Shadow and Cloud issues

[Sky Cowboy]

I use SkyMaxxPro, RWC and FSGRW since a long time and I like it very much. There are amazing and wonderfull moods with clouds, shadows etc. during flights. I don't want to do without this addon anymore.

Though I noticed in the last time, maybe since updating to X-Plane 11.50.b... (vulkan), that the cockpit is more or less completely dark if I set in SkyMaxxPro 4.9.2 cloud shadows intensity to 1.0 (s.picture), that is changing after a while, but unstable. Then I noticed especially during turns or other views changing directions sharp geometrical lines respectively areas (s.pictures). If I switch shodows intensity to off it's all "normal", but no shadows animation in the scenery and it's really a pitty. You can see the log.txt and my X-Plane settings in the attachment. The last picture shows a scenery with normal shadows intensity 1.0 setting and it looks beautifull, but it changed during flight as I described above. Furthermore it is to say, that during thunderstorm with lightning the clouds in the near surrounding of lighting desapear and then after 2-3 seconds they are here again.

Log.txt

Edited May 6, 2020 by Sky Cowboy

[sundog]

The "geometrical lines" issue has already been fixed on our end; our next update should resolve that. Meanwhile, the issue seems specific to sunset and sunrise times. Reducing your cloud shadow setting will make it less noticeable when it happens.

When you set cloud shadows all the way up, you are telling SkyMaxx Pro that you want cloud shadows to completely block all light from the sun. So, if a cloud shadow falls over your cockpit, it will go black. Set it to a more realistic setting, like the default of 0.5. That said, I know that the shadows don't affect the terrain as strongly as it should - this is a limitation of X-Plane's HDR pipeline that prevents us from totally blacking out the terrain. Disabling HDR will give you darker shadows if that's the look you're aiming for.

[Sky Cowboy]

Thank you for these informations and it's sound really good! I'll try it with shadows intensity setting and HDR as you suggested.

I've posted two screenshots to demonstrate the behaviour of clouds during thunderstorm with lightning/flashing (s.attachment please). The first screenshot shows a big cumulonimbus cloud with an anvil structure on the left side, then it flashed (unfortunately I didn't get the flash at screenshot) and the anvil cloud disappeared (see the second screenshot) and after about 2-3 seconds the cumulonimbus cloud with an anvil is on the old place again. That's a little bit irritating, because I would expect, that the anvil cloud will more brightly lit, but not disapeare for a relatively long time. Maybe you could improve your amazing software, too.

Regards to Orlando!

Rolf

[sundog]

Hey @Sky Cowboy - I've been working on trying to figure out what happened with your disappearing thunderhead there. I can't seem to get it to happen in any sort of repeatable manner, but I suspect you might have the "never change visible weather" option in Real Weather Connector disabled. Try turning that on, which should make sure the weather around you doesn't suddenly change.

If you do need to reload weather, in response to a third party weather injector spinning up or something, you can use the new "force weather reload" menu option to reload the weather on demand.

[Sky Cowboy]

Hey, here are my settings for RWC and FSGWR (please see the attachment). If I'll turning "never change visible weather" option in Real Weather Connector on, will weather change by FSGWR dynamic download still or will it be all the same anymore ?

3 hours ago, sundog said:

If you do need to reload weather, in response to a third party weather injector spinning up or something, you can use the new "force weather reload" menu option to reload the weather on demand.

What means that really? FSGRW is downloading in dynamic mode every 5 minutes and that's a charm of this software that it'll be automatically. Do you mean to "force weather download" if there are strange effects like disappeared clouds during thunderstorm with flashs? And does it make sense to activate Data exchange of FSGRW (general settings)?

[Cameron]

26 minutes ago, Sky Cowboy said:

What means that really?

Directly from the Real Weather Connector Manual:

The other setting is “Never Change Visible Weather”. This prevents the clouds around you from changing even if updated weather conditions for your location are received. Instead, new weather conditions will only be reflected in new areas that you fly into. This creates a more seamless experience when weather is updated. However, if having the most recent weather conditions reflected in what you see is more important to you, you can un-check this option. When this option is disabled, the clouds around you will fade out and new clouds will fade in if new weather conditions for the world are received.

If “Never Change Visible Weather” is enabled, the clouds around you won’t change even if you manually download a new METAR file through X-Plane’s weather screen. If this is something you do prior to a flight, be sure to download your weather before setting your location.

[Sky Cowboy]

Ok, thank you. I think it's pretty clear now and I'll try it in X-plane.