5 hours ago, Krakin said:

Yeah the "hot garbage" comments is heavy on the hyperbole. They just looked a little softer to me and as Tuskin pointed out, it could be the placebo effect at work.

So many folks seem to have forgotten that prior to 2020 2d Rotating Sprites were pretty much the defacto clouds for any flight simulation. P3d did some early experiments with “volumetric clouds”. Not very effective or efficient as I remember.  Can’t imagine a return to Sprites, but some here seem to long for them LoL

-B

Edited June 18, 2025Jun 18 by btacon

1.5.8.0 just dropped https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/sim-update-3-beta-1-5-8-0-release-notes-june-18th-2025/726580?fbclid=IwY2xjawK_0c9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHrWakTKYujkuFlhvL3DX9jkJyoEGdT2UFnBwgOowskPznMBNeJbTiU3ztZt7_aem_ymGbKGvurNlarYQUbE5iiw

 

3 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

Yes, what @Tuskin38 said.  Take a photo of the clouds in SU3, and then revert to SU2 and take a photo of the clouds.  If they really are different, then post both photos in the official SU3 beta forum.

I think the problem is sometimes the data provision/ processing rather than the cloud tech itself which makes it difficult to compare one day’s clouds with the next in the same version, let alone across versions. I do wish they’d have an SU one day just for weather.

26 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

I think the problem is sometimes the data provision/ processing rather than the cloud tech itself which makes it difficult to compare one day’s clouds with the next in the same version, let alone across versions. I do wish they’d have an SU one day just for weather.

It's possible to compare the same day though, even the same hour, between SU3 and SU2, because it's so much faster to install MSFS 2024 now. So whoever is seeing degraded cloud types, they can take a snapshot in SU3 and then note the altitude, direction, exact latitude & longitude (or exact location), leave the beta and uninstall SU3, and then reproduce the exact same altitude/location/direction in SU2 after an install, which is pretty quick. 

4 hours ago, btacon said:

So many folks seem to have forgotten that prior to 2020 2d Rotating Sprites were pretty much the defacto clouds for any flight simulation. P3d did some early experiments with “volumetric clouds”. Not very effective or efficient as I remember.  Can’t imagine a return to Sprites, but some here seem to long for them LoL

-B

Skymaxx pro had volumetric clouds in 2017. 

38 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

Skymaxx pro had volumetric clouds in 2017. 

Nah, they were volumetric-style, not true volumetric. Nice idea at the time though.

Looking at some shots on the official forums, seems current beta clouds haven’t degraded for some users, so I’m guessing it’s more of the same inconsistency that seems baked in to the MSFS experience.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/su3-beta-discussion-thread/721189/1441

Edited June 18, 2025Jun 18 by scotchegg

On 6/17/2025 at 3:53 PM, Farlis said:

Indeed. Computing power is lacking and so far no one has found a programming solution to make it more effective.

I'd say it will take another 15 years. 

Perhaps AI might take a close look at it and figure it out...in about 15 seconds, how to do it with current hardware.  I think it will be WAY LESS than 15 years....or so I hope!  Or maybe some kind of dedicated chip for this type of rendering will come along.  I remain puzzled why there isn't at least a bit better voxel resolution or algorithms to affect LOD similar to how DynamicLOD works on terrain and object detail.  I think the adoration of 2020's pre SU5 cloud depiction is overblown and that sentiment likely was in part driven by the newness of having plausible volumetric clouds that didn't tank performance and I had a way less potent machine then than I do now.   Even then cloud depiction was not hard on the system at all, save the somewhat counterintuitive big increase in GPU load when flying thru very thin clouds which suggests to me those are actually higher voxel density but with less shader effects to exploit hence the hit on the GPU.  To be completely honest despite some improvements in cloud depiction in 2024 it's far and away the weakest part of my experience.  I'm afraid XP12 has the same fundamental problem and while most find them an improvement over 2024 it's very much still in the same ball park.

 

2 hours ago, Noel said:

Perhaps AI might take a close look at it and figure it out

That's not how AI works

4 hours ago, Tuskin38 said:

That's not how AI works

🤣

Is it conceivable that AI will be able to create a method of creating volumetric clouds that improves greatly on what is currently being employed, namely voxel-grid based?

ChatGPT said:

Yes, it is entirely conceivable—and even likely—that AI will help develop new and better methods for creating volumetric clouds that significantly improve upon current voxel-grid based techniques.

