Realistic Clouds

[Beebop]

Just a quick update.

I tried setting the Horizon draw distance to 70km and while it works OK I personally didn't like the fuzzy distance.  Again I haven't had the antialiasing issues with the clouds.  The game still looked good, it's just a personal preference for me.  For those with AA issues it looks like a good solution.

As for HDR, I have been playing the game for some time with it on being as I have a fairly robust machine and got the impression it improved the look of the game.  But after turning it off I must say I am extremely pleased with the look.  Less harsh and more pleasing to my eye at least.  Thanks Rowdy for that tip.

@ jokerBR, even if if it didn't help you maybe it will help someone else, even if the result is "I'll never do THAT again".  ?

(there can't be too much information)

[rowdyb00t]

@Beebop

   Well now that I think of it, the 70km would be for VR. That’s what play in and for some reason anything farther and that’s when the aliasing issue takes effect. I guess I can’t remember what it was like in 2D years back before the VR consumed my flight simming

[Beebop]

Oh.  VR.  I haven't got there yet.

I'm SO "old school"  ?

[jokerBR]

12 hours ago, Beebop said:

Oh.  VR.  I haven't got there yet.

I'm SO "old school"  ?

+1 ?

 

13 hours ago, Beebop said:

I tried setting the Horizon draw distance to 70km and while it works OK I personally didn't like the fuzzy distance.

Agreed. Maybe for fighters that white haze background helps to locate enemies, but in my case *(mostly attacker/bomber roles) I like to see far away whenever I can.

[Beebop]

1 hour ago, jokerBR said:

+1 ?

 

Agreed. Maybe for fighters that white haze background helps to locate enemies, but in my case *(mostly attacker/bomber roles) I like to see far away whenever I can.

Agreed!  I too am primarily a ground pounder.  I'm lousy at fighter tactics, (only slightly better at GPing), but I still have tons-o-fun moving mud..  The uniqueness of the IL-2 was why I got the original game back in '01.

[Goffik]

Dropping the horizon distance definitely helps with the cloud aliasing in VR, but I've kept mine at 150km anyway. It just didn't look/feel right to me set at 70km. Looking forward to giving v10.1 a try today. You're working wonders with this mod mate. ?

[rowdyb00t]

11 minutes ago, Beebop said:

but I still have tons-o-fun moving mud.. 

 

 

well I’m currently doing that as we speak 

[Nars]

Hello guys! I'm ejoying this mod a lot. Thanks for the work put into this.

I'm currently trying to use the gpreset that's mentioned in the first post, but I don't know exactly where that folder goes or how to install it.

After a search here on the forums I came up with this post: 

...But extracting the "Graphic Presets (2)" folder into the root install does not create any new file in            /data/LuaScripts              as I understand from LizLemon's post.

Am I missing something? I'm really new at using mods so please forgive me :'D

[rowdyb00t]

@Nars

After you download open the files until you get to the gpresets.cfg

 

Are you using JSMGE?

 

if not the gpreset goes in. data/luascripts/gpresets

Edited March 24, 2020 by rowdyb00t

[Nars]

Yes, I'm using JSMGE for the mods. Should I drop the gpresets.cfg into LuaScripts anyway?

 

EDIT: Ok I think I understood. You use the "Graphics Presets (2)" as a mod and install it through JSMGE as you would with any mod?

 

Edited March 24, 2020 by Nars

[rowdyb00t]

@Nars

 

yes drop the Graphics Presets in the mods folder and install using JSGME

[Goffik]

I have to be honest and say that I'm not a fan of the grey skies. To me personally, if felt like flying in a stylised black & white world, like Sin City or something, where my plane was the only coloured object. Also, on one occasion in overcast weather I got huge, plain grey clouds sitting just below the main layer. They had vary little variation in colour, looking like solid medium grey blobs in the sky.

 

The main cloud banks themselves looked amazing, especially when on top of an overcast layer. But due to the grey skies and blob clouds, I think I'll stick with v9.1.

Edited March 24, 2020 by Goffik

[rowdyb00t]

22 minutes ago, Goffik said:

I got huge, plain grey clouds sitting just below the main layer.

 Thanks for pointing that out. I probably forgot to adjust the ambient lighting for that layer

[rowdyb00t]

So I had an idea.... however I can't really find a way to implement this into the game correctly. Cold front moving in over Stalingrad.

 

   I made a new cloud map but in order to not have the tiles repeat over and over on the Stalingrad map, I changed the sector size in the ski.ini file to 432000 where stock is 32000. Doing that flattens the clouds out tremendously causing a lot of work in the sky file. Also this makes it only compatible with Stalingrad because of the map size. You would have to have a different file for each map and it would have to be linked to each specific one.

