19 minutes ago, Kilo60 said:

Is PMDG releasing a cloud add-on?

 

I'm confused to see all this talk of weather in a PMDG Update thread?

It's just the way the conversation evolved. I for one find the conversation super interesting, compared to the guesswork on what the NG3 will lack compared with the NGXu.

2 hours ago, laserit said:

It's hard to accurately predict the weather for a weather man with the very latest up to date, weather radar and simulation software.

This!  Some people forget that it's ultimately a prediction based on data.  No two sets of nimbostratus clouds will look the same.  No software aside from the matrix we might live in is going to 1:1 the clouds at your local airfield in Giggleswick, just outside of North Yorkshire, while simultaneously creating perfect renditions of  clouds over the RV park in Stoner, Colorado.  I just don't understand how people drop $59.99 and act like one of the most complex systems on the planet should match their own loosely based on reality eye/brain expectations.

I bet we could all look at the clouds out my window right now and I would see rabbit, someone would see a giraffe, someone else would be calling a mammatus a cumulonimbus, and chances are if we looked away for 10 minutes no one could remember the percent density of the clouds.  

MSFS are obviously going for a level of realism that feels right.  Feels like I am flying through some clouds I would see today in Denver.  That seems like they only reasonable option a product can provide.

Edited December 29, 20214 yr by TravelRunner404

2 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

I was just reading a Reddit thread about clouds in MSFS vs XP 12.  Here is the actual comparison picture in that Reddit thread with MSFS clouds vs XP 12 clouds (MSFS on the top, XP 12 on the bottom):

Suffice to say, almost everyone in that thread was commenting how much better MSFS's clouds are to XP 12's clouds. Well, this is not the final version from XP 12 but LR has their work cut out for them.

I don't really have an issue with LR's volumetric clouds, but everything else about that screen shot is just...so XP11. The lighting is slightly better than 11, but it still looks really "dead." The biggest letdown is obviously the city scape. I'm anxious to see how the XP12 release goes but I can't see myself ever going back after using MSFS for over a year now. 

37 minutes ago, liamp51 said:

I don't really have an issue with LR's volumetric clouds, but everything else about that screen shot is just...so XP11

LR showed tech in different branches, this one was about early clouds tech, what you are looking at IS x-plane 11 scenery, like the actual same files, they are yet to share any footage of new x-plane 12 scenery (WIP)

4 minutes ago, mtaxp said:

LR showed tech in different branches, this one was about early clouds tech, what you are looking at IS x-plane 11 scenery, like the actual same files, they are yet to share any footage of new x-plane 12 scenery (WIP)

Hmm interesting! I didn't know that. I guess we'll have to see!

4 hours ago, liamp51 said:

but everything else about that screen shot is just...so XP11. The lighting is slightly better than 11, but it still looks really "dead." 

It's hard to nail down the difference but to me all of the enhanced land-class based sceneries are missing what is required to give the user the distinct sense they're seeing the real world.  As the XP users will tell you individual detail in buildings and objects is greater in XP11 than MSFS, but there is that certain something that is missing despite this.  I guess it's down to all of the fine subtle details and coloration you see in MSFS that you don't in the others, even if the others look very 'pretty' for lack of a better word--they look more artificial as it were.

7 minutes ago, Noel said:

It's hard to nail down the difference but to me all of the enhanced land-class based sceneries are missing what is required to give the user the distinct sense they're seeing the real world.  As the XP users will tell you individual detail in buildings and objects is greater in XP11 than MSFS, but there is that certain something that is missing despite this.  I guess it's down to all of the fine subtle details and coloration you see in MSFS that you don't in the others, even if the others look very 'pretty' for lack of a better word--they look more artificial as it were.

This has been a major point in favor of MSFS for me from the first alpha, and I wouldn't limit it to LC-based approaches but also to scenery composed of orthophotos (say, Ortho4XP) merged with some autogen from a different data source (often OSM).

The base advantage of MSFS scenery is it's based on the same data source, i.e. Bing Maps providing the ground imagery and AI buildings and trees being placed thereupon by Blackshark.ai based on the same source. Even if I learned that other sources are used for enrichment, this provides a quality of coherence none of the other sims reaches. 

Kind regards, Michael

6 minutes ago, Noel said:

It's hard to nail down the difference but to me all of the enhanced land-class based sceneries are missing what is required to give the user the distinct sense they're seeing the real world.  As the XP users will tell you individual detail in buildings and objects is greater in XP11 than MSFS, but there is that certain something that is missing despite this.  I guess it's down to all of the fine subtle details and coloration you see in MSFS that you don't in the others, even if the others look very 'pretty' for lack of a better word--they look more artificial as it were.

I think most of it (beyond the lighting) is down to the autogen, particularly autogen in big cities like NYC. If you look closely at the XP screenshot you will notice a lot of identical buildings and building placement. It's the little things like that that our brains notice and break the immersion as a result. This is especially true in very recognizable areas like Manhattan. Our brains have a general idea of how we THINK it should look and when it doesn't, we get pulled out of the experience. 

7 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

I was just reading a Reddit thread about clouds in MSFS vs XP 12.  Here is the actual comparison picture in that Reddit thread with MSFS clouds vs XP 12 clouds (MSFS on the top, XP 12 on the bottom):

Suffice to say, almost everyone in that thread was commenting how much better MSFS's clouds are to XP 12's clouds. Well, this is not the final version from XP 12 but LR has their work cut out for them.

I prefer the clouds in the bottom picture, although tbh I think they are not supposed to be the same kind of clouds.

XP12 is coming out nicely, very well, competition is a good thing.

A.

21 minutes ago, ADamiani said:

I prefer the clouds in the bottom picture, although tbh I think they are not supposed to be the same kind of clouds.

XP12 is coming out nicely, very well, competition is a good thing.

A.

Me too !

I feel like the DCS achievement of clouds/skies is often ignored by the civilian sim community.  I personally think they've got the best current skies of all sims.

 

@Stearmandriverive never used it. But to me these pictures look better than any other sim 

40 minutes ago, micstatic said:

but to me these pictures look better than any other sim 

At least it shows it can be better.  Hopefully Asobo will be up to the task it's a big part of a good FS.

Cool PMDG off topic thread.

Whats next Aerofly or Infinite Flight. They all will be blown away by UE5 clouds.

Edited December 30, 20214 yr by jbdbow1970