4 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

I have to disagree with this. Most of the times I see clouds I cannot see through them.

I'm talking about once the plane gets closer to the clouds. They haven't been right since before SU5. Even the CEO of Asobo agrees...

Edited December 12, 20232 yr by KERNEL32

6 minutes ago, KERNEL32 said:

They haven't been right since before SU5

SU5 was a terrible update in my opinion, lots of things were seriously downgraded.

1 hour ago, KERNEL32 said:

I'm talking about once the plane gets closer to the clouds.

That doesn't change what I said. I fly through clouds all the time.

Lol, I need to watch a youtube video to learn how MSFS looks?

8 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

$70 for a few more cloud types,, LOL 🤪

$70?  Wow, that's expensive, relative to the price of the base sim.

I do think it got better, after having retracted around SU6 or 7 I don't exactly recall.

As i is right now, weather depiction in MFS, all taken into account and that means, by night time too, please me more than in any other of the 3 "scenic" flightsims I use, MFS, P3D XP12. MFS does it really nice and consistently, way better than the other two graphics wise.

It is more in the effects of weather, associated with some of those clouds, that I don't think MFS does a great job, but honestly - and I have to be objective say it - MFS is still better than either P3D or XP, even in terms of the effects, if, again, we take all of the variables into consideration.

Yesterday I didn't have much time to play being an airline pilot at the desktop, so, Ioaded up MFS, FSIPanel and the PMDG 737 (by far my preferred MFS addon aircraft, FSIPanel and FSHUD being my preferred utility addons in MFS), and went searching for nasty weather conditions where they were, all around the World, with initial references obtained from "BadBadWeather"... In less than 2 min for each of the airfields I was placed on different ILS or RNAV approaches, ready to fight the really nasty gusting and rainy weather around there... Well, visually MFS is astounding, but effects wise it's tamed way too much for my liking, and even when I dialed up the turbulence effects to REALISTIC it remained way smoother than I would expect.

In XP12 under similar circumstances the effects leave a LOT to be desired, and I simply avoided using XP12 with such weather scenarios. In P3D + Active Sky, the effects are a bit better, but, contrarily to MFS, as much as AS can do it's Magic for the weather depiction and effects, the "forces" are always kind of "normalized" and applied at the aircraft CoG with not much 6 dof translation, so, even tamed, I still have to prefer the way MFS does it, and even more end up preferring the way Airlinetools with it's rather basic graphics, does it for an Airbus technical desktop simulator ...

 

I'm sure there are improvements that can be made, but sometimes it's worth reminding yourself that in the last generation, which wasn't that long ago, the way we got realistic looking clouds was by using 2d photographs that turned to face you.

The MSFS clouds sure look good, there's no denying it. However, it's just cumulus, cumulus everywhere. Truth is, the cloud rendering in MSFS is severely lacking in diversity. I have however never seen the problems mentioned here about "can see through cloud layer / no real overcast". I'm getting consistent overcast with no visible ground at all, so this aspect is quite satisfying at least.

Somebody mentioned xEnviro for XPlane. It is indeed an expensive addon, and I'd like to see more recent screenshots about it, especially with the new XP12 lighting adjustments which were made in the very recent updates. But it is true that Xplane12 can render more cloud types, although it's also still far from perfect today, with a few rendering problems here and there.

In the end, both sim have beautiful clouds, with strengths and weaknesses. No doubts some word not allowed will attempt to derail the thread, but those of us who use both sims know how things really are.

11 hours ago, KERNEL32 said:

It just seems as if the live weather clouds cannot seem to make up their mind and always give us this "partly cloudy" type of wispy/transparent cloud puffs.

That is clearly wrong. I get non transparent clouds all the time. During my approach yesterday I saw nothing until very close to the ground. So I hear all the time that there would be too transparent clouds and not once I saw them. Do you guys just keep warming-up old issues?

Even Emi's video prooves that you are wrong. How can you say that the cloud in front of the wing would be too transparent?:

Or the following ones: what exactly should be wrong with cloud transparency?

Here you can see a transition into clouds (at the linked time), which does not show the alleged issue at all:

Also the volcanic ash cloud is a recurrent meme, that I have not ever seen personally in my sim since 2 years or so.

1 hour ago, fsiscool said:

That is clearly wrong. I get non transparent clouds all the time. During my approach yesterday I saw nothing until very close to the ground. So I hear all the time that there would be too transparent clouds and not once I saw them. Do you guys just keep warming-up old issues?

Even Emi's video prooves that you are wrong. How can you say that the cloud in front of the wing would be too transparent?:

Or the following ones: what exactly should be wrong with cloud transparency?

Here you can see a transition into clouds (at the linked time), which does not show the alleged issue at all:

Also the volcanic ash cloud is a recurrent meme, that I have not ever seen personally in my sim since 2 years or so.

These clouds would also be improved if they weren’t brown.

Liver weather clouds certainly have improved since the regressions of SU7 due to METAR integration, and of course could improve even more. The MSFS clouds rendering engine as it currently stands in v2020 is certainly capable of representing pre-SU5/SU7 clouds variety and density (as we can see via manually configured weather) so the area that needs more improvements/adjustments is one of data smoothing and integration between METAR and global weather data for live weather.

It's good that Seb acknowledged in the last Q&A that density could be improved in v2020 live weather, but I'm very interested in the details on live/manual weather improvements in v2024. At FSExpo they briefly mentioned improved storms and supercells, actual simulation of tornadoes, etc. That suggests to me their clouds/weather rendering engine will definitely be enhanced to visually depict these, and I'd hope so will their data integration process between METAR and global weather (via Meteoblue & other data providers). Along with performance also being an area they're pushing further ahead on with better/full multithreading and efficient use of memory via thinner client, I hope they don't hold back on the full potential of the "dynamic" digital twin earth they want to represent in the sim (https://youtu.be/VPhScg_FINE?t=1111) , and don't think they will.
 

I never used clouds in P3D (to save on performance with my modest PC), but the few clouds that I passed through over the weekend in MSFS seemed suitably opaque to me. It was a very nice change to be able to fly through clouds again

3 hours ago, abennett said:

These clouds would also be improved if they weren’t brown.

How do you know? Cloud color is almost never "wrong". You would have to know the daytime and the exact weather in Slovenia that day to judge the color. Real clouds can definitively have brown shades.

Look at these beautiful clouds in 5120x1440, a true work of art. Zoom all the way in for best effects. 

Edited December 12, 20232 yr by Drumcode

20 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

No, many more.

Here are all the cloud types in the real world. 

 

Cirrus (Ci) Detached clouds in the form of white, delicate filaments, mostly in patches or narrow bands. ...
Cirrocumulus (Cc) ...
Cirrostratus (Cs) ...
Altocumulus (Ac) ...
Altostratus (As) ...
Nimbostratus (Ns) ...
Cumulus (Cu) ...
Cumulonimbus (Cb)