P3D_v4.5 Simulation: the sky doesn't have to always be the same

[kiwi_biplane 635]

[Tokitaumelie 164]

Neat, neat.

Happy New Year 🙂

 

[kiwi_biplane 635]

Thanks!

Happy New Year! ✈️☃️

[pedrotrindade 335]

Stunning shots! Happy New Year!

[kiwi_biplane 635]

Thanks!

Happy New Year!  🐅🐯

[rmeier 473]

Great photos! I initially thought these were MSFS...had to re-read your caption several times!

[Alaska738 8,389]

Very nice shots!

[Pugilist2 878]

Beautiful skies in your set!

[kiwi_biplane 635]

2 hours ago, rmeier said:

Great photos! I initially thought these were MSFS...had to re-read your caption several times!

 

1 hour ago, Pugilist2 said:

Beautiful skies in your set!

Thanks! Yes, this is P3D version 4.5. Nowadays, few people use this old version of the simulator.

[johnbow72 2,722]

Wow - Stunning atmosphere mate and with 4.5 ; who woulda have thunk it .

[Rogen 1,087]

9 hours ago, kiwi_biplane said:

Yes, this is P3D version 4.5.

What are you using to get such great looking clouds ?

[kiwi_biplane 635]

8 hours ago, Rogen said:

What are you using to get such great looking clouds ?

 Use a special tweak for middle tier clouds and a separate tweak for cirrus clouds, as well as custom textures of sky and clouds, but tweaks (shader code) can be used with any cloud textures (for example, REX). These tweaks were created by our colleague Limbu, and I only have the sky textures for them. If you still have P3D 4.5, then you can download the ready-made set from the link and try a new landscape, be sure to make backup copies of the "Texture" and "ShadersHLSL" folders in the simulator, and then follow the instructions for installation and use.

[Rogen 1,087]

12 hours ago, kiwi_biplane said:

Use a special tweak for middle tier clouds and a separate tweak for cirrus clouds

Thanks man,

Do you happen to know which shader files are the relevent ones ?

I ask because I already have a number of shader mods in place and don't really want to loose them with a full overwrite.

Also I note the archive includes a P3D version number of 4.5.13, however the final P3D v4.5 version was 4.5.14 which did appear to have different version shader builds appropriate to the version number change.

Anyway I gave it an overview and just copied the Cloud.fx and Stars.fx as a trial, which seems to work pretty well, clouds are much more dramatic and light focused.

Ok, futher testing of the clouds.fx shader shows it is very heavy on the GPU, pretty much maxes out my 1070Ti, which in turn causes of a loss of fps.

Additionally I loose my ground lighting and cloud shadows.

A couple of comparison pics:

With the modified clouds.fx (maxs out my GPU)

The prior version of clouds.fx (~78% GPU use)

So yeah, while the clouds via the modified shader look absolutely great, they do come at the cost of considerable consumption of GPU resources, (maxed out vs. ~78% use for same scene), and have a lack of shadowing and lighting showing through gaps in the cloud cover.

Edited January 6, 2022 by Rogen
Futher testing

[kiwi_biplane 635]

Hello! Thank you for your feedback and analysis.

10 hours ago, Rogen said:

Ok, futher testing of the clouds.fx shader shows it is very heavy on the GPU, pretty much maxes out my 1070Ti, which in turn causes of a loss of fps.

You are right, dynamic lighting of clouds requires additional processing power of the video card and this negatively affects the FPS.

10 hours ago, Rogen said:

Additionally I loose my ground lighting and cloud shadows.

The cloud shadows should be fine.
The density and amount of shadows on the ground depends not only on the amount and density of clouds of all tiers and on the angle of illumination by the sun, but also on the transparency of the atmosphere and sky textures, which also contain information about the brightness of shadow and illuminated areas of the terrain.

Spoiler

 

[jankees 2,052]

Beautiful shots, all of them