Clouds/Sky Comparison Reality vs. Simulators

[Afterburner 374]

Hello,

In another thread (about P3D 5.2 and rounded clouds horizon and weird haze), I posted pictures of the current weather that I took in real world 10km southeast from airport UUEE and compared that with how the live weather looks in P3Dv4.5 and MSFS. For P3D, I use ASP3D, Envshade, ASCA for clouds and Envtex for skies. In the said post, I took pictures during dusk.

In this new, separate thread, I want to post pictures that I took just recently at 14:00 local time. In the simulators, I placed the airplane on runway 24R at airport UUEE and directed the camera to the northwest (what I also did from the window). Here are the pictures:

Reality:

 

P3Dv4.5:

 

MSFS:

I would be grateful if someone could post a screenshot from the same spot at the same time in P3D 5.2 (preferably using ASP3D historical weather) with EA enabled to compare the looks of the clouds and sky against reality.

My personal opinion is that while none of the simulators depict the real weather at 100% accuracy (which is to be expected), the clouds in MSFS may have a decent variety, but they look bad, unnatural (as I mentioned in another thread, like white volcanic ashes) and overdramatic in their dark/bright gradient in the given situation (this is on "high" settings). In P3D, the clouds chunks are bigger than in reality, but they have a more natural edge and overall definition than in MSFS. The way I see it is that if the clouds are 2D sprites, they can look better than true 3D clouds. The clouds in MSFS are praised highly by some for their "fantastic" looks, but they can be way off from nature, and they are overrated IMO.

As I said, I would welcome if someone could post a screenshot from v5.2. Also feel free to put your comparisons of weather between reality and different simulators.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Yep. MSFS is way too dramatic but I like it the best. The non-volumetric clouds (with AS  & ASCA) in p3d4 look nice from a distance, but are terrible when flying near or through them. Here's my ranking from best to worst for cloud and sky realism:

1. Stock MSFS. (90 out of 100 points on my totally biased realism scale). Adding REX WeatherForce tends to match METARs better than using MSFS live weather, but the improvement is negligible.

2. P3d 5.2 with Active Sky and EA active (75 points). EA is still a work in progress but the volumetric clouds  are more immersive than in previous released versions of P3d.

3. FSX, P3d4 and XP11 with a good sky/cloud shader add-on (50 points). This option rates well below the two others but for many people it's satisfactory.

4. Stock P3d4 or XP11 (30 points)

5. Stock FSX (10 points).

 

[fppilot 4,355]

1 hour ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Yep. MSFS is way too dramatic but I like it the best.

 

1 hour ago, jabloomf1230 said:

1. Stock MSFS.

LOL!

[coastaldriver 915]

Ok this caught my attention. There are a number of airport sky cams I could use so I did the test. The following are a series of screens from 4 airports in Australia all taken this morning real time. Sim settings only True Sky, EA and real time weather being loaded via P3DWX. Some interesting points. The skycam images in some places did not correlate with the metars that is the metar was worse but the skycam shot looked ok. 

Anyway

This is Bathhurst NSW

The skycam picture

The sim shot

[coastaldriver 915]

This is Alice Springs

SkyCam

 

Sim

[coastaldriver 915]

This Merimbula NSW

SkyCam

Sim

[coastaldriver 915]

The interesting thing is that all locations the skycam image appeared inconsistent with the weather actually reported by metar!. For example Bathurst has no metar only using interpolation with local areas. Alice Springs reported overcast at 11000 ft which the sim showed but not the skycam image and Merimbula was probably the closest to what the sim produced and the skycam. 

Why the difference between the skycams and the metars - I have no idea!

[Doug47 574]

On 6/13/2021 at 7:45 AM, fppilot said:

 

LOL!

Agree as MSFS clouds look a totally blurry hot mess. 

[Afterburner 374]

@coastaldriver Thank you for providing the comparison screenshots!  They show that having realistic weather in the simulator depends on a lot of things, over which 3rd party software don't often have control. It starts with the correct compilation of METARs or with the translation of real-world weather into the text code. At big international airports like UUEE, the METARs tend to be more correct than at places unknown to the world. Then you have the challenge of translating the METARs into correct cloud classifications, visibility and boundaries by the 3rd party weather program. And then you need to have the simulator correctly depicting the visual part of the weather transmitted by the 3rd party software to the simulator. If the METAR reports incorrect data, a program like Active Sky can only transmit to the simulator what it gets (unless you use some sort of combined sources).

