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Gildahl

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Posts posted by Gildahl

  1. 2 hours ago, Daikan said:

    I don't have v5 (yet) but using my Oculus CV1 and SMP v4 I cannot reproduce any of the issues with ground fog you are describing.

    But maybe you are using the word "fog" wrongly. FYI: "fog" is what X-Plane only applies BELOW the bottom cloud layer and is controlled by X-Plane's "visibility" setting i.e. without at last one cloud layer there will be no fog at all. Additionally, X-Plane uses a "haze" model which is still somewhat influenced by the "visibility" value but has no significant impact on ground visibility under ~10km (e.g. if you set visibility to the absolute minimum possible and no cloud layers you will still be able to see the ground from miles away). AFAIK the way "fog" and "haze" are represented is not changed by SMP at all (neither in v4 nor in v5).

    However, I can somewhat relate to the described issues in v4 when inside or above the lowest cloud layer, so IMO what you are describing is actually due to differences in representation of the cloud billboards for the left/right eye. I assume these artifacts will be gone when using volumetric clouds in v5 - although seemingly at the cost of a whole new set of issues (and the reason why I'm still holding off and watching this topic with interest...).

    In the original threads on the issue, I think we concluded (or suspected) that the issue was most noticeable in higher res headsets.

  2. I actually had two issues in v4 that seemed separate from one another.  One was the rotating clouds issue, which was clear at altitudes when flying near or in cumulous clouds.  I'm glad to see that that appears to be fixed.  The second issue, however, and possibly the greater of the two for me was related to low visibility conditions on or near the ground in which there was fog.  The problem was that within the fog there would be banding effects, like posterization, associated with distance, but which led to serious eye convergence issues.  For example (and I recall posting some screenshots of this), one might see a building or part of the scenery more heavily obscured by fog in the left eye than the right eye, and when rotating the head the line that separated these two levels of obscuration would shift (though not appearing rotational).  These convergence issues were very pronounced and made fog effects unusable in my Index (I think there was a recommended mitigation that I tried, but it only helped slightly).  So while happy that the rotating clouds issue was addressed, I'm particularly interested in hearing from anyone who had the low visibility/fog banding issue in v4, commenting on whether that is fixed in v5. 

  3. Same question here.  I purchased V4 for VR and was never able to put to any serious use.  Between the rotating clouds and (most significantly) the eye convergence in foggy conditions I ultimately put it on the shelf to wait for a fix.  The effect was extremely obvious, even just sitting on the runway in foggy conditions. For me, I was told that the developers didn't have an Index to test this in.  So I'd love if a user who had been experiencing these two issues in VR before could report on what things look like now.

    [Edit] Just read the post here, which probably answers my question.  So will be holding off for now as this was precisely one of my most major issues...

     

  4. This looks very exciting, and since I'm a full-time VR user seeing that the rotating cloud issue has been solved is particularly good to see.  At the top of my list, however, is to know whether the convergence issues in low visibility/fog has been solved in VR.  This was the #1 reason why I ended up uninstalling v4, since under these conditions it was basically unusable on my Index due to the double vision effect--and while I think the $20 charge for this is completely fair, I wouldn't want to purchase unless this issue has been solved.  Since cumulous clouds are the focus of this release, I'm thinking probably not, but please let me know if it is.

  5. Well I hadn't tried this since my posts back in June.  Just tried again with real world weather (Fitchburg Airport in MA-where it is currently "stormy") and immediately saw the double-vision overcast skies just sitting on the runway, and clearly unplayable after a quick take-off.  That test lasted a grand total of 1 minute and that was enough.  Uninstalling again.  (Valve Index, SkyMaxx Pro v4.9.6.2, 2080Ti, i9).

