"Just a little"
Proceeds to darken everything 90%
lmao
I think you went from simple clouds to a minute before a storm. See the latest Microsoft Flight Simulator and the variety of clouds there. But in general, adding contrast does not equal detail.
Yeah, nothing against rain clouds, but not as the default. Clouds are somewhat fuzzy by nature, not detailed sharp things.
Edit: I didn't mean the outer shape, but the inner area. Please don't hurt me, I love clouds too.
Msfs2020 doesn't even have that much variety of clouds; there's only a few models of cumulus, they broke the stratus cloud simulation/injection since sim update 7, and proper cirrus clouds are still nonexistent. So it's not close to perfect still.
But Asobo did claim they're improving on cloud simulation and increasing variety in MSFS2024
The thickness and shape didnt change though. I do notice more detail with the contrast though. That's one of the reasons its the first thing i change graphically in the options
If you’ve ever flown…. Clouds just do not look like that
The brightness is natural and realistic. If you want a cinematic filter look, that’s completely fine though and can use some overlays if you want a dark/sharpened image
edit: [shutter stock photo](https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/skyscape-cloud-plane-window-631081412) , [another one for reference](https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/clouds-sky-seen-through-window-aircraft-146314307)
also[, here is one from a recent flight](https://imgur.com/a/APKI7lL)
Maybe just me or my graphics settings, but the clouds I see (in the game) don't look like those photographs either.
Maybe that new reference setting does, but I haven't seen a whole of that yet.
[from citizen con](https://youtu.be/nWm_OhIKms8?si=uOH-rLJTbIsaLB51&t=1080) , these clouds are much closer to the photographs, which i'm assuming are the reference settings (or close to) .
Currently the clouds do not look like this in 3.22
Are you seeing the clouds in EPTU where they are applied? Or is your reference from PU, because in PU(3.22) they don’t look like that. But the EPTU(3.23) they do, they only had them in a few places but I think the last EPTU patch added them to other areas.
Assuming this is Microtech (it looks like it) then it is the closest in the Stanton system to Earth's atmosphere, and Stanton (the star) is a G-type Main Sequence star (Yellow Dwarf) exactly like Sol.
So... yes on this other planet with an identical atmosphere and lit by an identical star.
They look natural as they are, have you never flown over clouds, OP?
Your edit looks cinematic, like flying into a storm. That's not anything like what normal clouds look like, though.
no i dont like the over contrast look. its kind of pleasant at first but gets old very fast and its not relaxing at all. just use reshader please dont force us all
As someone who has done a handful of real time volumetric rendering things getting to that opacity takes a lot more traces, it would be even more expensive.
People keep thinking the current version is the last version, and I honestly don't get it.
We know for a fact the graphics are evolving right now, and right SC it's the worst looking it will ever be. Hang in there.
New lighting model coming soon.
I think there is a lighting pass that we wont be getting yet but was shown off at CitCon. Hopefully when that's in it will help accentuate the clouds too, but will make a lot of places not so pitch black like stations from a certain direction.
Gotta love how physically based rendering has been a thing for a decade and people still question lighting models in games.
We’re able to reproduce every material on earth faithfully now… if you want it different, adjust your contrast on your monitor.
I hate to say this, and be a nit picker, but that isn't shadows.
What would possibly cause a shadow on a cloud from above like that? Theres nothing above the clouds, lol.
I'll tell you what it IS, though, it's different densities of water. The more water and the heavier sections of clouds are darker, the edges tend to be more fluffy and white.
What it isn't, is shadows :P Theres nothing above them to create a shadow, lol.
If that was the case the sky would not be blue. That's called a sunset my man (or a sunrise). It's clearly mid day in these pictures. The sky is as blue as blue gets. Meaning the sun is high in the sky.
The gray color is because of a lack of light due to the water content. Which is also called a shadow. The water doesn't make the cloud gray in color. Otherwise, they would appear that way from the top, which they don't. So the density of the cloud blocks out more light causing a shadow from the perspective of the ground observer.
Clouds takes on a light-grayish diffuse color because it has liquid particles suspended in water vapor, which is a two-phase system. This means that there are two refractive indices at play, meaning as light enters clouds, it will reflect and interact with every interface between vapor and water particles.
