the future of Clouds .

[Jotaele]

I would like to see that in any flight sim in the future.
Isaw a workmate working in houdini with real 3d volumetrics clouds(in the visors) vased on voxels, so i did search for real time cloud engines on youtube, and i found that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLfHDul5XGw

and this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhBhOPLIuDY

I think this is the future of cluds in flight sims.

[Jotaele]

Originally Posted by cheesehawk

Do they leave enough resources for the core of the game to use? I'd hate to suddenly loose features of my plane just to see pretty clouds.

I dont know, but it is worth a try.After all the used clouds use lots of resources too.

[guiltyspark]

honestly both tech demos looked pretty bad

[Cobra8472]

I have used both Nimble and SilverLining, and unfortunately- both are poor for flightsim usage.

There are many whitepapers available on the implementation and coding of clouds based on the simulation of light scattering, seen implemented in Wings of Prey, Ace Combat 5, HAWX, Rise of Flight, etc etc..

Here is the most recent example I can remember seeing, but there are many many third party and proprietary examples of this stuff..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnvBF5Nu5gw

[PeterPanPan]

This looks pretty amazing for FSX, so it must be possible to pimp up clouds for the flight sim genre.

The developer says the clouds are "Hi-definition, ultra-realistic photo-real 3D clouds (stratus, wispy, cumulus and highly realistic rendering of cirrus clouds as seen in the real world).

http://www.aerosoft.de/_php_projekte...p?sp=fsx&p=rex

[Jotaele]

Originally Posted by Cobra8472

I have used both Nimble and SilverLining, and unfortunately- both are poor for flightsim usage.

There are many whitepapers available on the implementation and coding of clouds based on the simulation of light scattering, seen implemented in Wings of Prey, Ace Combat 5, HAWX, Rise of Flight, etc etc..

Here is the most recent example I can remember seeing, but there are many many third party and proprietary examples of this stuff..

Wow, that vid is outstanding.I think its a matter of time the flight sim will go in this direction.

Peter, rex its a great extension for FSX, it has raised the bitmap based clouds to its limits, based on photos .Im sure someone will make som mods for CloD soon , has the one that was made for il2, that becomes quickly in a must have. Anyway i cant talk about CloD until i saw the game ,only trying to share some thoughts and wishes but what i have seen in the videos are the tipical pluffy clouds that works great or bad depending from the camera angles or light conditions.

[Jotaele]

BTW, Cobra, what do you mean what you described like a poor usage?Do you mean graphically? ore process consuming? or implementation? I have read the yutube video descriptión and looks very promising.
trueSKY™ is a C++ library which generates weather system data and updates it in real time. trueSKY™ creates volumetric cloud data, and provides realtime access to that data via a lightweight API. The cloud system generates pure volumetric data, it is cross-platform and renderer-independent. The sample applications that come with the SDK show how realtime clouds can be rendered using the generated cloud data, in various graphics API's

[CharveL]

Originally Posted by nearmiss

Clouds don't need to move.

Moving clouds is a huge FPS killer.

Fact is, in an aircombat simulation the player is always moving. Usually at a speed far exceeding any cloud movement. Cloud movement would be practically non-discernible to player.

Also, when programming for AI:

Not being able to see in the clouds it would be much more difficult for tracking cloud positions along with AI movement. This would affect the FPS as well.

It can all be done I'm sure, but to be honest with you. I would rather have the ability to have more moving objects that really mean something to gameplay.

So, give me static clouds that don't move, that AI cannot see through.

Above all... I want the best FPS possible. So give me eye-candy taht doesn't affect FPS.

Agreed. It's a shame we can't have it all but frame rate really is king.

Then again, they might be able to do some clever work to get them in without as much impact or offloading to another core but that would raise the minimum system requirements to 4 cores, much like the tree collisions Luthier mentioned. The other factor would be the effect on online play keeping track of them in relation to all players and AI.

Who knows, maybe DX11 will give us free clouds.