Great Mod ! I made my peace with leaving out the fog option, cause i assume, they wouldn't have flown in that bad conditions anyway...

Well they might start out in good weather and then encounter the fog. It's really too bad that it can't be rendered properly. It would have really added a new weather capability. IMHO

Bump, and to let people to know I will likely be adding a few more "snow" clouds in the near future. I'm also exploring the possibility of getting it to snow (at least snow in the air) during the month of December.

Thanks BuckeyeBob your cloud mod is fantastic,the added snow would be fantastic

Hi Folks

This is a new mod update:

WOFF UE Consolidated Custom Airfields Mods Repository Folder zip available on Sandbaggers mods page.

This update contains RAF_Louvert's "Thetford" and "Catterick" training facilities as well as the winter tiles for Havrincourt Wood.

Here is an extract from the contained "Reame" file:

Created: 11 June 2017
Author: Robert Wiggins at SimHQ forum
Version 2.1

Changelog 2.1

 This release contains the additions of Winter tiles for Havrincourt wood, as well as the Catterick and Thetford training fields all of which were created by RAF_Louvert. These additions require that you apply all the mods contained in this release in order for things to work properly.

Best Regards

The latest update to my cloud mod has taken longer than I expected, but is slowly coming along. I feel I have a better understanding now of how precipitation works in the game, so most of the update will be concerned with that.

I also have hopes of eventually working with JJJ in order to produce even more customized cloud and sky conditions, but that will have to wait until at least the end of the month when he gets back from his mountain holiday! (Currently, each of the five weather types have one or two generic skyboxes which are used for all cloud conditions in that weather type. Hopefully, with JJJ's help I will be able to create customized skyboxes for each of the different cloud types that are now in the cloud mod)!

Buck, I look forward to your work. Can you explain briefly what changes to the sky box will achieve as an example. It is rather vague to me.

Skyboxes are nothing more than the far Horizon background .dds. and currently each individual type Weather is assigned a Skybox in it's file.

I've spent a lot of time on making custom skyboxes, and they can be tricky to get right because you're mapping a sphere onto six flat faces.

That's a little over my head Major! Can you recommend a 101 type article that would give me an in depth orientation of what they are and how they are applied?

Whew, where to start? It is a bit complicated. PR and MajorMagee are both correct, of course. The extra difficulty is the OFFDynamicMissionWeather.xml file. A little background:

1. Each cloud type has a Background weather section, like this:
in addition to different cloud layers.

2. Each weather type (Good, Light, Medium, Heavy, Variable, SPrecip, and WPrecip) has 1-3 Skyboxes associated with each type. Each skybox also has its own Background weather section, which is identical to the Background weather section for each cloud type, except that the values are different. Here is an example from the OFFDynamicMissionWeather.xml file, which is created at the start of each mission:

Currently, when a mission is generated, the Background weather section at the start of the OFFDynamicMissionWeather file is created from one of the skyboxes associated with one of the 7 weather types and not from the background weather section of the specific cloud type. In effect, this creates a "one size fits all" for each cloud type assigned to a particular weather pattern. My aim is to create customized background skies (as well as wind directions and wind speeds) that come from the background weather section of each cloud type instead of from the weather type.

The rest of the OFFDynamicMissionWeather file creates variable sky conditions based on other cloud types found in the same weather type as the selected cloud type, but always based on the same background sky as found at the start of the OFFDynamicMissionWeather file. I am not proposing to mess with this part of the OFFDynamicMissionWeather file.

Robert, I'm afraid that is more of a 300 or 400 level course than a 101 course!

Here are two pics to illustrate what I mean. Both use the same cloud type I created in my cloud mod: OFF_BB Mist and Clouds. The first pic is with an unaltered WOFFDynamicMissionWeather.xml file. The background sky color is: 4284111450

WOFF Mist and Clouds


The second uses an altered WOFFDynamicMissionWeather.xml file that uses the BackgroundWeather data from the beginning of my OFF_BB Mist and Clouds file instead of the Background weather data from one of the skyboxes associated with the SPrecip weather type. Notice the background sky color is now: 4293784308

BuckeyeBob Mist and Clouds


Obviously, you would not want the same background sky color you see in the second picture for all cloud types! However, with my suggested alteration (if possible), you would have much greater flexibility in creating different background cloud conditions customized for each cloud type instead of each weather type.

