Clouds

[mikeymike 360]

Thanks for the settings, I do notice you amortize clouds. What does this feature do?

and also with cast object shadow.

does it cause any issues at some airports?

thanks 

mike

[coastaldriver 919]

mikeymike - my understanding of amortisation is that it is basically summing the cloud quantity into consolidated groups of cloud instead of scattering little bits of cloud about all over the place. 

I have not noticed any standout issues with the cast object shadows at airports in terms of shadowing or light. I think the way object shadows moves about if you pan the view, or ad daylight changes is as it should as an object moves or you shift perspective relative to the light source. I do find that EA and HDR really shows up good texturing on buildings objects etc at airports and equally not so good textures used on older objects (buildings etc) imported with FSX scenery (many looked fine in FSX but not so good in P3D). 

There are more than a few very good aspects to EA and True Sky - moonlight is one, that is very authentic now complete with shadowing at night. Weather phenomena is also done well by True Sky (snow and rain). Not perfect, will it ever be but compared to the stagnant fixed look of sim environments of the past I could never go back! There is a lot of sophisticated number crunching going on now with P3D particularly with EA and True Sky in ways that I am yet to digest then again most of this is not accessible to the average user either. I expect further improvements and refinement in the next update or release to P3D. 

[kevinfirth 1,395]

6 hours ago, coastaldriver said:

my understanding of amortisation is that it is basically summing the cloud quantity into consolidated groups of cloud instead of scattering little bits of cloud about all over the place. 

Cloud amortisation is a technique to reduce the rendering load of clouds, not changing how they are located.

If you use trackIR or pan an external view, you will see clouds exhibit a sort of pulsing vertical striped look.  This is amortisation in action.

Personally I turned it off as though it increases performance I could not bear to look at the visual degradation.

[f.skywalker 28]

Which options do I have to use in AS when I fly with EA?

There are so many functions.

I think most of the functions do not work when the EA is switched on or I am wrong.

 

Thanks Frank

[coastaldriver 919]

4 hours ago, kevinfirth said:

Cloud amortisation is a technique to reduce the rendering load of clouds, not changing how they are located.

If you use trackIR or pan an external view, you will see clouds exhibit a sort of pulsing vertical striped look.  This is amortisation in action.

Personally I turned it off as though it increases performance I could not bear to look at the visual degradation.

Kevin, thanks a much better explanation. All that rendering takes computing time slowing the speed at which the rendered image is produced. Anyway the whole process of manipulating the RGB scale using smart algorithims and a lot of math to give realistic sky is more than a Phd subject it is a whole industry!

[kand 205]

The biggest weakness with P3d and the implementation of 3d clouds is that you can only have 1 global weather scene. This means you see the same cloud scene in all directions to the horizon with no variation like a true weather system would offer when EA clouds are in use.

If you switch to 2d clouds you get the local wx themes back where you can place different cloud scenes (and wx variables) into local areas so you can fly through wx systems and see them in the distance as opposed the x minute fading scene refresh. 

Retrograde step- hopeful 5.3 will sort this but not expecting much, and even if it does the 3rd party interest in P3d is diminishing as the investment return now sits in the other sim. 

[shermank 170]

6 hours ago, kevinfirth said:

Cloud amortisation is a technique to reduce the rendering load of clouds, not changing how they are located.

If you use trackIR or pan an external view, you will see clouds exhibit a sort of pulsing vertical striped look.  This is amortisation in action.

Personally I turned it off as though it increases performance I could not bear to look at the visual degradation.

I wondered what those stripes were. Thanks for the info. I turned off amortization, and things are much better...

I wonder if I turn off amortization of my mortgage, will things also look better>  :-)

Sherm

[mikeymike 360]

Wondering if you guys are using G saldens tweaked vol cfg?

or your own?

or default?

trying to get a softer looking cloud around edges.

thanks 

mike

[blaunarwal 432]

28 minutes ago, mikeymike said:

Wondering if you guys are using G saldens tweaked vol cfg?

