Clouds Not Displaying Correctly

[Geoff Akehurst]

I am assumming this is the correct place to seek advice.

Based on video reviews I decided to purchase Skymax Pro but find the overcast clouds not quite correct. I was disappointed to learn the rain effects are not supported by Vulcan so I have turned it off.

My windows PC is powerful so I run x-plane 11.5 with most settings quite high.

With the default program settings I am finding that if I set the clouds to overcast with a good vertical depth, as I fly out of the cloud it completely disappears so all the ground is visible. I was expecting as seen in the review videos, to climb out of the cloud and look down on the cloud textures. I have no other add-ons installed that would conflict with the software. Also, I am not using the connection to live weather as all I want is better clouds and precipitation. I tried the same with Vulcan turned on but here when I rise above the overcast clouds I just see white as if I am looking down on a flat featureless piece of white paper.

Anyone have an idea of what might be going wrong? Appreciate any assistance.

I can send a log file if I know which one to send.
 

[sundog]

What  option did you select in your overcast cloud settings in SMP? If it's solid or broken procedural, try switching to one of the other choices instead. If that's it, I think this is a known issue that we've already fixed for our next release.

[Geoff Akehurst]

I decided to re-install the program and now it works fine and looks good. Quite a relief.  One thing I notice is when overcast conditions are set, the sun still throws shadows on everything.  Is this a bug or rather something with X-Plane?

[sundog]

21 hours ago, Geoff Akehurst said:

I decided to re-install the program and now it works fine and looks good. Quite a relief.  One thing I notice is when overcast conditions are set, the sun still throws shadows on everything.  Is this a bug or rather something with X-Plane?

Are you referring to shadows of the clouds, or of other objects? If it's clouds, then it's our fault and I'll look into it.

[Geoff Akehurst]

Sorry, should have been clearer. The shadows occur on the ground objects so buildings and aircraft. Probably something adrift on X-Plane rather than Skymax.

[rawdmon]

On 12/5/2020 at 1:45 PM, Geoff Akehurst said:

Sorry, should have been clearer. The shadows occur on the ground objects so buildings and aircraft. Probably something adrift on X-Plane rather than Skymax.

Default scenery or Ortho or TrueEarth? If it's satellite imagery the shadows you're seeing may just be included in that. 

[KMKaine]

I asume that Geoff means that when there is overcast, you still see shadows on the ground (from the plane) as if it where a sunny day. I have noticed this too. X-plane default clouds seem to better emulate the overcast lighting in that regard.

[sundog]

That could be. SkyMaxx Pro has to completely disable X-Plane's built in cloud system so it can replace it with its own, but this probably has the side effect of X-Plane thinking there are no overcast clouds being drawn when in fact we're drawing them ourselves. I don't think there's any way for us to tell X-Plane otherwise in their current add-on interface.