Optional Cloud Mod 4.0 Update

[BuckeyeBob]

Hello, gents. Although I prefer to keep discussion of the OCM to my thread at simhq for now, I have several pics of work in progress I would like to post, and combatace.com is much friendlier with images than the other site, so I thought I would post them here. Keep in mind that these are all works in progress and may or may not show up in the mod. Of course, all questions and comments are welcome. Overall, I am making progress on the mod and hope to have something by the middle of next month or so.

ALL PICS ARE WORKS IN PROGRESS

Old light haze

 

New light haze

 

Old thick haze

 

New thick haze

 

New Fog

 

Let me know what you like and don't like about the pics. The main obstacle to getting any of these new clouds into the sim is the flashing issue. Although I have been able to reduce it some, no matter how I try, I can't seem to completely eliminate it, especially for haze and fog clouds. That's why you see so few of these clouds in vanilla BHaH2. However, I haven't given up hope yet!

Cheers!

Edited July 19, 2021 by BuckeyeBob

[TROOPER117]

Good work... keep at it mate, any progress is most welcome.

Like others, my one main gripe that keeps cropping up is the cloud flashing in and out and hope one day it can be resolved.

[Becker02]

Hallo @BB,

if I look at the three pictures I would like to say "very good" and at first sight the new thick haze is top.

I have your cloud-mod in use since WOFF-UE. It is a "must have - mod" on my WOFF-system. So I'm sure you will do a great work again. The quality of your clouds, the big number of cloud-variations and the very good 8/8 overcast without a "blue hole" over you are simply first class and an absolute enrichment to simulate real skies in my opinion.

Greetings!

[+VonS]

Looking great BB - and your work on the cloud mods. is always appreciated.

Currently I'm running stock clouds in BH2, with the 4L0M 1MB improved clouds loaded (good for FPS) - but I look forward to trying out your cloud mod. in BH2 eventually, and that gives the full spectrum of weather possibilities.

I am currently running your ver. 2.9.2 cloud mod. in my PE/UE FrankenWOFF 4.18 backport and it looks beautiful - also good FPS maintained. I tried running the ver. 3.0 cloud mod. in my FrankenWOFF 4.18 but there were some oddities with clear skies raining, etc., all solved with ver. 2.9.2 loaded.

Moral of the story: ver. 3.0 is good with WOFF PE, also perhaps with stock UE, but hybrid PE/UE combos. are maybe safer with ver. 2.9.2.

Anyway, the UE and PE vers. of WOFF are no longer available for purchase so most fliers should feel free to disregard the little details posted above, unless you have an old ver. 4.18 lying around somewhere and enjoy flying with SweetFX goodness - in that case, if you pull over the aircraft and terrains from WOFF PE into an UE 4.18 install - stick with ver. 2.9.2 of the excellent BB cloud mod.

Cheers all and happy WOFFing,

Von S

 

 

[Rick Rawlings]

Nice stuff! 

I've often wondered about this...So in my limited understanding, I am guessing that the clouds are large image files. The rendering engine looks to see if the center of the image is in your line of sight and if so, draws the cloud. As you turn your head, the center of the image is no longer in your line of sight and the cloud is no longer rendered. However, since cloud are often a half mile or more across, this causes the cloud to stop being rendered while its edge is still visible. As you look back, the center is suddenly in your field of view again and the cloud is re-rendered, flickering back into view. Is this even close to correct?

[Foobat]

Looking wonderful BB! Can't wait for the release, also for the record if anyone can eliminate the flashing I have utmost faith in you! 

Best regards.

Foobat aka Fubat

[catch]

Yeah looking good Buckeye. Anything that improves the flashing, flickering thing is a good thing. And those strange flat, horizontal clouds (or fog/haze?) which sends my view crazy when flying through them. On my rig anyway. It looks like you may be having a go at that from the pics?

[BuckeyeBob]

23 hours ago, TROOPER117 said:

Good work... keep at it mate, any progress is most welcome.

Like others, my one main gripe that keeps cropping up is the cloud flashing in and out and hope one day it can be resolved.

Thanks, Trooper17. I don't know about resolved, but I hope to eliminate as much of the cloud flashing as possible. Sometimes, though, reducing cloud flashing seems to result in worse-looking clouds.

[BuckeyeBob]

23 hours ago, Becker04 said:

Hallo @BB,

if I look at the three pictures I would like to say "very good" and at first sight the new thick haze is top.

I have your cloud-mod in use since WOFF-UE. It is a "must have - mod" on my WOFF-system. So I'm sure you will do a great work again. The quality of your clouds, the big number of cloud-variations and the very good 8/8 overcast without a "blue hole" over you are simply first class and an absolute enrichment to simulate real skies in my opinion.

Greetings!

Thank you very much for the kind words, Becker04. It makes me very happy to hear that you and others still enjoy my previous work. It's funny that you mention the "blue hole" problem. With BHaH2, OBD has done something that makes it harder to get rid of the blue hole, but I am working on a solution, possibly involving the haze clouds pictured above.

[BuckeyeBob]

21 hours ago, VonS said:

Looking great BB - and your work on the cloud mods. is always appreciated.

Currently I'm running stock clouds in BH2, with the 4L0M 1MB improved clouds loaded (good for FPS) - but I look forward to trying out your cloud mod. in BH2 eventually, and that gives the full spectrum of weather possibilities.

I am currently running your ver. 2.9.2 cloud mod. in my PE/UE FrankenWOFF 4.18 backport and it looks beautiful - also good FPS maintained. I tried running the ver. 3.0 cloud mod. in my FrankenWOFF 4.18 but there were some oddities with clear skies raining, etc., all solved with ver. 2.9.2 loaded.

.

.

.