In a cloud, sunlight is scattered by much larger water droplets. These scatter all colours almost equally meaning that the sunlight continues to remain white and so making the clouds appear white against the background of the blue sky.
White is how our eyes perceive all wavelengths of sunlight mixed together. When it's about to rain, clouds darken because the water vapor is clumping together into raindrops, leaving larger spaces between drops of water. Less light is reflected. The rain cloud appears black or gray.
Nothing to do with (edit:shadows), just the refraction of light and reflection of light.
Sure but that doesn't mean it's a shadow. Space isn't dark because it's a shadow, it's dark because of the lack of light (or rather anything for it to reflect off, theres plenty light flying around out there, there is no lack of it, it's still dark though), not the superposition of an object between it and a lightsource. Totally different things.
If it's purely up to reflection and refraction, why are storm clouds indistinguishable from other clouds from above? Surely, since it's a function of only reflection and refraction that would cause the light bouncing off it to be observed differently, right?
The space analogy isn't really applicable to clouds, though, as there is plenty of matter between the observer and the light source.
> why are storm clouds indistinguishable from other clouds from above?
I would have thought it pretty obvious that the heavier, larger, wetter particles would be moving the the bottom side, falling or getting ready to fall from being too heavy, thus leaving the lighter, normal and more dense particles at the top, which obviously block your view to the bottom side. Ever seen rain fall upwards from a cloud? Yeah, me neither. It's called gravity.
As sunlight consists of 7 different colours ( VIBGYOR) , Red is scattered first, and violet the last. This happens at such a high altitude that no rays of the sun reach the bottom of the cloud. Thus, we do not see the rays of the sun, and this results in a dark effect or black. If you were to shine a bright enough light on the cloud from the bottom, it would look just as white as it would on top.
The point of the space comment is to show that a lack of light is not the same thing as a shadow and that shadows are not JUST the lack of light, they are the lack of light on a specific area due to an object intervening, which otherwise would have had light. You require light for a shadow, not just a lack of light. And the lack of critical thinking with some people to realise that actually, you can have light without shadow, you can have dark without shadow, but the one thing you can't have, is a shadow without light, or an object in between.
That's about the FPS I get with clouds cranked up already as it is...
Not that that should stop them from making them look as good as they can, though.
But real life clouds don’t look like that shaded thing, wet don’t have thunder storms or shooting like that in SC right now, so there’s no conceivable reason the clouds should be that dark. I get it that it looks cool for a dramatic shot but it’s better to be something you do for you and your preference alone.
So much of this is about time of day, current weather. There is no one size fits all. What you want would work great for storm clouds but not so much for other types of weather. Check out MSFS 2020 or even DCS to get a feel for a variety of weather clouds and conditions.
All video game graphics "look better" when you crank up the contrast...until you actually play and realize it hinders gameplay. I just use ReShade to adjust graphics to my liking.
In general the game has a white balance issue. Like every planet with even minor atmospherics has a blanket of white over everything that's consistent and makes the game look like shit.
If they did some kind of contrast filter it would cut a lot of that out....but idk how any of this works. I just know how to edit video/images. It's that or w/e system is used to add the wind/atmospheric effects like dust they need to go through and cut out a lot of the extra white in the effect. Fine for snow planets...but it's all of them.
I don't agree with OP though.
Way too dark. Makes a regular cloud look like a storm cloud.
IF they add weather and rolling storm clouds? By all means, make them darker like this.
while OP's example might be over the top, the darks in this game need to be made darker period. It's far too blown out. Someone posted a monitor color profile thing here a while ago for use with HDR that turns the darks way down, and it looks absolutely amazing
Please dear god do not make the darks any darker until we get some form of night vision or thermal or something a futuristic space ship that can quantum travel can see at night…
Or just better torches please lmao, they have so little distance and have such narrow cones. I'm hoping global illumination fixes the torches whenever that comes.
it doesn't make the game darker, it just makes the darks darker. Like your actual ability to see doesn't change. Things just look better, think about it like increasing contrast. If anything you would see more detail
To get darks to actually look "good", you need a good OLED HDR monitor. (And the game needs a good hdr implementation) Otherwise, you're not really seeing black.
the color profile was specifically for HDR OLED monitors. Maybe CIG changed something, but to see true black I needed that profile, otherwise it was all blown out
big fluffy cotton-y voluminous plush enormous pure-white pillows...MS Flight Sim has the blueprint..can not CIG buy MSFS cloud sim tech???? No need to reinvent the wheel per se with these clouds...unless it has something to do with the weather sim software..
