Are clouds the best ever now? I'm impressed.

[Noel 4,501]

Just now, March Hare said:

They are 3D and truly volumetric. They develop dynamically according to the weather data, built from voxels, which are 3D units of data (essentially 3D pixels). If they weren't 3D, they wouldn't work. Light scatters and bounces around, across and within them as realistically as possible, with real-world light physics. Again, if they weren't 3D structures, that wouldn't work.

Realistic volumetric cloud rendering is performance heavy, though, and there are indeed limitations with current hardware.

You will see a "low resolution/pixelated" appearance in attempts at volumetric cloud rendering in other games, but usually far worse than you see in MSFS. Asobo are doing wonders with their engine.

Entirely realistic clouds, however, are not within the reach of current real-time rendering.

You might call them "truly volumetric" but I see layers of flat, thickened density, and that seems exceedingly restrictive with what you can do with it.  For entirelly realistic clouds you're not going to depend on this method of rendering but have total freedom to put particle density wherever you need it to be to create any kind of shape with variable density RW clouds manifest.

[MNORM 20]

3 hours ago, Alvega said:

When you load in the airport to start the flight press the cloud button on the top bar and then press metar and check if there is a metar for that airport. MSFS shows no metar if the metar is outdated for a couple of hours and you'll have the wrong weather. If it shows a metar you usually, in my experience, have the correct weather. But also depends on where you are flying. MYNN is one problematic airport and right now, even with the metar showing SCT025 there are no clouds at all. I was getting the correct weather there for the last couple of days though, but now I'm not again. I get the correct wind but no clouds at all.

Exact same experience for me on my last two flights; one in the US the other in Australia.  METARs were accurate with a cross-reference with SkyVector and weather websites.  The weather that was generated in MSFS was everything from the METARS....but with zero clouds.  It's very odd.  

Just now I loaded up a flight in KHTS.  METAR in MSFS and SkyVector is as follows:  17005KT 10SM BKN017 BKN025 BKN042 24/22 A2997 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT E AND S T02440222. What displays in MSFS as I type this is everything in the METAR...but ZERO clouds. I took a screenshot and will post it if I can figure out how lol.

 

...one of the stranger things I've encountered in my 35 years of FS.

Edited July 28, 2022 by MNORM

[MNORM 20]

Took a quick hop up the river to KDWU. AWOS in MSFS reporting Heavy rain and overcast skies.  CAVOK displayed in  MSFS.

 

Cool little airport but they need to fix the double runway displaying.

Edited July 28, 2022 by MNORM

[Alvega 2,124]

47 minutes ago, MNORM said:

Took a quick hop up the river to KDWU. AWOS in MSFS reporting Heavy rain and overcast skies.  CAVOK displayed in  MSFS.

 

Cool little airport but they need to fix the double runway displaying.

 

KDWU is showing clouds for me. And no double runway.

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by Alvega

[Alvega 2,124]

KHTS too. Looks like you have some problem with your sim.

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by Alvega

[Cpt_Piett 4,650]

10 hours ago, KERNEL32 said:

What I think would be interesting is if Asobo could actually confirm that they made no changes to the clouds themselves in SU10, but instead only the layers system.

There isn't anything in the SU10 release notes I've seen that mentions any changes to cloud rendering in terms of quality. IIRC. So either what we're seeing is not there. Or they're constantly tweaking the cloud apperance server-side, without any mention of it. I'm fairly convinced that the cloud appearance is much better in the beta - but I can't say that I'm 100% sure. 

[Cpt_Piett 4,650]

5 hours ago, MNORM said:

The weather that was generated in MSFS was everything from the METARS....but with zero clouds.  It's very odd.  

That's very strange as in my experience, MSFS METARs invariably correspond very well with other sources. I usually cross-reference with METARs from windy.com. 

Edited July 28, 2022 by Cpt_Piett

[March Hare 720]

I'm not in the beta so I can't directly assess cloud improvements, but are improvements referenced here also in terms of the sometimes grainy appearance?

At least one or two people here have perceived improvements to TAA, and of course we now have DLSS, and antialiasing will affect the grainy appearance. Based on knowledge of common volumetric rendering techniques, to create the cloud-like appearance, particularly in cumulus formations, they are no doubt using combinations of noise, most likely Perlin and perhaps blue and even Worley noise. That noise will show up as grain, depending on lighting scenarios and how successfully antialiasing is being applied.

[Cpt_Piett 4,650]

8 minutes ago, March Hare said:

I'm not in the beta so I can't directly assess cloud improvements, but are improvements referenced here also in terms of the sometimes grainy appearance?

At least one or two people here have perceived improvements to TAA, and of course we now have DLSS, and antialiasing will affect the grainy appearance. Based on knowledge of common volumetric rendering techniques, to create the cloud-like appearance, particularly in cumulus formations, they are no doubt using combinations of noise, most likely Perlin and perhaps blue and even Worley noise. That noise will show up as grain, depending on lighting scenarios and how successfully antialiasing is being applied.

My point is that there is invariably less graininess and pixelation. 

I've been using DLSS in quality mode pretty much since I entered into the beta. I've tried on some occasions to change to TAA, but I honestly can't see a huge difference. I mean - the difference is there, especially with ghosting/bluriness on cockpit displays (notably the numbers on the airspeed and altimeter) - but overall for me, the difference is not big enough to stop using DLSS. As I mentioned earlier, for me there's no discernible difference in performance - but GPU usage is around 20% less with DLSS. 

Edited July 28, 2022 by Cpt_Piett

[March Hare 720]

1 minute ago, Cpt_Piett said:

My point is that there is invariably less graininess and pixelation. 

Yes. So that's what I'm saying: if antialiasing has been improved across the board, there will indeed be less graininess because AA smooths out the appearance of the noise algorithms used in the rendering. So your experience suggests AA has indeed generally improved with TAA as well.

[Cpt_Piett 4,650]

13 minutes ago, March Hare said:

Yes. So that's what I'm saying: if antialiasing has been improved across the board, there will indeed be less graininess because AA smooths out the appearance of the noise algorithms used in the rendering. So your experience suggests AA has indeed generally improved with TAA as well.

I see. That could very well be a plausible explanation, as there's no mentioning of altered cloud rendering in the release notes. 

[March Hare 720]

4 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

I see. That could very well be a plausible explanation, as there's no mentioning of altered cloud rendering in the release notes. 

That's why I've drawn this conclusion. It makes sense. The noise algorithms are why we see grain, and AA smooths and softens it (especially temporal antialiasing, I believe).

[MrBitstFlyer 3,875]

2 hours ago, Cpt_Piett said:

I'm fairly convinced that the cloud appearance is much better in the beta - but I can't say that I'm 100% sure. 

There is a huge difference to my eyes.  Cloud types are now equalling what Rex Weatherforce can do.  

[Keto Ketchup 240]

12 hours ago, KERNEL32 said:

I agree, but what is not shown is the plane moving through the clouds. At MSFS release they actually had it down and it looked great. There was a great sense of motion and the lighting inside and through the clouds was very realistic. The clouds had "density" and were opaque. For whatever reason they took that away and changed the lighting too after SU3. As it is now, the clouds are all very "large" and there is no sense of motion. It's like they are just large fog blobs maybe?

A look at this real world video :

 

That's what I was talking about.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Keto Ketchup

[MNORM 20]

7 hours ago, Alvega said:

 

KDWU is showing clouds for me. And no double runway.

 

Wow.  Well...guess I need to load up Steam and reinstall.