Cheers all and happy WOFFing,

Von S

 

 

Thank you, VonS. I also like 40L0M's improved clouds, although I haven't loaded them for testing of the new mod yet. We need someone with his talents to work on the cloud .dds files to see if he can do anything about the cloud flashing problem. Unfortunately, I am a complete hack when it comes to all that artsy-fartsy stuff!

With regard to the rain with clear skies, I am aware of the problem. OBD changed something in BHaH2 that sometimes causes this, but I haven't quite figured out what it is yet. Thanks for the information about the difference between 2.9.2 and 3.0, perhaps that will help me to figure out the problem.

[BuckeyeBob]

17 hours ago, Rick Rawlings said:

Nice stuff! 

I've often wondered about this...So in my limited understanding, I am guessing that the clouds are large image files. The rendering engine looks to see if the center of the image is in your line of sight and if so, draws the cloud. As you turn your head, the center of the image is no longer in your line of sight and the cloud is no longer rendered. However, since cloud are often a half mile or more across, this causes the cloud to stop being rendered while its edge is still visible. As you look back, the center is suddenly in your field of view again and the cloud is re-rendered, flickering back into view. Is this even close to correct?

I think this is generally correct, at least for some kinds of cloud flashing. I have noticed that flashing does seem to be more frequent with some of the larger cloud textures. Reducing the size of clouds via the cloudfile (not the .dds file) sometimes helps to reduce cloud flashing. Unfortunately, there are other sources of cloud flashing as well!

 

9 hours ago, Foobat said:

Looking wonderful BB! Can't wait for the release, also for the record if anyone can eliminate the flashing I have utmost faith in you! 

Best regards.

Foobat aka Fubat

Thanks. I am trying!

 

7 hours ago, catch said:

Yeah looking good Buckeye. Anything that improves the flashing, flickering thing is a good thing. And those strange flat, horizontal clouds (or fog/haze?) which sends my view crazy when flying through them. On my rig anyway. It looks like you may be having a go at that from the pics?

I think those are caused by particular .dds files that are used in certain cloudfiles. I will have to track them down and see if they can be eliminated without spoiling other cloud types that use the same cloudfile. I may have to wait until "phase two" of my update to attempt to fix this, however.

[Jara4]

Good job, BB. Looking forward for release. 

Edited July 21, 2021 by Jara4

[PaladinX]

How do you get that variometer in your screenshots HUD`?

[BuckeyeBob]

For each guage, you can cycle through until you get the one you want. I don't recall the key combination off the top of my head, as I am not currently at my computer, but it should be easy to find.

[BuckeyeBob]

On my computer, I press Ctrl+Shift+1-5 to bring up and cycle through the gauges. You can display up to five at a time.

[BuckeyeBob]

A brief update: I am (slowly) working my way through all the weather files and replacing many of the old cloud files with my new and improved cloud files. Usually, this is straight-forward, but occasionally, I run into problems. For example, in the process of replacing many of the old haze cloud files with the newer ones, I discovered that while the new files significantly reduced cloud flashing while flying in an easterly or westerly direction, this was not the case when flying in a northerly or southerly direction! (WOFF QC defaults to flying from east to west). Arrgghhh! Fortunately, I think I have managed to fix the situation, although there may still be some residual cloud flashing in some circumstances.

On the bright side, I have managed to add one or two more weather types! See BB Grey Altocumulus Clouds below:

I still hope to release the update sometime this month. Sorry for the delay, but this is a big project!

[BuckeyeBob]

I think I have finally fixed or created all of the cloud files I will need for OCM 4.0, so I am now going through all the different cloud types in WOFF and my mod that use different combinations of these cloud files. I am about half-way through these cloud types, but keep in mind there are now over 100 different cloud types in OCM 4.0, so it will still take awhile. Hopefully, I will be finished before the Armistice!

[BuckeyeBob]

I am now very close to releasing the mod for beta testing, so it shouldn't be too much longer before public release.

While the new version will have a few more brand new cloud types such as Grey Altocumulus Clouds pictured above and updates to existing cloud types, the bulk of the update consists of revisions to most of the existing WOFF's cloud files, plus the addition of more than 30 additional cloud files, designed specifically to reduce cloud flashing and popping as much as possible. This is the first time that I have approached the cloud flashing problem by focusing mainly on the cloud files instead of cloud types (cloud files are much like building blocks that are used to construct the different cloud types seen in the game). 

With any luck, the mod will be ready for public release in--you guessed it--two weeks!

Edited October 24, 2021 by BuckeyeBob

[BuckeyeBob]

OCM 4.0 is now in beta testing and should be ready for public release before Remembrance Day.

[Becker02]

Hi @BB,

here 2 pictures in campaign-mode to show of what we have talked via PM (BH&H2 1.17, OCM 4.0Beta Build 2): Bad weather  around and clouds with high sun-reflection at the same time (first picture).

Greetings!

 

Edited November 13, 2021 by Becker04

[BuckeyeBob]

Dear Becker,

Have you flown any missions since the mission shown here? If not, please send me a copy of your OFFDynamicWeatherMission.xml file in your OBD WWI/weather folder. 

[BuckeyeBob]

Update:

I am still working on a few issues such as the one just mentioned by Becker. Once I work those out, I will be ready to release the new version. 

Only a few days now...at most TWO WEEKS!

[Becker02]

Hallo @BB,

sorry, it's too late. Next time I will send it to you via PM here on CA.

[Becker02]

And in the meantime, as long as @BB is working on the mod, a few pics more to increase the impatience  (BH&H2, 1.17, OCM4.0 Beta Build 2, Campaign-Mode):

Greetings!

[BuckeyeBob]

Nice pics, Becker!

I have removed a few bright white clouds from the "Heavy" weather folder, which should reduce the chances of seeing these bright clouds against a dark background.