VisualXP has had a few updates since I last posted images, and boy, was I in for a treat!  I have just got AutoOrtho working with XP12, and I am using the lighting and cloud effects in VisualXP.  I have spent a few hours tweaking the settings and I now have this - some of the most realistic lighting and cloud effects I have ever seen in a simulator.

Edited February 27, 20233 yr by MrBitstFlyer

I am speechless. No other SIM has managed to render cirrus clouds as of yet. So now we know that the graphics engine is capable of rendering cirrus clouds. We are in for a treat once they further improve the weather engine. Was this with live weather ?

19 minutes ago, Baber20 said:

I am speechless. No other SIM has managed to render cirrus clouds as of yet. So now we know that the graphics engine is capable of rendering cirrus clouds. We are in for a treat once they further improve the weather engine. Was this with live weather ?

Live weather was down last night, so I used the VisualXP live weather option.  VisualXP allows several presets, one of which is default plus a few others.  This was also using the Enhanced clouds in VisualXP, but I have tweaked them to more closely match default XP12 clouds (I find VisualXP default clouds to look a little overdone with detail).

I was also speechless when I saw the cirrus rendered as good as that!

very nice have to try their live weather option, would be good for LR to inject some cirrus in their live weather also (i think its planned already)

Edited February 27, 20233 yr by UKflyer

Oh boy, that looks GOOD !

The "limitations" introduced by the new cloud technologies seem to be endangered, which is a very good thing 🙂

Looking great! Nice work.

So, does VisualXP offer an autonomous real world weather feed?

How does it work, given that XP12's SDK isn't yet available AFAIK for weather injection?

Doe it inject aloft weather too, up to tropopause and beyond?

Edited February 27, 20233 yr by cagarini

10 hours ago, Baber20 said:

I am speechless. No other SIM has managed to render cirrus clouds as of yet. So now we know that the graphics engine is capable of rendering cirrus clouds. We are in for a treat once they further improve the weather engine. Was this with live weather ?

DCS has the best looking clouds out of all sims, they even have Cirrus clouds!  

Looks really good. Hopefully this will also be achieved with the built-in system sooner than later. 

@MrBitstFlyer just bought this add-on. Could you share your settings please ?

59 minutes ago, GCBraun said:

Looks really good. Hopefully this will also be achieved with the built-in system sooner than later. 

It is the built in weather as far as I can tell... there isn't any other way afaik....

Its also using the sim/private datarefs, so be warned:

https://developer.x-plane.com/2014/05/art-controls-are-an-active-volcano/

https://developer.x-plane.com/2018/08/art-controls-are-for-hacking/

Every few years the org #'#~@~@'s off a good chunk of the community with this and then bans them when they complain.

Edited February 27, 20233 yr by mSparks

5 hours ago, cagarini said:

So, does VisualXP offer an autonomous real world weather feed?

I believe VisualXP's own weather is downloaded from Noaa.  I have only uswed it once when live Weather was down.

1 hour ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

I believe VisualXP's own weather is downloaded from Noaa.  I have only uswed it once when live Weather was down.

Did you find it plausible?

Would be interesting to know how detailed it is, for instance in terms of geopotential height that is now modelled by default in XP12, including the temperature effects.

1 hour ago, Baber20 said:

@MrBitstFlyer just bought this add-on. Could you share your settings please ?

I have only tweaked the settings in two of the tabs.  Firstly the atmosphere tab.  I have left all the settings on auto but changed some of the values to allow a greater range of possible settings.  Note the presets tab - you need to tweak your settings then choose a preset.  A save / load button will then be visible.

I increased the following settings.
Sun_Lighting_Strength_A to 90%
Ambient_Lighting_Strength_A to 50%
Visibility_Range_A to 100%

I lowered Aerosol_Strength_A to 10% as I found the default to be quite strong.

 

The clouds tab has several initial settings for clouds.  'Cloud Forms' column sets the complexity of the clouds with 'cf1' being the most complex and 'cf4' the least complex.  the clouds can be further tuned with the 'other control' Clouds_Details and Cloud_Formation_Changer sliders.

I set cf2 as the base complexity then turned Cloud_Details slider down to 10%
I increased Clouds_Visibilty_Range_A to 60%
Increased Sun_Light_Strength_A to 100% to allow bright highlights to the clouds.
Decreased Clouds_Formation_Changer to 20%

Note the tickbox for Enhanced Clouds - turning this off will give you default XP12 clouds.

Edited February 27, 20233 yr by MrBitstFlyer

5 minutes ago, cagarini said:

Did you find it plausible?

Would be interesting to know how detailed it is, for instance in terms of geopotential height that is now modelled by default in XP12, including the temperature effects.

The highest I ever fly is around 24,000ft in the FlyJSim Q4XP, other than that I'm a low and slow GA guy 🙂  The photos were using VisualXP downloaded weather because Live Weather was down.