New Environmental FX in Edge

[bandit648]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm getting back into DCS and have been playing the 1.5 beta a lot in the last several weeks. It's so exciting to see the progress and the direction ED is going with DCS.

 

One of things I'm really looking forward to is the new clouds. I see the cloud layers are "in progress" on the roadmap.

 

Can we expect new clouds in the 1.5 beta, 2.0/NTTR map, or later? I'd be more than happy just to see some screenshots of the new clouds at this point.

 

The other thing I'm really hoping to see an improvement on is the night lighting. Up close aircraft and runway lights look fantastic but at distance it quickly fades out at just a few kilometers.

[Northstar98]

We will probably see new clouds post the release of DCS 2.0 when more features are added, either with the 2.0 release or slightly after (once again everything is subject to change).

 

The lighting problem I believe ED is working on, if my memory serves me well it is due to a level of detail issue - it effects everything lights wise (I've noticed navigation lights, flares and even 3D models of aircraft etc be completely invisible at ranges where it would seem like they should be). Hopefully ED will continue to fix the remaining issues with DCS 1.5 and then get 2.0 out :)

 

Ollie

Edited October 26, 2015 by Northstar98

[bandit648]

I'm hoping we see it in 2.0 but I have my doubts given that we haven't seen any screenshots of the new clouds yet. The new weather effects desperately need more realistic looking clouds.

 

Volumetric fog would be another nice thing to have.

[S-GERAT]

In fact, the WIP new clouds can be activated modifying a config file in the sim directory. But they totally destroys the performance, and if you shoot a missile the .exe crashes..

 

[BIGNEWY]

Please refrain from activating the clouds, they are not ready yet, which is why they are still disabled.

 

In short please keep your open beta installs vanilla if you want to help report issues.

 

Thanks

[bandit648]

I enabled it to just have a quick look and then disabled it. Definitely a step in the right direction. Obviously they still need some work but hopefully we'll get clouds similar to what's in prepar3d currently. What a difference cloud layers and different cloud types will make!

 

I hope they implement different cloud types like stratus, cumulus, and cirrus. I'm guessing with the engine update to dx11 this certainly should be possible. Just having layers of puffy cumulus clouds wouldn't be as satisfying.

[BIGNEWY]

Yes, I am looking forward to seeing the final result, clouds are a big thing for flight immersion.

 

Fingers crossed :)

[Abburo]

I can even add a 3rd GPU to take over this new layer of cloud :)