crokee

Thank you I will try

The effect that you see in the first video i have uploaded is the default contrail, the one after that is the final form of the effect I had been working on, basically did some changes for instance the effect particle is bigger and expand larger and is being emitted at speeds between 20-80 meters per second towards the opposite direction in order to simulate the passing through of the cloud, also changed the color of the particles most suitable for dusk and dawn shadowing. It seems that you can put as many as 5-6 different sources of smoke. The effects are named differently so the contrail stays as it is. What happens here is that I have added [smokesystem] line to the PMDG's cfg and with a bit trial and error I have managed to place the source of the effect just front left of the aircraft, so you can see the cloud closing the window passing about 200 kn, when you look from the wing perspective it is more realistic of course. At the moment we are trying to make it so that FSX knows when to trigger the effect as realistically as possible instead of activating the smoke-system every time you fly into the clouds. Well, I'm also an ASN user. And I'm very happy with ASN. It's truly a game changer for me and my flight simulation experience. Weather has never been so realistic. It is true, that when flying through clouds visibility will fade in and out, which is a nice feature, that takes advantage of the fact, that ASN nows exactly when, and when not, your aircraft is inside a cloud. But the effect that you guys have created here as seen in the video clips would be very nice on top of what ASN does. What I see in the videos really recreates a sence and feel of diving in and out of clouds. I'm impressed, and in my humble point of view it is not what ASN does - at least not on my computer. Just to clarify to me what is happening???? Are you triggering the almost never used smoke effect - or is it the contrail effect that is used? Because I would really not like to miss my regular contrail effect. I agree that would look much better if the visibility could be reduced to couple of meters as it happens in ASN, because the default or any other weather engines do not provide much contact with clouds, as you can pass through the cloud only one time since it is 2d, I bet it would look much better with ASN. perhaps you can try it and post a video, I would like to see how it looks.

Hi thanks for your suggestion: I think it is possible to do that in multiple ways, first would be to establish a detailed connection between the aircraft and the clouds but that would also depend on how often the plane actually goes thorough cloud particles in FSX which isn't that many times. in order to get that series of getting in and out of clouds engulfing the plane is the effect i believe you have in mind which was exactly what I had started with and i think we can also get that by directly editing the Effect files so that it is emitted intermittently and between certain speeds and that is easy enough to do. I will post my current effects later for those who want to engage it manually until an FSX genius solves our problems

Thank you for this, I have created one as you've instructed but how do you cite the xml in panels cfg, I am not familiar with this

Thanks mate; and yeah it unburdens the editing process for the video makers out there, I don't think it eats too much frame because the lifetime of the particles are maximum 1 second so they don't hang around much they fade away although I haven't done a thorough FPS performance comparison. The effect is also visible form the cockpit so no immersion loss there if that's what you mean, but either case i think FSX need a dynamic cloud effects for immersion, what do you think? Thank you

Ok I have worked on the contrail effects "a bit" more and here is the result you can clearly see that the wing is getting in and out of the cloud, though the same mechanism [sMOKESYSTEM] is in charge I wish I could understand how it all worked, thanks for your help though.

well, i did managed to use the smoke system to simulate the cloud effect by re-positioning the contrail. now to make this automated and part of the clouds, anyone who know how?

Yeah mate I see what you mean

Why, I must have seen this somewhere, been looking for it for a while but I ll need to check youtube first Like in this video, you can see that the clouds just rapidly flows by wings and i think we can get close to this effect by using default contrails placed in front when passing through the clouds

I have't tried Active Sky yet, but turning the visibility down is (i think) how other weather engines deal with this cloud transitions as well I am talking about an effect while you pass through the clouds you look to your left in the cockpit you see the cloud passing by with a speed equal to the plane's. When in outside view you can see that the contrails smoke is somewhat 3d, or at least it gives that sort of impression . Does ASN give that effect in particular?

So you know how there is no cloud effect in FSX, when you fly through the clouds since they are not 3D they don't give any realistic experience. So I was thinking the exact thing the other day and I realized that the default jet contrails effect in fsx would be a great cloud effect if "somehow" by being positioned at the front left and right of the aircraft and if somehow it was possible to turn it on(I am willing to turn it on [like smoke system] as you fly through the cloud. The most challenging thing would be synchronizing the "flying into the clouds" and the actual screening of the effect i am guessing, so could it be automated, is it possible for FSX to bring the smoke effect as the plane flies through the clouds? On the other hand, positioning the contrail effect to the front of the aircraft shouldn't be that hard- thinking this could be possible.

well if PMDG had provided a Manuel like they did for 747x I guess this wouldn't be discussed right now.But instead of a Manuel,if you gather required information about MD 11 you could do the planning as realistically as possible.Fist you need to know flight plan fuel, the fuel you need to keep her on route,say you'll fly between KLAX and JFK, you'll need to find out the total length in NM.IF it's 2500NM, this number would encounter to the fuel you need(its in fact the trip time) of course altitude also effects it.then comes the MIN LANDING FUEL the fuel you have to have at the time of arrival, plus ALTERNATE Fuel and then Contingency fuel ( unexpected weather or holds) so far;MİN.LAN.FuelALT. fuelCon.fuel+ flight plan fuel + taxi fuel then add your ZFW(MD 11 weight+Pax weight+cargo) that should give you the gross take off weight .the only thing you may not now is the trip length that you can figure out by MSFS'S default flight planning file the plan you want open the nav log it will tell you the total length, it will also tell you how much fuel needed but don't believe that its not accurate