Weird cloud shadows/haze and "lines" on terrain

[Wokie042]

Hello,
I figured out that I'm probably getting more help here than on the .org forum (sigh, yet another forum registration) with my problems.

I have recently come across some visual stuff that annoys me and I think it has something to do with SkymaxxPro. Note that I'm using it together with the RWC and FSGRW (1.7).

As I'm missing the right kind of words to describe what's going on, I help myself by making some words up and attaching screenshots, so people see what I'm talking about.

As you can see from the first two screenshots, I get this "haze layer" on the ground. I'm not sure if this is how cloud shadows are depicted or not, but it looks rather weird. Depending on how you look at the situation, it's either "haze fields" or "shadows". Is this how it is supposed to look? It seems as if the ground is actually lightened up in these "haze fields".

Looking at the two last screenshots, I get these weird "shadow lines/areas" on the terrain. It mostly happens where there is uneven terrain like valleys and mountains. This effect is seriously annoying me, since I get that everywhere I'll fly eventually and it ruins the immersion and the looks. They appear, disappear and reappear again in random time intervals.

When I disable cloud shadows these "lines/areas" are gone, but everything is brightly lid by sunlight even under a cloud layer, so that's no solution.

I have the suspicion that both "phenomena" are related to each other, but I have no clue why and where it comes from. 
Unfortunately I can't provide a log for when the screenshots haven been taken, but I try to catch it, next time this happens.

Can anybody help me in my troubleshooting efforts? 

Info:
Win 10
Latest XP stable version
SMP
RWC
FSGRW

[Cameron]

Do you have some other kind of shader plugin installed to control the colors of your environment? Re-Shade, or anything like that?

 

Would also help to know if you're running this in 11.41 or 11.5, and if you're in 11.5, can you try it with OpenGL active instead of Vulkan?

[Wokie042]

2 minutes ago, Cameron said:

Do you have some other kind of shader plugin installed to control the colors of your environment? Re-Shade, or anything like that?

 

Would also help to know if you're running this in 11.41 or 11.5, and if you're in 11.5, can you try it with OpenGL active instead of Vulkan?

I use the latest stable version 11.41r1

I use reshade, yes.

Do you think that this might be the culprit? 

[Cameron]

Just now, Wokie042 said:

Do you think that this might be the culprit? 

Yes, that haze is not something SkyMaxx produces, and your sky looks very bright. My guess is this is the culprit.

The shadows I'm still unsure of in that last screenshot. Perhaps a by-product of re-shade as well.

[Wokie042]

5 minutes ago, Cameron said:

Yes, that haze is not something SkyMaxx produces, and your sky looks very bright. My guess is this is the culprit.

The shadows I'm still unsure of in that last screenshot. Perhaps a by-product of re-shade as well.

I use reshade for some minor colour and sharpness corrections, so I'm not sure why it should "add" haze. 
I will definitely try to switch its effects off, next time I see those things in order to see if it actually has something to do with it.

[JohnMAXX]

The cloud shadows are just contrasting against the hazy terrain, I would turn down the cloud shadow intensity until you get a desired result....

[Wokie042]

2 minutes ago, JohnMAXX said:

The cloud shadows are just contrasting against the hazy terrain, I would turn down the cloud shadow intensity until you get a desired result....

The problem is, that I have to dial down the shadow intensity almost all the way to get "almost" rid of it, which bathes the landscape in sunlight under cloud cover that's at least how I experience it.

Edited April 23, 2020 by Wokie042

[JohnMAXX]

44 minutes ago, Wokie042 said:

The problem is, that I have to dial down the shadow intensity almost all the way to get "almost" rid of it, which bathes the landscape in sunlight under cloud cover that's at least how I experience it.

The only other suggestion I have is permanently tone down the haze in X-Plane.  If you do a web search the resources are out there to accomplish this.

We have no control on how haze is drawn...

[sundog]

The sharp edges where the shadows fall off may be caused by having the "cloud draw area" setting set too low in the SkyMaxx Pro configuration. If you can increase that, it may help.

[Wokie042]

So I did another flight and it happened again.
I attached my log and screenshots.

Screenshot 1: "shadow area/lines" with re-shade
Screenshot 2: "shadow area/lines" without re-shade (as said, it's minor changes. A bit sharpness and color correction)
Screenshot 3: My settings at the point of occurence
Screenshot 4: Turning off cloud shadow instantly removed those "shadow areas/lines"
Screenshot 5: My plugin list. The only lua scripts I have are B2VolumeControl and water_fix_GentleSea. These I first added recently and the problem occurred definitely before too.

I continued the flight with cloud shadows turned completely off and I couldn't see any more of those "shadow areas".

I have no clue what's going on and I hope we somehow can resolve that.

Log.txt

[sundog]

It looks to me as though SkyMaxx Pro is not getting a valid depth buffer for the scene back from X-Plane here for some reason. This would cause it to not be able to properly drape the cloud shadows over the terrain.

Where you you flying when you saw this? I can take a look and see if I can reproduce it.

It's possible the issue is specific to your rendering settings in X-Plane. Try different graphic quality settings (specifically toggling HDR) and different AA settings.

It's also possible that it has to do with custom scenery.

It would also be a good idea to update your video drivers and the version of SMP you are using. The odds are low it will fix this but it's worth a shot.

 

[Wokie042]

The screenshots were taken along the Salmon River Valley in Idaho, north east of Wilson Bar (C48), but as stated earlier, it happens basically everywhere I fly eventually. 
The weather situation in which it happens most is in cloudy hazy weather with reduced visibility (5-15 sm). 

HDR+SSAO was turned on during the screenshot
AA was set to 4x SSAA+FXAA

I'll try if I can see a difference playing around with the settings, even though I don't want to go any lower on my settings to be honest, so even if I could get rid of the issue, it wouldn't be a feasible long term solution for met. Will try it anyway though.

I use selfmade orthotiles using Ortho4XP. 

Edited April 25, 2020 by Wokie042

[sundog]

OK, so I was able to get this to happen by flying in that area, in OpenGL and your graphics settings, with overcast clouds. Definitely something wrong there. I'm looking into it.

[sundog]

Think I found the issue - it seems sensitive to the time of day more than anything else (dusk or dawn makes this more likely to happen), combined with the type of terrain and weather conditions.

I have a fix for the underlying issue ready to go for our next update. In the meantime, if you're encountering this, the best workaround would be to disable cloud shadows, or change the time of day.

It's also more likely to happen with low "cloud draw area" settings, but that's not the case for you.

 

[Wokie042]

Yes, I can relate to the time of the day observation. That seems to be true from what I experienced. 
Good to hear that this is worked on! Looking forward to the update!

[JohnMAXX]

4 hours ago, Wokie042 said:

Yes, I can relate to the time of the day observation. That seems to be true from what I experienced. 
Good to hear that this is worked on! Looking forward to the update!

And thank you for helping us out