Just curious of the opinions on this topic.  Very challenging to make a good poll and I'm certain this one will have its issues, but it's a start.

Cheers

Edited July 10, 20223 yr by Noel

I mean, the sky to a pilot is as the sea to a fish! Of course it should be as realistic as possible. Asobo did a great job making the ground scenery... and yes the clouds had a huge degradation after like SU3 but then things got really bad after implementing METAR IMO.

It seems that amongst the people who have bothered to respond so far, aggregately its not exactly the burning issue of the day.

Edited July 10, 20223 yr by HiFlyer

The MSFS clouds can look fantastic!  And also horrible!  

It depends on a few factors.  How close you are to them (either focal length or distance from the clouds), what type of lighting is present, how many layers are involved.  I've found we really start to get that fake volcanic ash look when multiple layers are present.  I don't know if the engine can't handle it or what but daytime layered clouds turns the atmosphere almost to darkness.

A lot of people are happy with the clouds but honestly they're "almost" no better than what we had in P3D from Active Sky etc.  The MSFS clouds appear to be volumetric puffs overlapping to sort of form a larger structure.  They rarely have defined bases (in real life the cloud bases are frequently very defined), they rarely are truly opaque unless you're right in the middle of a 10k foot layer (in real life even a 500 ft thick layer can be complete whiteout when inside).  There aren't really any cloud types (in real life of course we have stratus, cirrus, altocumulus etc etc), and there are very odd stalactite/stalagmite formations -which don't really occur in real life except near a mesocyclone or large thunderstorm - but only in that local area (Apparently some users think it looks amazing though)

Previous sims (with addons) would provide brighter scenes even with multiple layers, realistic cloud types (still some limitations but better representation to real life), defined cloud bases, total IMC/ "whiteout" even in thin layers.

MSFS cloud/atmospheric rendering essentially caters to people who've never actually flown and don't know what it's like flying through actual clouds.  That being said I would bet that a lot of users prefer how the atmosphere is rendered right now - they think "wow this must be what it's like to fly for real!"  And sometimes, I find myself flying through some clouds that feels just about right - "wow this looks real."  Yes, even I have said it aloud.  The next flight I find an airport where I want to shoot some approaches to mins or just above, and I can see the field easily through the "reduced visibility" cloud puffs I'm flying through ugh...

The weird formations, darker than usual clouds etc honestly aren't that bad.  To me the major downside to MSFS is that lack of a defined cloud base (coming through to the bases on approach irl is just a neat feeling) and no total whiteout while flying through them.  Additionally, not directly related to this topic, but worth mentioning, is the lack of a visibility variable - a very important variable in aviation weather.  I'm just shocked it's not in the sim as an editable value in the custom weather window.

Oh, to answer the question - yes I believe we have seen a downgrade of clouds quality since RTM.  Some other features have been improved however - and I think it's been proven that Asobo is dedicated to the sim - sometimes in ways I wouldn't agree with (Halo Pelican anyone lol) but I'm not paying the bills!

Oh - wanted to add 2 REAL photos.  I was a bit hard on the MSFS cloud engine in that wall of text - but there is one thing MSFS has done very well - it's rain shafts / virga.  I've seen basically rain shafts as per this real life photo that I took a few years ago.  Also the second photo is to illustrate how detailed clouds can be when very close to them.  In this pic I was about 2 miles away and you can see the minute details.  I wish we could somehow have LOD when it comes to being very close to a cloud irl.

rainshafts by Ryan Butterworth, on Flickr

clouddetail by Ryan Butterworth, on Flickr

Edited July 10, 20223 yr by ryanbatc

5 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

It seems that amongst the people who have bothered to respond so far, aggregately its not exactly the burning issue of the day.

Teeni Weeni "N" 😉

Thanks, @Noel! I especially appreciate that you took the trouble to differentiate between the “low resolution clouds” issue (seems to be what many/most here understand to be the MSFS “cloud problem,” but which for example doesn’t really bother me at all) and the “poor/degraded overall cloud depiction/variety” issue.

I’ll be very interested to see the volume/content of responses.

James

Think it might be useful to clarify under what usage. I assumed, and answered for,  usage under Live Weather. I think clouds in presets are unchanged?

To me the lighting and colors are most important followed not far behind by the missing cloud types. It doesnt bother me too much that they are blurry up close but I'd rather have higher resolution clouds generally.  I can deal with pixellation.