The main problem with this approach is whether (no pun intended) the background sky color for each specific cloud type would look good with the other clouds generated for the mission by the OFFDynamicMissionWeather file. That will take some further testing.

Thanks for the explanation Buckeye. I feel I have a much better understanding than before and what really stands out here is how complex the whole issue is. I also understand that proper testing for all scenarios will take considerable time. Cudos to you for undertaking this mod. It is already very good and what you are proposing will make it considerably better.

I look forward to each stage of your release!

My pleasure, Robert.

If JJJ and I can pull this off, not only will we get customized fogcolors tailored for each specific cloud type, but also customized wind speeds and directions. Right now, unless you use JJJ's mission editor, there are only approximately 12 or 13 Background wind conditions in the game. It should be possible to create any number of different wind conditions by altering the beginning of the OFFDynamicMissionWeather file. In fact, JJJ's mission editor already does this, but only with wind speeds.

If you are drawing new images for the skybox each patch is drawn as Front, Left, Back, Right, Front to make the joins seamless.
Front is displayed looking South
Left is displayed looking West
Back is displayed looking North
Right is displayed looking East

Within the weather xml files there is a parameter called fogcolor that uses a 10 number sequence to define it's color. This is a decimal that converts to hexidecimal as FF followed by the Red, Green and Blue color values as numbers from 00 (darkest) to FF (lightest). A pure gray would have R = G = B. For example scatteredclouds4low.xml has the BackgroundWeather fogcolor as 4288789972 which converts to FF A1 BD D4 which is a light blue grey R=161, G = 189, B = 212. The choice of this shade will have a significant impact on how well the fog will blend into the skybox background colors. AnKors latest shaders address the grey band that frequently was seen along the horizon, but they cannot completely make up for poorly matched fog/skybox colors.

The method used for the tuning of the fog color was to check the color at about the middle of the skybox texture using PhotoShop, and then to turn down the brightness by 12% in the color checker. The Hexadecimal RGB values were then put in a calculator with FF added at the beginning, and converted to the decimal equivalent. This is the value that went into the fogcolor. A quick check in the game was then used to refine the brightness value up or done slightly in PhotoShop, and a new hex and decimal value was tried until the match was optimized for most conditions.

Just for a little more complication AnKor's shaders use the suneffect.xml to change the environmental lighting effects based on the time of day and direction you're looking, so a skybox fogcolor combination that works at one time of day and direction, may not be a perfect match at another combination.

Major, many thanks for your discertation. I see the process as a very tedious trial and error undertaking.

UPDATE: I am now in the final stages of testing version 2.1 of the OCM. In addition to adding a few more cloud types, I also made a few tweaks to a couple of existing clouds to further reduce "banding" and "popping." Users of the BB Fog Option should particularly notice improvements to several of the fog sky types.

I also found and corrected a relatively minor bug in previous versions that may have resulted in some weather anomalies (although I haven't actually seen any evidence of this in the actual game).

The mod should be ready in a few days and certainly no later than

Thank you sir.
Looking forward to it.

Eleven days is shorter than two weeks, isn't it?

Version 2.2 of the WOFF UE Optional Cloud Mod is now available at the end of the first post in this thread! Here is a list of the major changes to the mod:
• Fixed bug where some larger cloud files can result in a truncated OFFDynamicMissionWeather file, possibly leading to some weather anomalies
• Added 3 additional snow cloud types for winter precipitation and 2 additional heavy cloud types
• Adjusted balance of rainy and snowy cloud types in SPrecip and WPrecip folders
• Tweaked cloud types in Medium, Variable, and Heavy folders so clouds have a better chance of matching the weather "forecast" for that particular day
• Tweaked appearance of high clouds in several "heavy" cloud types
• Reworked fog effect (again) in BB Fog Option folder to further reduce cloud popping and banding
• Miscellaneous changes and tweaks

BONUS: I have also updated the OFFHistoricalWeather files to version 1.42. Please see the link at the end of the first post on this thread. Changes to the historical weather files are mainly cosmetic, with several spelling errors corrected and some modifications to the daily weather "forecast." I also made a few alterations to the seven weather types so they will work better with OCM 2.2. Users may notice a very slight improvement to the overall weather, with not quite so many "heavy" weather days.

Please share your experiences with the two mods and any areas you may have for improvement. Enjoy!

BuckeyeBob;

I have just sent JSGME self installable versions of both your mods of to Sandbagger for inclusion on his mods page.