  6. I'm glad you are able to see the rotating cloud particles.  That is certainly one of the fundamental issues.  As far as the convergence issues, I *suspect* it has similar roots.  I tried to document this in a picture on the last version's release thread while flying over Boston.  When flying in foggy conditions, for example, I find the fog (not always, but sometimes) non-continuous, meaning that there is banding such that the fog density increases with distance in steps.  Like the "cloud particles" these "bands" rotate with the rotation of my head and more critically, the left and right eyes see these bands in different positions.  The way I *think* this leads to what I call a "convergence" issue is that (as shown in my picture), you might have a building that appears in the left eye as shrouded in a dense layer of fog, but because of the rotating density banding, the right eye might simultaneously be seeing the building much more clearly (for example, if I paused the simulator and then blinked my eyes back and forth, left to right, I could see the building as alternately in the fog and out of the fog).  Thus, even if the parallax of the building is correct, the competing fog density differences in right vs left eyes make the brain cry foul and makes it nearly impossible to focus.

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  7. Just tried some more testing.  Turned real weather off, turned procedural on, set low visibility and just sitting on the runway I could see the issue immediately.  So even without real weather, it can be quite serious.  Anyway, I've uninstalled SMP again and will try again with the next rev. as it remains too distracting for general use.

  8. Thanks!  I guess we really need you to see this...and once you do, I think you'll agree its unmistakable.  

    From this thread, I guess we can at least say it occurs with OG Vive, Pimax, and Index and that higher resolutions make it that much more obvious.  Also, keep in mind that many cloud formations do not exhibit this issue at all.  For example, I flew for about 15 minutes in the Tetons yesterday (using real weather) in and around heavy cumulus clouds including ones with dark underbellies completely convinced that beta 11 had totally fixed the problem..no convergence or "head turning" issues at all.  I was actually pretty excited about that.  But then I flew into a canyon that was exhibiting more of an overcast/foggy texture and as I approached the convergence (just in that area) got worse and worse, and along with that, the "head-turning" issue too (i.e. where turning my head back and forth causes pieces of clouds and fog bands to rotate weirdly in place).  So it definitely seems like just one specific kind (or class) of cloud texture that is doing this.

  9. Hey Jonnti46, have you tried b11 yet?  I just tried it, and at first blush it seems that LR may have done something to improve this.  My testing under overcast skies has been too limited to be completely sure, but give it a try and see if it makes a difference for you.  

    [Edit]  Not fixed.  I just took a flight in the Tetons using real weather (which included some dark overcast type cumulus) and I'm back to the serious head-turning weirdness.  Oh well.  :-(

  10. I'm on Valve Index.  I doubt its a setting since I was able to duplicate on vanilla XP.   In the other thread where this was discussed, the developer and I theorized that maybe it was due to the Vive Pro he was using.  While I don't know about the Pro (since I don't have one), I tried testing using my old original Vive and I can at least say that the problem is unquestionably less noticeable--I think, because the resolution is so bad that the eyes don't find it hard to converge the big gray blobs.  Still, when approaching the ground in fog, even on the OG Vive it is still easy to see the "mirage" effect and the banding that rotates when I rotate my head (easiest to evaluate if you pause the simulator).  On the Index, however, its a more serious story, since there is enough cloud detail for the eyes to want to converge--and when they can't it makes me go cross-eyed.  It's interesting that you were able to use VR without these issues on an earlier version of XP/SMP  In 11.50, I've tried in both Vulkan and OpenGL, so I don't think its the graphics API--and I know that I don't have any of these issues with the standard XP clouds and fog.  

  11. Agreed.  Latest version still has this.  It's basically any overcast conditions including overcast cumulus.  It really causes me to go cross-eyed on my Index.

    An easy way to see this is to fly up under some overcast cumulus clouds and pause the simulator.  Now move your head back and forth.  What I see happening is that the clouds will rotate in place.  In fact if I'm in the right place and turn my head back and forth, the clouds on my left will rotate clockwise and the ones on the right counterclockwise, pretty much making it impossible to have anything for two eyes to converge on.  Currently, it continues to make the product unusable in VR for me, though I am extremely hopeful this can be addressed since between this release and XP b10, the performance went way, way up.  It's just a shame I have to uninstall it again, :-( 

  12. Well, I'm not sure whether it is mainly because of the improvements in XP b10 or in SkyMaxx (or a combination of the two), but performance has improved incredibly--like night and day better.

