Localized fog..

[WildFire]

Be nice to use dynamic weather along with localized fog so you can start and end a mission perhaps with some local fog, making it mandatory for IFR ops. Bring on ILS!

 

I imagine it would be less taxing on the engine to render only fog in a small area, say 30 miles or less. Probably a pretty ridiculous request though.

[213]

that's how fog is rendered already. nothing outside of a certain radius gets rendered.

[Grimes]

I think he means to have a patch of localized fog where its part of the dynamic weather. Something where it could be IFR near Batumi but VFR near Anapa.But yeah it would be cool to have.

[upupandaway]

+1

[WildFire]

that's how fog is rendered already. nothing outside of a certain radius gets rendered.

 

??

Fog is currently rendered for the WHOLE map. Unless your target is above the fog elevation, your SOL. I'm not quite sure what you are talking about. Grimes is pretty much right on.

[LostOblivion]

Fog should really just be removed, and a better configuration of weather should be added, being able to add several layers of clouds instead of just one, possibly putting a layer of clouds really low. This, in addition to making rendering the inside of clouds a lot better, will replace fog in its current form, also allowing "localized" fog as to the thread starter's request.

 

Another thing. The way inside of clouds are rendered now, is by simply stop rendering the clouds closer than a certain distance from the pilot, so as not to render the cloud inside the cockpit. However, this leaves a visible edge on the wings that is quite annoying. I have a better idea, you could render the cockpit without any fog, then enable standard attenuated fog immediately after having drawn the cockpit. The only problem I see, is if the exterior (wings, armament) of the cockpit is the same mesh/model as the interior of the cockpit (panels, guages, hud), in which case you would have to split these into two models, the interior model being rendered before fog, the exterior model after.

 

Rendering the interior of clouds would be a matter of figuring out how far from the center of the cloud the camera is, and then adjusting the transparency and opacity, i.e. more opaque in the center, more transparent at the surface of the cloud. The fog attenuation would then be randomized to mimic different fog opacity near the surface of the cloud, together with a few billboarded clouds moving in the negative direction of the velocity vector.

 

It is hell of a lot more to it, but I am only stating my ideas here...

Edited January 25, 2012 by LostOblivion

[WildFire]

I've never seen clouds or fog in the cockpit. And flying through clouds in dynamic weather is pretty freaking beautiful IMO. Don't use the standard weather much, although with the heavy tax of running dynamic on a server I may have no choice in the future.

[Grimes]

This is more or less related to a wishlist for the dynamic weather, but its kinda linked to the original post of the thread...

 

Basically under the weather tab there are placeable objects/nodes on the map. Each object can define different weather properties and their intensity. For example you want it to rain, within a radius of x, and an intensity of y. Then the mission generates the dynamic weather based on the locations and properties of the nodes around the map. Maybe even allow the weather objects to be trigger activated so we can have a severely overcast sky and then the conditions change to make a rain storm.

[WildFire]

Wait have you figured out the nodes? I was kind of wondering how to use those and what in the world the use was for...?

[Grimes]

I meant it as an additional feature for future releases so mission builders could easily define the type of weather they want and the dynamic systems are built around that requirement.

 

But nodes in the mission editor are directly related to the fast mission generator and they simply define the overall location and composition of the randomly generated forces.

[WildFire]

Yeah thats what I figured, thanks. Good idea too.

[upupandaway]

If regional fog distribution is somehow integrafted into the weather engine, the idea of rain columns under clouds also sounds interesting. It´s a minor detail, but one which would add immensely to the (visual) distinctiveness/diversity of different weather situations in the sim.

[elchacal]

If regional fog distribution is somehow integrafted into the weather engine, the idea of rain columns under clouds also sounds interesting. It´s a minor detail, but one which would add immensely to the (visual) distinctiveness/diversity of different weather situations in the sim.

 

I agree with that..! :thumbup:

[Kuky]

There are still lot of things that can be added into the sim to make things better and more reaslistic and this is one of them... one day we might just get this

[luza]

This is really needed imo.