   Maybe some day this will be possible. It would be neat to have more options to work with to make the possibilities endless such as rain and lightning. Anyway, I thought i would share this. 

[Beebop]

No wonder it wasn't built into the game.  Moving fronts would be a real breakthrough in any flight sim.

M$ Flight 2020 will be using real time data for it's sky.  Somehow I don't the 1CGS has that kind of budget.

Having to run multiple map specific tiles could also eat up anything short of a Cray.

Thanks though for looking into it.

[Marvel]

Hi Rowdy,  I have installed v10.1 and I noticed I am flying in a sort of mist. With previous version I had not this. Just a question: the gpreset file solve this behaviour? 

Ciao!

 

M

[HappyHaddock]

3 hours ago, rowdyb00t said:

 

 I made a new cloud map but in order to not have the tiles repeat over and over on the Stalingrad map, I changed the sector size in the ski.ini file to 432000 where stock is 32000. Doing that flattens the clouds out tremendously causing a lot of work in the sky file. Also this makes it only compatible with Stalingrad because of the map size. You would have to have a different file for each map and it would have to be linked to each specific one.

   Maybe some day this will be possible. It would be neat to have more options to work with to make the possibilities endless such as rain and lightning. Anyway, I thought i would share this. 

 

I'd gone about this in a slightly different manner but I'd mentioned I'd got moving weather fronts built into my work many months ago, the challenge is, of course, that IL-2 doesn't allow them to evolve as they move, but they don't have to be any more resource heavy than stock or have to be built around specific maps.

 

Keep up the good work

 

HH

 

 

 

[rowdyb00t]

@Marvel

 

 I would try installing the gpreset file. If that don’t work you will have to be more specific. 

[Marvel]

1 hour ago, rowdyb00t said:

@Marvel

 

 I would try installing the gpreset file. If that don’t work you will have to be more specific. 

 

Ok, I will do that!

 

Ciao!

 

M

[konyanyachiwa]

Very nice grey sky!

 

Thanks Rowdyb00t.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Uufflakke]

On summer and winter maps I see these virtual lines with version 10.1

Something I can't remember to have seen in previous version I had installed.

On winter maps more obvious than on summer ones.

 

 

EDIT:

I reinstalled version 8 because that is the last version wíth snowfall. Later ones are without for some reason.

And  10.1 winter is too black and white to my taste. Version 8 still has colour and the blueishness adds to the cold atmospere. Just like snowfall does.

Each to his own taste.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Uufflakke

[rowdyb00t]

1 hour ago, Uufflakke said:

I reinstalled version 8 because that is the last version wíth snowfall.

 I’m not sure why you have an issue. Are you using the QMB?  If you open the mission editor and go to file then open a mission that you have in the game. Edit the atmosphere to overcast 2,5,6 and 9 in winter and turn on the snow. Try that to see if it’s working. Sometimes the QMB is not a good way to check because it’s random.

Anyway thanks for the tip on the cirrus!  

[JG_deserteagle540]

@rowdyb00t

 

Really nice work on those winter clouds V10.1.

I really appreciate your work!

[Beebop]

I do not get snow or rain using any of the overcast conditions with v.9.1 on although I never tried it with earlier versions.  I was under the belief that changing the volumetric clouds  to achieve the look we now have had something to do with the inability of having rain/snow in overcast conditions when using the mod.

I like the visual clarity the mod gives in overcast conditions which I feel is much more realistic than always having a haze.  I know that using even numbered overcast conditions lowers the haze level but doesn't remove it in the stock game version.  Living in Oregon (USA) I live in a state with a lot of overcast days and not too many have the haze of the game except when raining or snowing.  If you can ever find a way to give us rain/snow under overcast conditions (realizing that might be very difficult to impossible)  I/we would be extremely grateful.

 

Thanks yet again for what you have given us so far.  I look forward to what I am sure will be further improvements.

[Uufflakke]

1 hour ago, rowdyb00t said:

 I’m not sure why you have an issue. Are you using the QMB?  If you open the mission editor and go to file then open a mission that you have in the game. Edit the atmosphere to overcast 2,5,6 and 9 in winter and turn on the snow. Try that to see if it’s working. Sometimes the QMB is not a good way to check because it’s random.

Anyway thanks for the tip on the cirrus!  

 

I never had any problems with QMB and snowfall on winter maps, default or with cloud mod until V8.0 installed.  Each and every time snowfall. With version 9, 9.1, 10 and 10.1 not anymore.