BTW- the lighting affects both live and preset weather.

@Noel thanks for starting a survey

Edited July 11, 20223 yr by sightseer

10 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

Think it might be useful to clarify under what usage. I assumed, and answered for,  usage under Live Weather. I think clouds in presets are unchanged?

Good point, and agreed.

I did a flight this afternoon in the 737 from KDCA to KFLL, and I was quite impressed with the clouds in SU10 beta. There was a r/w line of thunderstorms extending in an east/west direction from Wilmington going inland. They were very well depicted in Live Weather. Definite cumulonimbus with tops at about 36000 feet. (I was at FL380). South of ILM, over the Atlantic, NEXRAD showed no storms, and indeed, the sky rapidly cleared in Live Weather with only scattered cumulus far below, but  I could still see the line of storms behind me to the north.

KFLL METAR reported 3 cloud layers with cumulonimbus. Though it (apparently) came from the METAR, there was no abrupt transition. I could see the cell from 40 miles north, and it remained in view during the entire descent. It was an isolated storm with a flat base, high top and a rain shaft. I flew through the rain during the ILS 10L approach, and had zero visibility until flying out of the rain. I did indeed descend through 3 discrete cloud layers at about the altitudes called out in the METAR.

Overall, these were the best thunderstorm depictions I have seen in MSFS in many months. They have obviously made some positive improvements in clouds and METAR blending in SU10 beta. This is very encouraging.

Edited July 11, 20223 yr by JRBarrett

52 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

Think it might be useful to clarify under what usage. I assumed, and answered for,  usage under Live Weather. I think clouds in presets are unchanged?

Good assumption that was my unspecified intention. 

 

1 minute ago, JRBarrett said:

I did a flight this afternoon in the 737 from KDCA to KFLL, and I was quite impressed with the clouds in SU10 beta. There was a r/w line of thunderstorms extending in an east/west direction from Wilmington going inland. They were very well depicted in Live Weather. Definite cumulonimbus with tops at about 36000 feet. (I was at FL380). South of ILM, over the Atlantic, NEXRAD showed no storms, and indeed, the sky rapidly cleared in Live Weather with only scattered cumulus far below, but  I could still see the line of storms behind me to the north.

KFLL METAR reported 3 cloud layers with cumulonimbus. Though it (apparently) came from the METAR, there was no abrupt transition. I could see the cell from 40 miles north, and it remained in view during the entire descent. It was an isolated storm with a flat base, high top and a rain shaft. I flew through the rain during the ILS 10L approach, and had zero visibility until flying out of the rain. I did indeed descent through 3 discrete cloud layers at about the altitudes called out in the METAR.

Overall, these were the best thunderstorm depictions I have seen in MSFS in many months. They have obviously made some positive improvements in clouds and METAR blending in SU10 beta. This is very encouraging.

I answered the poll pre SU10 beta. 

Jim has a very good point here, there is something different in the SU10 beta and for me I would have to say it is a step in a positive direction. Cloud depiction is definitely better. It is good to see they are moving forward on this as I felt WX improvement was kind of stalled.

Let's hope the improvement continues. I am sure there will always be limitations here. We all want incredible looking clouds but also want stellar performance. 

 

 

1 minute ago, michaelray said:

there is something different in the SU10 beta and for me I would have to say it is a step in a positive direction.

Looking forward to screenshots confirming this.

7 minutes ago, michaelray said:

Jim has a very good point here, there is something different in the SU10 beta and for me I would have to say it is a step in a positive direct

I've seen some very good-looking weather...in the distance lately (SU9, not in the SU10 beta),.  What has not improved and if anything has worsened over the past several months is cloud resolution/density, up close, which is where they can really look weak to downright fugly.  Screenshots of distance clouds/weather can look quite good now, but not so for up close.  Perhaps they will use algorithms to improve cloud density the closer you get allowing ones in the distance to remain low resolution as a performance enhancer.

16 minutes ago, michaelray said:

I answered the poll pre SU10 beta. 

Jim has a very good point here, there is something different in the SU10 beta and for me I would have to say it is a step in a positive direction. Cloud depiction is definitely better. It is good to see they are moving forward on this as I felt WX improvement was kind of stalled.

Let's hope the improvement continues. I am sure there will always be limitations here. We all want incredible looking clouds but also want stellar performance. 

 

 

I'm not using the beta so maybe they did improve some things.