SkyMaxPro 4 Block clouds, Weird shadows

[TimeTraveler]

Hi Everyone,

Usually I have probs with SMP. I't's a great product. soo..now

Using x-plane 11 with SMP 4 and getting blocky clouds and weird shadows. Tried different settings. When I get to climbing out, clouds seem to come to looking halfway normal. Also, setting values to lowest will get halfway decent clouds but not good. On my system, there shouldn't be any problem as all other versions I've had no real hard problems like this.

photos/screenshots below.

Thanks for any help!!!

Think I should re-install?

[sundog]

So far I can't get this to happen here. Re-installing is worth trying. I'd also put your overcast setting to "HD Cloud Puffs".

We've seen a couple of reports of this come in, so we'll definitely investigate more deeply. Can we get a shot of your rendering settings and your log.txt file? My first suspect would be a conflict with some other plugin, but your log.txt should tell us what we're up against.

 

 

[TimeTraveler]

 

1 minute ago, sundog said:

So far I can't get this to happen here. Re-installing is worth trying. I'd also put your overcast setting to "HD Cloud Puffs".

We've seen a couple of reports of this come in, so we'll definitely investigate more deeply. Can we get a shot of your rendering settings and your log.txt file? My first suspect would be a conflict with some other plugin, but your log.txt should tell us what we're up against.

 

 

OK..still flying. I set to HD and reduced to Soft clouds and things are looking better. Would love to get the higher settings that my puter can handle.  Good to see you're checking in to this. Excellent!!!

OK, will get log text asap---guess I'll end the flight to expedite this along for you peeps!

Thanks again..OH, some more pics

 

[sundog]

Updating  your video driver would also be worth a shot. Offhand, it looks as though our cloud puff shader isn't working at all on your system - that could be due to an installation issue, or a driver issue.

 

[TimeTraveler]

1 minute ago, sundog said:

Updating  your video driver would also be worth a shot. Offhand, it looks as though our cloud puff shader isn't working at all on your system - that could be due to an installation issue, or a driver issue.

 

Here's the log.tx  Pretty sure my driver is fairly new. Updated two weeks ago I believe..or, if I had to revert back to another, the brand new one wasn't working. I'll check, but meanwhile, see what ya can find here.

Grazi!

Log.txt

[sundog]

Going through support tickets, the one other guy I know of who is seeing something similar cleared this up by fiddling with his anti-aliasing settings. Might be worth a shot.

However, looking at your log, I would highly suspect some other plugin is messing with the graphics state of X-Plane 11. You have several add-ons installed, some of which are known to not advertise compatibility with X-Plane 11 yet (such as the IXEG). You've also got a few I've never heard of before. And you've got some custom scenery packages going on. 

My advice would be to remove all add-ons and scenery from your X-Plane installation that are not X-Plane 11-ready, and see if that helps.

 

[Zeke*Earl]

Hi all, i'm also facing the same issue. Here are my screenshots & log.txt

The blocky clouds appeared just after take off from KJFK while it was raining.

 

Log.txt

[TimeTraveler]

18 minutes ago, sundog said:

Updating  your video driver would also be worth a shot. Offhand, it looks as though our cloud puff shader isn't working at all on your system - that could be due to an installation issue, or a driver issue.

 

OK, SunDog, got ot figured out.  I went in and did an Update with xplane 11. When asked if I wanted to change the sky colors back to xplanes, I clicked yes...started xplane, got the SMP control panel up (rather hard when using the ixeg 737, but I have a workaround), then set the setting to my max and bingo! Clouds are looking GREAT! SO, probably same for anyone else that gets this problem

[TimeTraveler]

5 minutes ago, TimeTraveler said:

OK, SunDog, got ot figured out.  I went in and did an Update with xplane 11. When asked if I wanted to change the sky colors back to xplanes, I clicked yes...started xplane, got the SMP control panel up (rather hard when using the ixeg 737, but I have a workaround), then set the setting to my max and bingo! Clouds are looking GREAT! SO, probably same for anyone else that gets this problem

Darn! After taking off, the blocky clouds came back

[sundog]

3 minutes ago, Zeke*Earl said:

Hi all, i'm also facing the same issue. Here are my screenshots & log.txt

The blocky clouds appeared just after take off from KJFK while it was raining.

 

Unrelated - it looks like you're still using RWC 1.0 with SMP4 - you need to update to RWC 1.1.

Try running the X-Plane updater and re-installing SMP4. If that doesn't help, see if flying with a different aircraft, or in an area that does not have custom scenery, helps. That will help us narrow it down. (Both of you are flying the IXEG 737 and don't have much else in common - so a different aircraft would be the first thing I'd try.)

