3 minutes ago, micstatic said:

Bio's tweaks?

These ones https://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=252724#p252724

1 hour ago, threegreen said:

Why would you need to tweak EA shaders though? It's the first time in P3D that one can finally enjoy pretty realistic atmospheric visuals without tweaking the shoot out of the sim. I'll kill myself the second I start to spend hours tweaking again. The only reason this could be worth it for me is if it has a better tweak to correct the dark cockpits.

I agree reference shaders. Main thing I want is inland water textures. Lakes, ponds and streams that don’t look like the deep blue sea.

While I agree with calling it "lipstick on a pig" for volumetric clouds (no matter how good they look, they are not suitable for a flight simulator)...

...I think there are tweaks that could be added to an environment with EA on and VC off that would be beneficial. Most notably editing sky textures at sunrise and sunset. 

3 hours ago, threegreen said:

Why would you need to tweak EA shaders though? It's the first time in P3D that one can finally enjoy pretty realistic atmospheric visuals without tweaking the shoot out of the sim. I'll kill myself the second I start to spend hours tweaking again. The only reason this could be worth it for me is if it has a better tweak to correct the dark cockpits.

No it isnt, the engine is poorly developed, the clouds are too bright, and the ground shaders are too dark, and so is the interior of planes (like VC). The differences are dramatic, the P3Dv5 looks much better with Envshade.

2 hours ago, Patco Lch said:

Main thing I want is inland water textures. Lakes, ponds and streams that don’t look like the deep blue sea.

Have you tried what I suggested here ? :-

Looking for Dirty Water.

Edited January 30, 20224 yr by Sparkrite

5 hours ago, Sparkrite said:

Have you tried what I suggested here ? :-

Looking for Dirty Water.

Actually, no since I have Envtex working now. Thanks anyway.

Edited January 30, 20224 yr by Patco Lch

Well for one - EA looks good now, but there is still way too much haze with EA.

15 hours ago, DChockey08 said:

While I agree with calling it "lipstick on a pig" for volumetric clouds (no matter how good they look, they are not suitable for a flight simulator)...

...I think there are tweaks that could be added to an environment with EA on and VC off that would be beneficial. Most notably editing sky textures at sunrise and sunset. 

You think these clouds are no good? I really think you need to go flying a few times and surf along some cloud tops as these are the best clouds ie SC ive EVER seen in a flight sim. By that i mean realistic with correct structure and edges. Given SC is the predominent cloud type this is a great start to how good they can be made to look. The issues are the clouds still need work the stratus and prmarily the big CU and CB's. The very low res up close edges are still poor, the CB renditions although lit beautifully have poor structure etc.

The Stratocumulus look fantastic though, unlike MSFS noise blobs these actually look like real clouds with soft edges.

MSFS lighting makes its poor clouds look good which is very different from having good clouds. Im quite hopeful with the direction P3D is going as to what it will be capable of but there is a fair journey still ahead rebuidling the platform to a modernly lit sim with accurate looking clouds.

 

Edited January 31, 20224 yr by DEHowie

Clouds are hit and miss for me.
Sometimes they look very convincing, but sometimes it is FS 2002 quality. and ActiveSky seems to be both a savior and culprit.
I just don't understand why it takes so long for LM /Hifi to figure this out. Just call it a beta still?

Edited January 31, 20224 yr by SAS443

10 hours ago, DEHowie said:

You think these clouds are no good? I really think you need to go flying a few times and surf along some cloud tops as these are the best clouds ie SC ive EVER seen in a flight sim. By that i mean realistic with correct structure and edges. Given SC is the predominent cloud type this is a great start to how good they can be made to look. The issues are the clouds still need work the stratus and prmarily the big CU and CB's. The very low res up close edges are still poor, the CB renditions although lit beautifully have poor structure etc.

The Stratocumulus look fantastic though, unlike MSFS noise blobs these actually look like real clouds with soft edges.

MSFS lighting makes its poor clouds look good which is very different from having good clouds. Im quite hopeful with the direction P3D is going as to what it will be capable of but there is a fair journey still ahead rebuidling the platform to a modernly lit sim with accurate looking clouds.

They are beautiful, no doubt about it. 

But, there is no correct depiction of different weather systems, only one weather pattern from your aircraft to the horizon. So you have partly cloud skies in ActiveSky at your location and then fly through an area with thunderstorms and all of a sudden the whole depiction from you to the horizon is thunderstorm. Then once you fly through it's clear skies again; you turn around and there is no thunderstorm behind you. 

That, to me, in a flight simulator (at least for long distance flying) makes them unusable. And that is before we even talk about the incorrect depiction of cloud shadows. 

 

Can we have a moratorium though on developers/organizations throwing out a blank page with the title of a new product/association and teasing it with a blog post with absolutely no content or previews?

I think the "Something big is coming" teased by multiple organizations and developers, that turned out to be essentially a paid YouTube channel, poisoned me on the concept.

I'll consider it once I get some sort of actual content - I haven't seen a preview or a description anywhere yet so everything in this thread appears to be pure speculation.

The developer teased weeks ago that they would have "extremely good news" about ENVSHADE and EA soon. 

I hope this isn't it.  Otherwise, it's just another money grab for something that ENVSHADE should already do.

Dave

2 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

The developer teased weeks ago that they would have "extremely good news" about ENVSHADE and EA soon. 

I hope this isn't it.  Otherwise, it's just another money grab for something that ENVSHADE should already do.

Dave

More flight sim devs need to skip the teasers/previews part and get to the part where they let us down. 

Yes, what's the point of receiving news in my mailbox about the upcoming ENVPLUS, and when I visit the website, all it says is "control visuals like never before" without going into more detail. How lame!

On 1/31/2022 at 10:01 AM, SAS443 said:

Clouds are hit and miss for me.
Sometimes they look very convincing, but sometimes it is FS 2002 quality. and ActiveSky seems to be both a savior and culprit.
I just don't understand why it takes so long for LM /Hifi to figure this out. Just call it a beta still?

I was descending into KLAX the other day in VR through a thick broken layer. The volumetric effect added a lot to the experience. 

But that was about the only time I had a good experience with it in 5.3. On every other occasion the depiction was horrible. Weird puffs of clouds, terrible cloud shadows and the same weather all to the horizon with abrupt changes to clear. In VR, VC have become even worse compared to 5.2 as there is a horrible flicker effect as soon as you move your head just a tiny bit.

The good thing is that you can switch them off and use EA with legacy clouds, so I'm not complaining, but 2 years or so from release this is still a hot mess. Apart from nice visuals looking down on or up to the clouds (in non-VR mode) this is FSX 2006 level at best and AS can only do so much. I'd rather have TOGA release a cloud tweaker than another shader tweaker.