I used it once but I think Active Sky changes it, since you have to check an option to not change it. I once made some changes myself to make it smoother, but actually I'm very satisfied how Active Sky does it.

Dan

[sonny147 579]

On 8/20/2021 at 7:03 PM, Bunkie said:

I'll admit to being totally confused as to weather settings in P3D V5.

I have FSGRW, Rex Skyforce, and Active Sky.  Of course, Skyforce has been relegated to providing cloud textures only.  Between FSGRW and Active Sky, I find Active Sky is simply prettier to look at, FSGRW works fine, just doesn't somehow "populate" the sky the same way Active Sky does.

Now my problem with all the various WX apps - it used to be simple.  Purchase an add on weather program of your choice, and voila!  The weather in the sim matches the weather outside... but now with V5 we have this EA thing and volumetric clouds.  I can't figure out how to use EA/Volumetric clouds, as all I want is the sim to match real-world weather conditions...  It seems with EA/Volumetric clouds I can play with the sliders and make the weather pretty much whatever I want it to be right now - regardless of what the weather engine is putting in...  

Where should my sliders be to keep the weather as realistic as possible, yet to use the enhanced visuals provided by EA/Volumetric clouds ?

In the the end, I just keep it turned off... 😞

 

+1

[shermank 170]

3 hours ago, sonny147 said:

+1

This has been one of the most interesting threads in the entire forum. There has been a lot of solid information. But, one take away to remember is that one size DOES NOT fit all. W all strive for accuracy, but from what I have been reading, even with the best of today's weather engine technology, that is not possible. All we can do is try to get as close as we can to a sense of reality. It also boils down to a matter of taste. So, whatever basic weather engine you use, and whatever shader programs you use, experiment until you find the setting you like best. My guess is that once you have done that, you will be looking for something"better" within days. It is the curse of the flight sim hobbyist.....

 

Sherm

[Boeing or not going 578]

There were volumetricclouds.cfg edits for previous p3d v5 versions that worked great are there any now, for EA on but amortised off?

[coastaldriver 919]

My understanding via some folk who actually understand this True Sky world better than me is that the earlier vol cfg edits were effectively made unecessary by the LM default config that came with 5.2 HF1 which is not bad at all. I now only use the LM standard volumetric cloud config. 

[Dirk98 354]

20 hours ago, kand said:

The biggest weakness with P3d and the implementation of 3d clouds is that you can only have 1 global weather scene. This means you see the same cloud scene in all directions to the horizon with no variation like a true weather system would offer when EA clouds are in use.

If you switch to 2d clouds you get the local wx themes back where you can place different cloud scenes (and wx variables) into local areas so you can fly through wx systems and see them in the distance as opposed the x minute fading scene refresh. 

Retrograde step- hopeful 5.3 will sort this but not expecting much, and even if it does the 3rd party interest in P3d is diminishing as the investment return now sits in the other sim. 

I think this is what I saw and referred to when I disabled Volumetric Clouds.

Thanks

[Afterburner 374]

On 8/20/2021 at 3:44 PM, Ray Proudfoot said:

@rob0203, tried EA / HDR twice now and can’t live with it. The blueish haze looks false. Much how it looked in the days when you took a photo at altitude in an aircraft with film. The human eye can adjust for that.

EA and HDR OFF for this user.

I respectfully disagree. The blueish haze looks real, as seen on a real-world photo that I have personally taken after departing from the airport UUDD in June (you can see that airport):

The human eye can adapt, but it still sees the haze blueish. Also note the haze itself: Although on the ground it looked like the visibility is distant, you see significant haze when you climb up. As I once wrote, having flown FS2004 / FSX / P3D v1-4 for a long time with mostly unlimited visibility (especially without weather programs), most users have adopted to an unrealistic representation of the atmosphere at high altitude, where in looks like distant objects are just within reach due to a lack of haze.