 

[TimeTraveler]

28 minutes ago, sundog said:

Updating  your video driver would also be worth a shot. Offhand, it looks as though our cloud puff shader isn't working at all on your system - that could be due to an installation issue, or a driver issue.

 

Darn, see my previous post...blocks came back

[sundog]

My money's on some conflict with your other add-ons that we need to isolate. Can you try removing them, along with your custom scenery, and see if that helps?

[TimeTraveler]

will give it a shot!

2 minutes ago, sundog said:

My money's on some conflict with your other add-ons that we need to isolate. Can you try removing them, along with your custom scenery, and see if that helps?

 

[Zeke*Earl]

18 minutes ago, sundog said:

Unrelated - it looks like you're still using RWC 1.0 with SMP4 - you need to update to RWC 1.1.

Try running the X-Plane updater and re-installing SMP4. If that doesn't help, see if flying with a different aircraft, or in an area that does not have custom scenery, helps. That will help us narrow it down. (Both of you are flying the IXEG 737 and don't have much else in common - so a different aircraft would be the first thing I'd try.)

 

Ok. Will do.

[TimeTraveler]

53 minutes ago, sundog said:

My money's on some conflict with your other add-ons that we need to isolate. Can you try removing them, along with your custom scenery, and see if that helps?

UPDATE..see next post..............You got it, and so did I. After putting each plugin back in and restarting xplane 11, when I came to x-camera, thats when it hit the fan blades...blocky clouds. Soo, take x-camera out and we're back to normal.  I'll check in with the developer and let him know.  Wondering if I use his beta release it may help, but I shied away from that since it wrecks my system with a major frame hit.  Anyway, its x-camera last general release.

Thanks again for your help

Edited December 18, 2016 by TimeTraveler

[TimeTraveler]

Something wacky is going on. Tried to use the x-camera beta, and the block clouds came back. Took out that plug in and cannot get rid of the block clouds now.  Gonna start from scratch...wow

[Cameron]

Just now, TimeTraveler said:

Something wacky is going on. Tried to use the x-camera beta, and the block clouds came back. Took out that plug in and cannot get rid of the block clouds now.  Gonna start from scratch...wow

Do you have X-Plane 10 around anywhere to try this in? Curious to know if this is possibly even a yet to be figured out issue from Laminar and XP 11.

[TimeTraveler]

53 minutes ago, Zeke*Earl said:

Ok. Will do.

 

3 minutes ago, Cameron said:

Do you have X-Plane 10 around anywhere to try this in? Curious to know if this is possibly even a yet to be figured out issue from Laminar and XP 11.

Will try that...but its almost time to cook sunday dinner here in Suisse..might be in an hour or so depending on the wife :8 But I'll start the xplane 10 now

[ghw]

I'm using X-Plane 10.51 (latest), with SMP4.0 and RWC1.1. My graphics card is GTX 1070 and am using the latest driver (just updated today before installing SMP4.0).

I have the exact same issue as above.

[sundog]

2 minutes ago, ghw said:

I'm using X-Plane 10.51 (latest), with SMP4.0 and RWC1.1. My graphics card is GTX 1070 and am using the latest driver (just updated today before installing SMP4.0).

I have the exact same issue as above.

Please post your log.txt so we can try and find some commonality between the people seeing this. My advice above stands - try temporarily removing other add-ons and custom scenery as a test.

[TimeTraveler]

6 minutes ago, sundog said:

Please post your log.txt so we can try and find some commonality between the people seeing this. My advice above stands - try temporarily removing other add-ons and custom scenery as a test.

ok, reinstalled both SMP and Wconnector and have all other plugins out..changed planes, settings and all is working. After lunch, I'm gonna start replacing plugins to see if it is stable this time.  But try re-installing folks

[ghw]

Hi Frank,

Sorry, I won't have access to my PC for next couple of weeks so I can't extract the logs and won't be able to contribute much. A solution would probably be found by the time I get back to my PC

I just wanted to reply here just to add to statistics on the number of users affected by the same issue.

 

Thanks.

[Zeke*Earl]

1 hour ago, Zeke*Earl said:

Ok. Will do.

Updated to RWC 1.1 & installed the latest Nvidia driver. SMP4 looks phenomenal now

Thank you guys!

[JohnMAXX]

38 minutes ago, Zeke*Earl said:

Updated to RWC 1.1 & installed the latest Nvidia driver. SMP4 looks phenomenal now

Thank you guys!

Glad you have it sorted, please let us know if it comes back and any variables that cause it.......This is something we'd definitely love to nail down absolute...

As it stands we can't reproduce it...

[TimeTraveler]

After re-installing SMP and RW, then re-introducing plugins one by one, inc x-camera, all is working well. Did some plane swapping, cloud draw changing, texture changing etc, and no problems. SMP looks awesome..again    Let's hope this stays this time!