[coastaldriver 915]

Afterburner - that is the problem. Another issue is of course that with met reporting automation the equipment cannot measure or record cloud, they only do pressure, temperature and wind they also becoming more common even where there is a control tower, Area or Route Forecasts give the most accurate and correct description of cloud type, amount and distribution along with other weather but they are only issued every 12 hours unless the situation changes rapidly when they may be amended. It would be nice if the weather engines worked off the forecast first then the metars or observations but they don't. Then of course a low level forecast is very different to a high altitude forecast where they use the grid interpolation method for winds and temps and then another chart for weather or cloud then again only significant weather (like thunderstorms or cyclones). 

For a simulation what we get is ok with me! Not sure really what people expect otherwise a bit unrealistic I think. Even for real world flying, what you see is what you get and that could be a big surprise a lot of the time, then again other places have a lot more stable and predictable weather patterns so the change is not all that much. The tropics is like that whereas high latitudes get very variable weather due to system movement and frontal activity. 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

On 6/13/2021 at 9:45 AM, fppilot said:

 

LOL!

In all my years of posting here I have never been more at odds on any issue than with the criticism of the MSFS cloud and sky conditions. The MSFS clouds are almost as good as those in high end video games like RDR 2. And gunslingers don't have to worry about flying through and into them.    

Now if you're whining about incorrect weather in MSFS that's different. Unfortunately, Asobo used a predictive weather model for its live weather, rather than a METAR database. I'd say that the weather matches the real world conditions probably about half the time, maybe less especially in locations where forecasting models don't work well. If you're flying in Darwin, Australia during the dry season, how inaccurate can any weather forecast be? I could hold up my index finger and be right. Today Sunny, tommorow sunny, next week sunny. But much of the globe has far more variable weather. Asobo could have also included weather functions in its SDK. But now it's too late. No one can help them.

[fppilot 4,355]

7 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

In all my years of posting here I have never been more at odds on any issue than with the criticism of the MSFS cloud and sky conditions. The MSFS clouds are almost as good as those in high end video games like RDR 2. And gunslingers don't have to worry about flying through and into them.    

Fine they compare favorably to clouds in other video games.  But IMHO they do not come close to comparing to clouds based on REX textures in previous simulators, especially when compared to experiences in the air in real conditions.

Edited June 15, 2021 by fppilot

[EGLD 436]

but surely you're comparing 2D photographs of clouds against a genuine volumetric cloud simulation?

from a distance the photos will of course look better, because they are photographs?

but volumetric clouds are more realistic and the inevitable direction of simming, and will improve as the months and years pass and 3rd party devs get involved

and also, as with all sims, sometimes they look good, sometimes they look bad - we've all seen MSFS clouds at their best and they look incredible, none of the grid effect we see with EA in P3D, the example used here is one of the worst I've seen

Edited June 15, 2021 by EGLD

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

15 hours ago, fppilot said:

Fine they compare favorably to clouds in other video games.  But IMHO they do not come close to comparing to clouds based on REX textures in previous simulators, especially when compared to experiences in the air in real conditions.

I completely disagree. REX textures are photos of actual clouds and they do look real from far away. But fly either near them or into them and the individual 2D sprites show up breaking the immersion. Volumetric clouds in P3d5, MSFS and DCS World all easily beat the non-3D clouds for realism. MSFS is still the best but I have faith that LM will keep working on EA until they get the clouds right.

Edited June 15, 2021 by jabloomf1230

[GSalden 4,656]

Last week when a friend of mine flew over the Netherlands:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/92hj3poto3kkf25/Foto 15-06-2021 09 47 01.heic?dl=0
 

P3Dv5.2 EA with custom VolumetricClouds.cfg file :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fys3vkubvzdtqor/Foto 13-06-2021 08 42 45.heic?dl=0

- - - 

And several people complained about the dark “line” at the bottom of the clouds and the not realistic lighting ….

The same flight as above when departing from Amsterdam :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b6ym86vl7kz4nd5/Foto 15-06-2021 09 46 48.heic?dl=0

 

In both cases EA + AS where spot on 😎