    On the other hand, I am still having the same right/left eye convergence issues in VR with overcast/fog/overcast cumulus clouds as previously reported (below), which continue to make the product pretty much unusable for me in VR.  I really, really hope this can be addressed at some point :(

     

  13. That's good to know.  I wouldn't have presumed that they worked together.  On their web page it says that they offer enhanced wind effects, but you are saying these are adjustable (even while leaving real-world effects on).  So for example that means I could override turbulence (say, turn it down or off) while leaving all other wind attributes at their real-world settings, right?  If so, that's what I had in mind.

  14. 3 hours ago, sundog said:

    I may have found a fix for the "double vision" on large clouds in VR under certain circumstances. I was just testing it in Seattle which currently has conditions similar to what you were describing, and didn't notice it. Hopefully the next update will clear this up for you.

    Honestly it's a tough thing for me to see in the first place; the resolution of my Vive Pro makes it hard to see subtle errors like this.

    I will be anxiously awaiting this, and thrilled if it can be addressed.  I suppose the VR platform might make a difference in how noticeable it is (I'll have to give it try on my old Vive), but it is unmistakable on my Index.

  15. Excellent.   Yes, I do use the Real Weather Connector--but it happens in overcast conditions whether or not I have that installed.  Also note that its not just the "procedural" cloud types, but any of the overcast types.  Thanks for looking into this, and hoping for that better solution so I can use it with VR again.

  16. That was actually the first thing I tried when I first encountered this issue, but it doesn't help.  I just tried setting to solid procedural again, but to no avail.  Here are a few more observations (again, all only happen in SkyMaxx and not with standard clouds)

    1.  If I am flying in low visibility (like the screenshots above), the haze representation varies dramatically as I turn my head in VR independent of the plane's motion.  In fact, if I pause the simulation, this behavior continues.  All I have to do is turn my head and the haze line against the ground moves in sync with my head motion (this can also be done while the simulator is paused).  This in combination with the fact that the haze line is not aligned in the same location for both eyes seems to be a large part of the issue (if, while paused, I open one eye and close the other, the line shifts in appearance and location--not normal parallax--even though the scene is not moving at all.).  This, by the way, should be very easy for you to reproduce and observe.

    2.  The effect is not limited to terrain, ground fog or low visibility.  If I fly under dark overcast skies and look up with no ground or terrain in the background, I get the same sort of convergence issues, like my eyes want to cross as I'm looking at these clouds, and the effect magnifies as I fly closer.  If I pause the simulator under overcast skies and shake my head back and forth, certain cloud textures will remain perfectly in place while others will do a "dance" (rotate around a central point, back and forth as I shake my head).  This doesn't happens with fair weather cumulus or cirrus type clouds.

    Please keep in mind that although this sounds like a gripe, I fully understand and appreciate that this build of SkyMaxx is called experimental and I'm using it on a beta product (most vendors won't even release for a beta), so I don't want to sound like a complainer, but hoping that at the very least you can duplicate this and put it into an known issue state for VR users.  Like I said, right now I can't really use SkyMaxx in VR for overcast/fog due to the bizarre and unrealistic effects this is producing.

  17. Hmm.  I'm pretty active in that thread and don't see anything regarding this issue (if there is such a post, please direct me to it).  Note that this has absolutely nothing to do with the so-called "floating hills" issue which I actually entered an official bug report to LR for.  That is a distant horizon issue (and definitely an X-Plane issue since I personally confirmed that it happens in a brand new install of X-Plane and can be suppressed by setting renopt_planet  to zero in X-Plane.prf).  Rather, this is purely a cloud/fog, left/right eye convergence problem in VR that I've only ever seen in SkyMaxx Pro generated close-up cloud/fog conditions.  Completely separate issue.  But again, if it is being discussed as happening in vanilla X-Plane, please point me to at least one specific post and I'll gladly follow-up there. 

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