VolumetricClouds.cfg

[mspencer 422]

Hi all,

What are y'all using for VolumetricClouds.cfg?

I've found one online from DrP3D that kills my performance. Whatever I had installed with ASCA before looked absolutely atrocious with warping clouds, highly pixelated messes during daylight transition.

Does anyone have something that's performance friendly and looks alright? Running VC at medium with EA on, v5.3 HF2.

[Garys 209]

This is my cfg

Y'all = 0  // English please.

Edited September 4, 2022 by Garys

[mspencer 422]

1 hour ago, Garys said:

This is my cfg

Y'all = 0  // English please.

Thanks, profoundly helpful.

Please don't let me hold you up from more vital work for the community.

Edited September 4, 2022 by mspencer

[Freq_flyer44 113]

There isn't been much addition since this post tbh. Hopefully somone might have newer cfg since?

 

[mspencer 422]

4 hours ago, Freq_flyer44 said:

There isn't been much addition since this post tbh. Hopefully somone might have newer cfg since?

 

Yeah, I had searched, but hadn't found anything too satisfying. There were some cfgs floating around some streamers and YouTube people, I have one that I found which is better than the last I had installed.

I'm just looking for input from the people that have good performance but also those believable looking clouds. The daylight transition is disturbingly bad with what I had before, specifically with the clouds.

[Freq_flyer44 113]

26 minutes ago, mspencer said:

Yeah, I had searched, but hadn't found anything too satisfying. There were some cfgs floating around some streamers and YouTube people, I have one that I found which is better than the last I had installed.

I'm just looking for input from the people that have good performance but also those believable looking clouds. The daylight transition is disturbingly bad with what I had before, specifically with the clouds.

I use EA Atmospherics but volumetric clouds set to off - with Active sky, the skyscape is very good and great performance to boot. Not sure if thats what looking for I know but worth a try if have AS!

[coastaldriver 915]

mspencer - I was involved in tweaking and doing stuff with the Vol Clouds config before Version 5.3 of P3D came out. I find the latest default config from P3D does the job for me and have not bothered with any changes since. For what is worth I have EA on I use the default clouds config and have the weather/cloud settings to ultra. I use AS to provide the weather engine and most of the default weather or cloud settings recommended by AS. 

I think there are still issues with the fidelity of EA and True Sky in P3D particularly with high level cirrus cloud. Similarly if you below cloud looking up it is fine but on top it can be blocky sometimes and other times is fine. Weather depiction is realistic. 

I think I have made this point ad nauseum and it is not a criticism of users but the inability of a lot of folk to understand the simple fact that cloud depiction relies on the weather and cloud reported by the met people and most people do not understand that what is reported is not necessarily what you see out the window because the met people report the most dominant cloud type first then the next layer etc not every cloud the other issue is they aggregate the cloud amount for reporting purposes (so say the sky is reported as broken but where and how the cloud is distributed may be not a single mass but chunks all over the place). A lot of stations are now automated so there is no cloud reported at all. The most reasonable reports come from the forecasts which are very detailed below F 150 but at high altitudes they are only interested in forecasting the likelihood of significant weather phenomena such as CBs or CAT. The issue is compounded by perception in P3D world and MSFS namely that sim users have become so used to cloud pictures not a real time dynamic sky that they expect the sim sky to be work of art which it is not. None of the weather engines as far as I can tell are capable of translating a complicated forecast into simulator weather or cloud displays! Not sure they even bother but just go on reported cloud. Another instance is the term CAVOK which is interpreted (correctly) as no cloud or weather below 5000 ft correct but you may have a solid overcast at 5200 ft which will not be reported because the criteria for CAVOK has already been met and for landing purposes or any aeroplane that is fine!

After a lifetime as a professional pilot I find True Sky to be spot on most days and not right some others for the reasons I just explained. The issue of EA is another issue and there is no doubt that haze depiction and clear sky depiction still has some issues so those crystal clear skies of high latitude or even high altitude just do not get done properly in P3D or for that matter any other sim. I guess True Sky does Cumulus cloud well, does CB's ok but is poor at producing Stratus layers at any altitude. I do not think that is a True Sky limitation by the way but the way it was implemented or is provided by LM and P3D. 

The solution is to live with what EA and True :Sky gives you or switch back to using cloud art via AS or REX instead of True Sky. It depends. 

[coastaldriver 915]

Look here are three different skies using Vol Clouds and EA with True Sky and AS as the engine. They are all fine in my estimation. They were all reasonable representations of the real weather in the respective areas at the time. 

[Tim_Capps 474]

3 hours ago, coastaldriver said:

Look here

That Cyprus BAC-111 looks familiar 🙂  I'll use them unless I'm flying high with heavy coverage. Unless I missed something, I still get waffling. But I also like ASCA, too. Either one can look fine, depending.