Landscape and clouds

[Bonkin]

Whilst we all patiently wait for the next patch I thought I'd have a look at the Full Mission Builder to see what it was all about. I'd had a look through various threads and seen something about local weather settings so figured I'd give it a go.

I know that the dynamic weather has been turned off but I was still able to create some volumetric thunderstorm clouds which I could then use to look at how the cloud shadows affected the landscape. Not sure what you all think but I'm really looking forward to this functionality working... to me the outside world looks more as it does in real life.

http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i439/Bonkin32/clouds1.jpg

http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i439/Bonkin32/clouds2.jpg

http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i439/Bonkin32/clouds3.jpg

http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i439/Bonkin32/clouds4.jpg

Note, I have trees turned off due to the online sound bug.

Things I've found so far:

Rain doesn't work - neither does Dynamic. Can't launch the game with these set.
You can only select Thunder clouds.
It is possible to set the width, length and height of a weather area.
Adjusting the properties of a weather area seems to have no effect.

I guess my point is that for those that have been complaining about the look of the outside world and washed out colours, I think we'll see great visual improvements once the developers are able to release a patch with dynamic weather.

[ATAG_Snapper]

Good post. A while back I saw similar observations in a SimHQ thread, hopefully dynamic weather & rain etc will be added and/or enabled in a future patch. You have a good PC system listed in your sig which should capably handle (I would hope, anyway!) the extra graphic load. I believe a major concern with clouds & weather is the major frame rate hit on less aggressive machines. We'll see if the devs can further optimize the coding to reduce, if not eliminate, this potential deal breaker for many.

As your screenshots & commentary clearly show, there's a huge untapped dimension to CoD which will add tremendously to the challenge and immersion of this sim.

[Jaws2002]

There's quite a dramatic change in how the landscape looks with some more solid clouds. I do some experimemting from time to time, just for fun. The frame rate hit is massive with heavy clouds, but the game looks really good.:-P

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/%3CFA%3EJaws/shot_20110423_011835.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/<FA>Jaws/shot_20110423_012231.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/<FA>Jaws/shot_20110728_133549.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/<FA>Jaws/shot_20110810_181526.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/<FA>Jaws/Screenshot148139.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/<FA>Jaws/Screenshot149270.jpg

[ATAG_Snapper]

Gorgeous shots, Jaws. If the clouds gave a big frame rate hit to YOUR system, then what chance for us mere mortals? LOL

[icarus]

Very nice indeed. Lets hope it runs well after the new graphics engine ....take the time you need devs. That would be awesome. :-D