Why did the weather depiction change?

[HiFlyer 9,409]

1 minute ago, Tom_L said:

So not everything that glitters was gold. But it remains to be noted that although apparently not perfect as well, the release version was at least capable of showing skies like in the first tableau.

I'm wondering if the people unhappy with cloud depiction now are mostly from the cohort that largely exchews presets, which still regularly put out stunning views, (and the default live seems not bad to me, either)

[Noel 4,572]

2 hours ago, scotchegg said:

I guarantee you that for many of us, your assertion that natural and increasing ennui with the familiar is a good part of our frustrations is plain wrong.

First, I'm part of the group of "our" when it comes to frustrations so please avoid the you and us piece that is unwarranted.  I've written many posts and comments about cloud depiction over the years very likely more than most here in terms of where to focus to improve that and that everything above ground including the sky is major part of the sim.  We can agree to disagree what "a good part" means.  I'm not saying the majority, I'm saying a significant part.  Did you want to argue over what 'significant' means?  

I will add one more piece to this then check out of this argument feel free to have the last word I won't respond:  the glory being attributed to the pre-SU5/7 cloud depiction is overblown, and that has a lot to do w/ the initial impression point made here.  I flew nearly daily since launch in Aug 2020 and am as familiar as anyone here with the initial cloud depiction--definitely better, but still had major areas for improvement.  The volcanic ash clouds abounded, there were poor quality attempts at true cirrus and other cloud morphologies and those I feel are most a limitation set by performance factors.  I hope some of this is addressed in the next version, as able within the constraints of performance issues.

Edited May 9 by Noel

[Tom_L 558]

5 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

I'm wondering if the people unhappy with cloud depiction now are mostly from the cohort that largely exchews presets, which still regularly put out stunning views, (and the default live seems not bad to me, either)

I don't think so. While Live weather in the release version surely not always provided great visuals, at least it had some variety. And I think that is what most people complaining about Live Weather miss. At least i do. Stunning views are subject to perception and personal preference. And that is the greates flaw in these discussions: they mostly revolve around optics and personal preference. But the main deficit in Live weather is not that it doesn't display visually appealing stratiform cloudscapes any more, but it doesn't display them when the atmospheric conditions warrant it. The omnipresent CuA (Cumulus-Asobus🤣- credit to "jcomm") are "not bad" if the meteorological conditions warrant them. But if they are used exclusively, even if a warmfront calls for a dull, overcast sky, then they are.

[scotchegg 4,272]

7 hours ago, Noel said:

We can agree to disagree what "a good part" means.  I'm not saying the majority, I'm saying a significant part.  Did you want to argue over what 'significant'  had hoped I’d been clear on what I’m disagreeing with. You can claim any portion you like, good, substantial, significant, material, non-zero, whatever, and I’ll disagree with them all. It’s not semantics, the idea that ANY of this is down to boredom and not the actual downgrade is wrong. 

*Sigh* This isn’t about agreeing to disagree on amounts, I’ve already said very clearly I disagree that ANY amount of boredom is playing a part. I understand you’re saying it’s part of it, whether that part is good, significant, substantial, material, or even just non-zero. I’m saying you’re wrong and I disagree. It’s zero. It’s not there. It doesn’t exist. Its value is null. It has absolutely no part here. 

There no middle ground here. Hopefully that’s clear, as I’m out of ideas on how to communicate that.

[HiFlyer 9,409]

19 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

It’s zero. It’s not there. It doesn’t exist. Its value is null. It has absolutely no part here. 

That's strange. Though still a fan of the clouds, even I would admit that they have (even for me) lost some of the original super-wow/Holy-smokes factor, and are now simply (occasionally) wow.

I don't see how that can help but be the case after a few years have passed....

There is after all that well known phrase about the honeymoon being over.

[scotchegg 4,272]

10 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

That's strange. Though still a fan of the clouds, even I would admit that they have (even for me) lost some of the original super-wow/Holy-smokes factor, and are now simply (occasionally) wow.

I don't see how that can help but be the case after a few years have passed....

There is after all that well known phrase about the honeymoon being over.

That’s fine, it’s not the case for me. The wow factor is 100% (as much as I can be trusted to know myself on this) from the big decline of the skies. I only use Live, and they’ve lost their variety and visual realism in most ways. If you use mainly presets seeing the same patterns of clouds, you may be less impressed by those same patterns over time.

If the honeymoon phase were a factor for the Live skies, we wouldn’t all have experienced it around the same time (SU5/7).

 

[HiFlyer 9,409]

26 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

That’s fine, it’s not the case for me. The wow factor is 100% (as much as I can be trusted to know myself on this) from the big decline of the skies. I only use Live, and they’ve lost their variety and visual realism in most ways. If you use mainly presets seeing the same patterns of clouds, you may be less impressed by those same patterns over time.

If the honeymoon phase were a factor for the Live skies, we wouldn’t all have experienced it around the same time (SU5/7).

 

Honestly, even back in the heyday we were going back and forth about the clouds.