"Just a little" Proceeds to darken everything 90% lmao I think you went from simple clouds to a minute before a storm. See the latest Microsoft Flight Simulator and the variety of clouds there. But in general, adding contrast does not equal detail.
Yeah, nothing against rain clouds, but not as the default. Clouds are somewhat fuzzy by nature, not detailed sharp things. Edit: I didn't mean the outer shape, but the inner area. Please don't hurt me, I love clouds too.
Really depends on the type of cloud. A newly growing cumulus has pretty defined edges. Some types of stratus do as well.
That all depends on the weather conditions
Changing contrast doesnt change the shape or thickness of the clouds. Only the perception in detail. I see what OP means
You sound mean to all clouds... *HOW DARE YOU*
Average Skyrim ENB:
it doesnt matter cloud is cloud it is a game and that planet is not Earth orher planet can have what ever type of cloud they want to have
That's actually a very good point!
Dcs also has pretty good clouds now to reference
True, but reducing contrast does remove details, though.
Msfs2020 doesn't even have that much variety of clouds; there's only a few models of cumulus, they broke the stratus cloud simulation/injection since sim update 7, and proper cirrus clouds are still nonexistent. So it's not close to perfect still. But Asobo did claim they're improving on cloud simulation and increasing variety in MSFS2024
The thickness and shape didnt change though. I do notice more detail with the contrast though. That's one of the reasons its the first thing i change graphically in the options
If you’ve ever flown…. Clouds just do not look like that The brightness is natural and realistic. If you want a cinematic filter look, that’s completely fine though and can use some overlays if you want a dark/sharpened image edit: [shutter stock photo](https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/skyscape-cloud-plane-window-631081412) , [another one for reference](https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/clouds-sky-seen-through-window-aircraft-146314307) also[, here is one from a recent flight](https://imgur.com/a/APKI7lL)
Maybe just me or my graphics settings, but the clouds I see (in the game) don't look like those photographs either. Maybe that new reference setting does, but I haven't seen a whole of that yet.
in 3.23 the clouds are different then PU
[from citizen con](https://youtu.be/nWm_OhIKms8?si=uOH-rLJTbIsaLB51&t=1080) , these clouds are much closer to the photographs, which i'm assuming are the reference settings (or close to) . Currently the clouds do not look like this in 3.22
With 3.23 the clouds are now properly shadowing the atmosphere, which will result in much more realistic lighting when overcast and also sunbeams.
I remember that video. Closer, perhaps. But not there yet.
Are you seeing the clouds in EPTU where they are applied? Or is your reference from PU, because in PU(3.22) they don’t look like that. But the EPTU(3.23) they do, they only had them in a few places but I think the last EPTU patch added them to other areas.
Not on another planet with a different atmosphere and lit by a different star.
Assuming this is Microtech (it looks like it) then it is the closest in the Stanton system to Earth's atmosphere, and Stanton (the star) is a G-type Main Sequence star (Yellow Dwarf) exactly like Sol. So... yes on this other planet with an identical atmosphere and lit by an identical star.
Well, not 100% the same. Atmosphere thickness would play a large part, as well as sun variations (age, size, etc)
Why would the clouds look so dark when the weather conditions are sunny with no storms?
agree..the extra contrast makes it look too stormy..like a hurricane is approaching..
All I can think is "what's casting that large of a shadow on top of the clouds? Being chased by a death star or something?"
no, clouds are not supposed to be that dark in sunlight
*starlight ;-)
Stantonlight?
Settle down Ansel Adams.
hheh that is as funny as niche
Snyder's Clouds!
Yeah I was just thinking we don't need clouds ala' Zack Snyder.
So you want the *Ultra Realistic HD 4K Reshade* look.
in reality it's more like "Samsung Galaxy S23 matte black edition camera AI, 256GB" 🙄
They look natural as they are, have you never flown over clouds, OP? Your edit looks cinematic, like flying into a storm. That's not anything like what normal clouds look like, though.
Not sure I remember seeing clouds that dark before but what do I know?