Here’s how and why:

---

🔹 Current Limitations of Voxel-Based Volumetric Clouds

Voxel-based methods (used in games like Microsoft Flight Simulator) discretize a 3D space into small cubes and simulate or render clouds using various forms of raymarching and noise functions. These are:

• Computationally expensive, especially at high resolutions.

• Hard to scale dynamically based on distance or importance (Level of Detail).

• Limited in terms of realism for things like internal scattering, dynamic lighting, and fluid motion without significant cost.

---

🔹 Where AI Can Improve or Replace Voxel-Based Methods

1. Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs) or Similar Representations

AI-based representations like NeRFs allow encoding complex 3D structures from sparse data (e.g., images or coarse geometry) and rendering them efficiently. Extensions like Mip-NeRF, PlenOctrees, or Instant-NGP make them real-time capable.

Potential Benefits for Clouds:

• Much more compact representation than voxel grids.

• Ability to interpolate fluid changes and light scattering learned from real-world data.

• Scales better with scene complexity and resolution.

2. Procedural Cloud Generation Guided by AI

AI can learn high-level rules for cloud formation from real satellite or meteorological data and generate realistic, dynamic cloud structures without physically simulating every process.

• Procedural algorithms (like Perlin/Worley noise) can be tuned or replaced by deep generative models (e.g., diffusion models or GANs) trained on atmospheric cloud data.

• AI can dynamically generate cloudscapes that match both aesthetics and real-world dynamics.

3. AI-Assisted Real-Time Raymarching Optimization

Neural networks can predict lighting paths, occlusion, or scattering effects to shortcut expensive raymarching steps. These include:

• Neural approximators for transmittance and phase functions.

• Predictive LOD strategies that estimate where precision is required.

4. Hybrid Systems

AI could help build hybrid volumetric cloud models where only near-field or dynamic clouds are voxel-based, and far-field clouds are represented using neural textures, learned approximations, or 2.5D projections.

---

🔹 Real-World Examples of Emerging Techniques

• NVIDIA’s neural graphics research is already experimenting with hybrid methods for volumetric effects.

• Unity and Unreal Engine are exploring AI-generated textures and cloudscapes for next-gen rendering.

• Scientific simulation communities use AI to compress and interpolate 3D fluid simulations at a fraction of the cost.

---

🔸 Bottom Line

Yes—it’s not only conceivable, it’s likely inevitable. AI can:

• Replace brute-force voxel methods in many scenarios.

• Enhance procedural realism.

• Greatly improve rendering performance while preserving fidelity.

Cloud rendering is particularly ripe for this shift because it has structure, recurrence, and data—all of which are things AI thrives on.

 

 

Edited June 21, 2025Jun 21 by Noel

On 6/19/2025 at 1:23 AM, Rimshot said:

Remembering your post history, this is a negative comment right? 😉

For a computer game they look pretty good to me, at least on par with the competition. Of course they couldn't match any real world pictures, like the one @GoranM posted the other day 😜

Too blurry and too flat.  Looks like FS98, or Minecraft. 😉

I'll stand by this one.  Because I know my work, anywhere.

Edited June 21, 2025Jun 21 by GoranM

2 hours ago, GoranM said:

Because I know my work, anywhere.

So what caused you to suspect MS / Asobo had stolen your TBM work? What were the ‘seeds of suspicion’ you mentioned that looked so much like your work but actually weren’t?

Edited June 21, 2025Jun 21 by scotchegg

9 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

So what caused you to suspect MS / Asobo had stolen your TBM work? What were the ‘seeds of suspicion’ you mentioned that looked so much like your work but actually weren’t?

What caused you to bring my daughter into an argument you had with me about someone I knew who frequented these forums...TWICE?

Maybe if you use full context, and use direct quotes, I'll be more courteous.

But keep going, and we'll see how fast this thread gets locked.

Edited June 21, 2025Jun 21 by GoranM

Can we keep 'the other sim' evangelism/posts/pictures out of this thread, which is SUPPOSED to be about Sim Update 3 Beta 1.5.7.0 please.

Its not tolerated by members in the other forum, but for some reason some of those members feel its OK to do so in this forum. Its really getting boring!

Key members seem to have a knack (perhaps its their goal) to have MSFS posts/threads shut down.

Edited June 21, 2025Jun 21 by c912039

2 minutes ago, c912039 said:

Can we keep 'the other sim' evangelism/posts/pictures out of this thread, which is SUPPOSED to be about Sim Update 3 Beta 1.5.7.0 please.

Its not tolerated by members in the other forum, but for some reason some of those members feel its OK to do so in this forum. Its really getting boring!

I'm all for that.  Perhaps if people stop bringing it up, you won't get us responding to them.