton of haze on the C402 where I was sitting directly behind the pilots - out cruise was 3,500 and it was wicked hazy. So I don't think P3D is THAT far off in depiction of haze. Same with XP. If anything, MSFS seems to have an overtly clear sky a lot of the time. Yes, it's all dependent on conditions and it may have been that today above NA and Carribean things were hazy, but they weren't really that much better than what I see in P3D v5.2. My two cents. 

I think EA looks a bit more realistic. 

In reality there is usually considerable haze, especially when you're looking through many miles of atmosphere.

Dave