Hitech recently asked me to create weather files for the current Melee arena terrains. Using his rule of keeping a 40 mile separation between cloud blocks to keep player FPS from being impacted, I started creating weather. I posted some of my testing results in the General forum thinking people would like to see content is being created, and what a great job Hitech is doing with the content editors provided to us players.
CM Eye mode has to be used for this endeavor so you can travel around an arena at up to 50000 and not waste time looking for your clouds. I had an eye opener by doing that in how many of our old AH2 converted to AH3 terrains have 7-12k mountains or highlands that I never thought would be there. From playing on those terrains for years I had stopped paying attention to the topography. So I saved myself the embarrassment of having cumulus clouds plowing into highlands. I was able to either adjust the elevation for the length of the lifespan run or change the cloud type to higher altitude cirrocumulus. My goal was to match cloud types to terrain and conditions.
Hitech asked me to keep track of FPS issues and I found some with the cumulus above 6-cumulus because of how thick they were. So for play-ability purposes I used only 2 from the menu of 6 types of cumulus, 5-cumulus and 6-cumulus. If you put clouds in the MA, players will use them as part of their combat strategy and fly in them. As for the cirrocumulus, depending on the terrain topography, there is a cloud area block of up to 50x50 miles so high alt clouds of about15-25k can be setup and look very realistic.
Here are screen shots from all of my recent testing and from the different terrains I built weather files for.
Inside of the cloud editor showing the 40 mile separation for the cloud blocks that is mandatory.
Some examples of highlands I didn't expect and had to adjust cloud type or elevation for.