I tested all of them a couple of hours ago.

Beebop seems/seemed to have the same winter map/snow issue a few pages ago with cloud mod V10.

 

About the mission editor, I never worked with it and to be honest I don't know where to find it.

I don't wanna go that route, I wanna plug and play.

And not to much struggling with adding mods. I still have a IL2:1946 trauma of it.

 

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by Uufflakke

[Beebop]

The Mission Editor is in Main Game folder > bin > editor if you ever change your mind..

[LizLemon]

4 hours ago, rowdyb00t said:

 I’m not sure why you have an issue. Are you using the QMB?  If you open the mission editor and go to file then open a mission that you have in the game. Edit the atmosphere to overcast 2,5,6 and 9 in winter and turn on the snow. Try that to see if it’s working. Sometimes the QMB is not a good way to check because it’s random.

Anyway thanks for the tip on the cirrus!  

 

The QMB isn't random, just the preset you get.

[rowdyb00t]

1 hour ago, LizLemon said:

 

The QMB isn't random, just the preset you get.

 Right. That’s what I meant 

[Marvel]

On 3/25/2020 at 11:09 AM, rowdyb00t said:

@Marvel

 

 I would try installing the gpreset file. If that don’t work you will have to be more specific. 

 

Hi rowdy, I installed the gpreset and it seem all is improved. I installed gpresets in data/luascripts/gpresets, that's right, isn't it?

 

I set gamma correction at .9 because at .8 the landscape was too reddish.

 

Ciao!

 

M

[rowdyb00t]

  Been working on some moving weather fronts for a bit now but my problem is the FPS in in VR are WAY taxing. 90 to 40 when moving through the clouds. I know what the problem is but I can’t think of a way to relieve the GPU stress. Anyhoo here’s a painfully long vid of the giant storm front with no rain or lightning  . Still WIP, they are too saturated in the vid and the there should be more haze ect., ect. 

 

 

[OrLoK]

lovely

[rowdyb00t]

4 minutes ago, OrLoK said:

lovely

  Hey there good to hear from ya! Haven’t seen you around the forum in a while 

[konyanyachiwa]

Wow, it's so cool.

 

It would be great if there was a flash of lightning.?

[peregrine7]

22 hours ago, rowdyb00t said:

  Been working on some moving weather fronts for a bit now but my problem is the FPS in in VR are WAY taxing. 90 to 40 when moving through the clouds. I know what the problem is but I can’t think of a way to relieve the GPU stress. Anyhoo here’s a painfully long vid of the giant storm front with no rain or lightning  . Still WIP, they are too saturated in the vid and the there should be more haze ect., ect. 

 

 

 

Holy shit this looks amazing. Would be great to see a mod like this whitelisted and used on servers!! Does the front move? Could it slowly envelope a map? Seriously, wow!

 

Looks like you've fixed the green tinting as well? That should make a certain sour somebody rather happy (No offence lemon, couldn't resist the wordplay!)

[rowdyb00t]

1 hour ago, peregrine7 said:

 

Holy shit this looks amazing. Would be great to see a mod like this whitelisted and used on servers!! Does the front move? Could it slowly envelope a map?

 Yup the clouds do move with the wind just like the stock ones. Also yes on covering the map, well sort of. The design of the cloud on the cloud map just repeats. 

[vonGraf]

The hint/post above and the video let me look for the gpresets file and I saw I had it in the wrong folder (in a 'null' folder) since months, somehow I did mess it up.

Now I installed it correctly plus the 10.1 version and it's all good and looks great.

I had these jerking/fast moving cloud edges all the time; they're totally gone now..what a relief!

Good work, rowdyboot!

[SCG_motoadve]

I Like the grey sky, overcast and the clouds, only issue for me is that this adds a bit of a red/brown shade to all the scenery and planes

[OrLoK]

On 3/31/2020 at 1:11 AM, rowdyb00t said:

  Hey there good to hear from ya! Haven’t seen you around the forum in a while 

dont tell the devs but ive been playing DCS for a bit

[rowdyb00t]

33 minutes ago, SCG_motoadve said:

I Like the grey sky, overcast and the clouds, only issue for me is that this adds a bit of a red/brown shade to all the scenery and planes

  I’ve noticed this too. I’ve been working on the lighting recently. 

Edited April 3, 2020 by rowdyb00t

[JG_deserteagle540]

I followed the guidelines of the following thread:

 

 

Installed the reshade software and tweaked a little bit the settings.

Just amazing how the game looks with those settings. Plus the version 10.1 and it looks even better.

 

Many thank rowdyb00t for this great cloud mod!