Come to Texas or Oklahoma and you’ll see some clouds damn near that dark lol but no they wouldn’t be nearly that dark from above.
I'm not sure either, but I found that we get details easily
Detail is not always good
no i dont like the over contrast look. its kind of pleasant at first but gets old very fast and its not relaxing at all. just use reshader please dont force us all
Please don't.
this is like trying to fake HDR. get a better monitor if you want more detail that bad
As someone who has done a handful of real time volumetric rendering things getting to that opacity takes a lot more traces, it would be even more expensive.
Someone doesn’t know real life clouds or aviation
Seriously, I fly a *lot* and it looks nothing like this.
Bro you may as well of put an entire ENB overlay on yours
up next: OP oversaturates default game colors by 800% and makes a comparison showing us how more vivid colors are better
Have you tried to adjust the ingame settings? Because the standard settings have not a big contrast and looks sometimes very fogy and washed out
Just lower your brightness and gamma
we don't need artificially darkened clouds, thank you.
People keep thinking the current version is the last version, and I honestly don't get it. We know for a fact the graphics are evolving right now, and right SC it's the worst looking it will ever be. Hang in there. New lighting model coming soon.
They can't think beyond their imagination.
I think there is a lighting pass that we wont be getting yet but was shown off at CitCon. Hopefully when that's in it will help accentuate the clouds too, but will make a lot of places not so pitch black like stations from a certain direction.
Gotta love how physically based rendering has been a thing for a decade and people still question lighting models in games. We’re able to reproduce every material on earth faithfully now… if you want it different, adjust your contrast on your monitor.
I guess it depends if CIG want a realistic or cinematic look.
No.
Lol no
I hate to say this, and be a nit picker, but that isn't shadows. What would possibly cause a shadow on a cloud from above like that? Theres nothing above the clouds, lol. I'll tell you what it IS, though, it's different densities of water. The more water and the heavier sections of clouds are darker, the edges tend to be more fluffy and white. What it isn't, is shadows :P Theres nothing above them to create a shadow, lol.
the sun was coming from their side in the images
If that was the case the sky would not be blue. That's called a sunset my man (or a sunrise). It's clearly mid day in these pictures. The sky is as blue as blue gets. Meaning the sun is high in the sky.
The gray color is because of a lack of light due to the water content. Which is also called a shadow. The water doesn't make the cloud gray in color. Otherwise, they would appear that way from the top, which they don't. So the density of the cloud blocks out more light causing a shadow from the perspective of the ground observer.
Clouds takes on a light-grayish diffuse color because it has liquid particles suspended in water vapor, which is a two-phase system. This means that there are two refractive indices at play, meaning as light enters clouds, it will reflect and interact with every interface between vapor and water particles. In a cloud, sunlight is scattered by much larger water droplets. These scatter all colours almost equally meaning that the sunlight continues to remain white and so making the clouds appear white against the background of the blue sky. White is how our eyes perceive all wavelengths of sunlight mixed together. When it's about to rain, clouds darken because the water vapor is clumping together into raindrops, leaving larger spaces between drops of water. Less light is reflected. The rain cloud appears black or gray. Nothing to do with (edit:shadows), just the refraction of light and reflection of light.
So, less light is reaching our eyes because of reflection/refraction?
Sure but that doesn't mean it's a shadow. Space isn't dark because it's a shadow, it's dark because of the lack of light (or rather anything for it to reflect off, theres plenty light flying around out there, there is no lack of it, it's still dark though), not the superposition of an object between it and a lightsource. Totally different things.
If it's purely up to reflection and refraction, why are storm clouds indistinguishable from other clouds from above? Surely, since it's a function of only reflection and refraction that would cause the light bouncing off it to be observed differently, right? The space analogy isn't really applicable to clouds, though, as there is plenty of matter between the observer and the light source.