We just tend not to remember.

I spent a good hour this morning looking at various threads decrying and praising the weather.

Just like now.

 

[scotchegg 4,272]

24 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

Honestly, even back in the heyday we were going back and forth about the clouds.

We just tend not to remember.

I spent a good hour this morning looking at various threads decrying and praising the weather.

Just like now.

 

You seem curiously keen to police my understanding of my own experience.

Im not suggesting everyone feels the same. I’m not suggesting there has only ever been rapturous praise for MSFS’ clouds from all corners (mine too). I’m not suggesting others, yourself included, are not experiencing a post-honeymoon lack of wow. 

Im telling you the loss of wow I’m experiencing with the skies is a direct and sole result of the drop in quality from SU5/7. It wasn’t a gradual decline in wow, it was a sudden drop which has kept at the same, consistently low level since. It’s a loss that wasn’t accompanied by a loss in any other part of the experience (e.g. scenery, flight dynamics, many of which have increased the wow factor).

I believe the language I’m using is relatively clear and the concept simple. Not sure which part you and Noel are struggling with.

[HiFlyer 9,409]

1 minute ago, scotchegg said:

You seem curiously keen to police my understanding of my own experience.

Not really. I'm more interested in the fact that these subjects seem almost like a watercooler time-waster (to me) while we wait for something interesting to come along. The clouds have always been a pages-long topic, and probably always will be; and while for you the disaffection may have begun with Su5, my memory is that almost from the beginning the clouds have been a subject of debate.

The only thing that ever really changes is which aspect of the cloud depiction the different posters have a problem with, and various theories of how, why and when the "downgrade" happened.

I guess I'm fascinated by the cyclical nature of certain things, here.

 

[KERNEL32 512]

5 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

even I would admit that they have (even for me) lost some of the original super-wow/Holy-smokes factor, and are now simply (occasionally) wow.

I doubted myself some time after all the changes, "have I just gotten used to the clouds and lighting engine?" But after 3,300+ hours in the sim, I can say without a doubt, that from release up to around SU5 we had much better clouds, lighting and cloud variety/immersion. I recall FULL overcast for hundreds of miles in the USA Midwest (and Europe) wintertime that you see sometimes; lines of late summer / early fall thunderstorms in France, Spain, east of Albuquerque that had (YES!) lightning, rain, with cloud tops as one would expect. it was quite incredible. And there were isolated storms too, also lines of T-Storm "cells". I had to divert around them. Did they match up to the real world radar exactly where the thunderstorms actually were? No most of the time not - but it was in the vicinity of where the CAPE index was showing they could be. Good enough for me. The point was that the immersion was there, and storms were happening in the plausible area of where the real world was experiencing them. The live weather was an organic, plausible Worldwide system capable of simulating some really neat weather conditions, all tied together seamlessly without weather "pop in / pop-out" like we see now - or generic cumulus junk everywhere. I wish I could find the older you tube videos that showed the time acceleration of the live weather system in action in a given city..

What we were missing was a METAR reporting system in-game that would give us the conditions that the game was experiencing at the airports. No one knew what conditions to expect at the destination airport, or otherwise. This opened all of the complaints to bring in METAR, but doing this. along with the X-Box integration adjustments (as already said earlier here), ruined the release live weather experience.

I do not think MSFS2024 will have any real improvement to the weather - maybe some fancy overdone tornadoes or something (like rainbows all over), but I guess time will tell. The point is, IMO was the MSFS 2020 release live weather perfect? NO. Not even close. I recall those strange low to the ground cloud banks that were ugly and not realistic looking either. Glad they got rid of those, but not at the expense of everything else we "lost" 😞

[scotchegg 4,272]

16 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

I guess I'm fascinated by the cyclical nature of certain things, here.

Well perhaps you could keep your fascination with the cyclical away from my perceptions of my experience of this issue, as I assure you, I’m aware of the concept and experience it in as many areas as the next guy, and they are not part of this situation for me.

Edit: and I’ll do you the courtesy of not telling you what you’re experiencing / remembering.

Edited May 9 by scotchegg

[Sky_Pilot071 591]

And don't forget NOT to take things too seriously lol.

sp

[scotchegg 4,272]

1 hour ago, Sky_Pilot071 said:

And don't forget NOT to take things too seriously lol.

sp

I do understand that the bee in my bonnet is particularly big on this issue😅

[MarcG 3,067]

I just hope we don't suffer the same obvious regressions in MSFS 2024, Jorg and his management team need to learn from this experience and realise not every design decision they make turns out to be a good one. I'm speaking generally here as well, not just about the clouds, live weather and such, but all aspects of the game that they've changed whereby the outcome isn't as good as it first was.

[KERNEL32 512]

11 hours ago, KERNEL32 said:

I wish I could find the older you tube videos that showed the time acceleration of the live weather system in action in a given city

This is not the same video I remember seeing a long time ago, but here is a similar example of the "organic" and plausible live weather we once had before SU5. Notice how "natural" this thunderstorm is: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KrAq52Drr8Y