Cloud Design

[RaptorL]

Just out of curiosity, can the design of clouds, fogs, ect be changed from its current design to a more realistic texture? As we have it in the game, when you fly through a layer of cloud, fog, ect, you see the cloud or fog is made in layer's of thin white, like  pieces of paper spaced out form each other to simulate, its thickness. What I find bad about this is your visibility is limited from how far you are from that one layer. What i like to see done (if Possible) is to make cloud, fogs, ect have dimension, depth. (Not just a hollowed out shell, but like a filled in solid). Not really sure how I can explain this better. Try to interpret my explanation and tell me what you think.

[waystin2]

+1

[RaptorL]

Maybe what I'm trying to say is when you are in a cloud the distance you can see in that cloud should be a constent. If there is a nother plane inside that cloud with you, the close you get that plane, the less obscurred it is and the better you can see it.

[batch]

in other words you dont mind if your frame rates dip into the low single digits

[grizz441]

Clouds are a great compromise between realism and performance if you ask me.  If clouds become a lot more advanced you would run into a much higher percentage of players having game play issues.  I'm sure a cloud overhaul is a realistic envisionment of HTC in the future though as computers continue to get faster.

[RaptorL]

What I'm asking is, is its possible, and can it be done without a heavy toll on frame rate?

[grizz441]

What I'm asking is, is its possible, and can it be done without a heavy toll on frame rate?

Only HiTech knows exactly what is possible and how it may affect frame rates, and most importantly how it would affect the lower 50% of the players on the performance spectrum.  I think the clouds look pretty good currently.  Some have that weird 2d feel when you go through them but a lot of them look very real.

[715]

I think the OP is asking for volumetric clouds instead of the collection of flat textures.  I would suspect that what he is asking for is impossible with current 3D capabilities.  Current 3D is all based on collections of flat polygons with surface texture painted on; ie the whole world is made like plywood surfaces with paintings on them.  There's nothing inside unless the designer adds more plywood with more pictures.  There is no way for the 3D cards to make a solid object.

There are ray tracing techniques to create voxels (volumetric pixels) and render solid volumetric clouds (my wife once implemented such a program on a Silicon Graphics Iris based on the marching cubes algorithm) but I believe modern 3D graphics cards cannot do voxels and software ray tracing is way, way too slow for real time 3D graphics.

[Motherland]

IMHO the clouds are pretty sub par... more effective ways of creating clouds have been around in video games for a long time.

[Knite]

Actually 715, volumetric clouds have been able to be done for quite some time (perhaps not true volumetric, but a good proximity). I think even Janes WWII fighters had Volumetic-ish clouds, and I know IL-2 does.

It's possible, and I think this recent graphics engine overhaul may have been needed to allow HTC to make changes, such as to the smoke, flames, and fog. There's always got to be a balance between performance and pretties though, and I think that's where the biggest "rub" is right now. Not ability or capability but playability.

[715]

Yeah, I agree there are better tricks to simulating volumetric-ish clouds.  I don't think they are true volumetric rendering is what I was saying.

[Plazus]

in other words you dont mind if your frame rates dip into the low single digits

Improved clouds shouldnt affect fps hardly at all. If any of you played MS Flight Sim, the clouds had minimal to no affect on frames. It was the ground detail and range that affected the performance the most.

So I say, +1 for improved clouds! 

[Kazaa]

I think improving the clouds design would be a fantastic additonal to the games new look.

How about another option under the advanced tab to increase the level of detail in the clouds?

[USRanger]

The clouds in AH1 were better IMO.

[Kazaa]

How about shadows made by the clouds, it would rock but I bet it would turn FPS fubar.