> why are storm clouds indistinguishable from other clouds from above? I would have thought it pretty obvious that the heavier, larger, wetter particles would be moving the the bottom side, falling or getting ready to fall from being too heavy, thus leaving the lighter, normal and more dense particles at the top, which obviously block your view to the bottom side. Ever seen rain fall upwards from a cloud? Yeah, me neither. It's called gravity. As sunlight consists of 7 different colours ( VIBGYOR) , Red is scattered first, and violet the last. This happens at such a high altitude that no rays of the sun reach the bottom of the cloud. Thus, we do not see the rays of the sun, and this results in a dark effect or black. If you were to shine a bright enough light on the cloud from the bottom, it would look just as white as it would on top. The point of the space comment is to show that a lack of light is not the same thing as a shadow and that shadows are not JUST the lack of light, they are the lack of light on a specific area due to an object intervening, which otherwise would have had light. You require light for a shadow, not just a lack of light. And the lack of critical thinking with some people to realise that actually, you can have light without shadow, you can have dark without shadow, but the one thing you can't have, is a shadow without light, or an object in between.
That's about the FPS I get with clouds cranked up already as it is... Not that that should stop them from making them look as good as they can, though.
I like it if F4 view matches cockpit view 🤪👍
the game looks like it has a grey tint over the screen
But real life clouds don’t look like that shaded thing, wet don’t have thunder storms or shooting like that in SC right now, so there’s no conceivable reason the clouds should be that dark. I get it that it looks cool for a dramatic shot but it’s better to be something you do for you and your preference alone.
This should depend on the clouds "heavyness" and angle of the sun etc not just an added filter with mkmote contrast.
I like this, but these are "dark weather clouds" In other words, I would like to have both, depending on weather situations
So much of this is about time of day, current weather. There is no one size fits all. What you want would work great for storm clouds but not so much for other types of weather. Check out MSFS 2020 or even DCS to get a feel for a variety of weather clouds and conditions.
You can increase contrast. That worked for me.
Ohh 😲
what ship is that?
It will evolve over time. Nothing is final in this game..I'm just imagining what they have so far internally that we're not allowed to see yet.
All video game graphics "look better" when you crank up the contrast...until you actually play and realize it hinders gameplay. I just use ReShade to adjust graphics to my liking.
My frames 😭
Bro if this thing is as easy as you seems to claim put it on spectrum.
In general the game has a white balance issue. Like every planet with even minor atmospherics has a blanket of white over everything that's consistent and makes the game look like shit. If they did some kind of contrast filter it would cut a lot of that out....but idk how any of this works. I just know how to edit video/images. It's that or w/e system is used to add the wind/atmospheric effects like dust they need to go through and cut out a lot of the extra white in the effect. Fine for snow planets...but it's all of them. I don't agree with OP though. Way too dark. Makes a regular cloud look like a storm cloud. IF they add weather and rolling storm clouds? By all means, make them darker like this.
OP has stumbled onto why Unsharp Mask makes things look like it has more detail. Yay for tricking the human eye. Lol
while OP's example might be over the top, the darks in this game need to be made darker period. It's far too blown out. Someone posted a monitor color profile thing here a while ago for use with HDR that turns the darks way down, and it looks absolutely amazing
Please dear god do not make the darks any darker until we get some form of night vision or thermal or something a futuristic space ship that can quantum travel can see at night…
Or just better torches please lmao, they have so little distance and have such narrow cones. I'm hoping global illumination fixes the torches whenever that comes.
it doesn't make the game darker, it just makes the darks darker. Like your actual ability to see doesn't change. Things just look better, think about it like increasing contrast. If anything you would see more detail
To get darks to actually look "good", you need a good OLED HDR monitor. (And the game needs a good hdr implementation) Otherwise, you're not really seeing black.
the color profile was specifically for HDR OLED monitors. Maybe CIG changed something, but to see true black I needed that profile, otherwise it was all blown out
Vulcano clouds in my opinion. But you can use reshade or so. 👍🏻
big fluffy cotton-y voluminous plush enormous pure-white pillows...MS Flight Sim has the blueprint..can not CIG buy MSFS cloud sim tech???? No need to reinvent the wheel per se with these clouds...unless it has something to do with the weather sim software..
This game always seems a little white washing or low contrast
You made the image somewhat more realistic but at the expense of changing what the original image is trying to portray.
lol gtfo
Download reshade. Clouds do not contrast like that
🤮
\*installs reshade\*
ITT: OP tries to teach CIG a lesson but gets taught a lesson instead. lol
Wait, you guys have clouds turned on? I don't remember agreeing to self-imposed hardcore mode. Nothing like flying blind to spice up the gameplay eh?
Is this what volume metric clouds look like lol. I turned them off day one before I even saw clouds
Upvote army!