Suggestion Reduce height of the reduced visibility/ haze/ fog layer

[leghorn]

Greetings AS team,

I love your newest AS16+ASCA on P3Dv3 products a lot, though i think some tweaking are in order to make it really shine. What i don't currently like in the software is the height to which the reduced visibility layer extends. Sometimes, after departing in hazy conditions, i break thru the haze at more than 10 000 ft. If i'm doing IFR with my beloved A2A fleet, it sometimes takes ages to get above the fog/ or haze. I don't think it's the case in real life. See, the visibility highly depends on temperature and dew point and we know well that they change drastically in height. I remember when i was doing my PPL, i was taking off with a C172 on a hazy morning and it usually was about 600-700 ft of climb and i could see the clear morning skies and all the city sunk in haze with some of the taller buildings peaking from here and there.. Amazing views really. What's best, is that all of this is possible with the P3Dv3 volumetric fog, which i think is not used at it's best in AS16. When i set the visibility layer height manually via the in-sim weather configurator, i can achieve the mentioned above amazing results, and i'm wondering why this can't be AS16 default, or at least an option? I'm attaching both real life pic and a custom set weather in P3D.

haze layer is visible at around 1000ft. (The CRJ is on a short final with about 15sec to touch down)

The great atmosphere that could be achieved with low creeping fog/ haze is really worth a try, i believe.

Many thanks in advance for considering my suggestion. I hope i'm not alone in this
Kind Regards,
Vic

 

[bjratchf]

Beautiful pics, and idea.

 

[orangina]

I definitely agree with this point. That what I see usually flying during winter in the alps.
I try to figure out why the fog layer goes so high (around 9000ft). I try to investigate with hifi in two topics with no success for the time.

It's possible to create the phenomena manually in p3D with volumetric fog as you said, but it seems not to be use by AS2016 (I think it to make the gradual visibility transition be possible) wheras it was by ASN

Orangina

 

[leghorn]

I'd like to bump my request. I really think a lower (sometimes even creeping) fog/ haze will drastically improve immersion

 

[roi1862]

Agree. This is by far the best weather engine it just needs couple of improvements and its basically perfect.

 

[leghorn]

*Bump. Any feedback on the matter is much appreciated

 

[damian]

Hi all,

Firstly, thanks for the feedback... always appreciated and helpful as we decide on where to focus our efforts moving forward.

AS16 was originally released with the upgraded ASN-based visibility depiction system for FSX and P3D. When VolFog was introduced in P3D, we brought out Service Pack 1 which had an essentially completely re-designed visibility depiction system to account for the new Volfog feature and the depiction parameters (including limitations) around it. We spent months introducing improvements, tweaks and general enhancements to the visibility experience with P3D's volumetric fog. I think we had great success with this overall and all this was provided free through multiple updates over 2 years.

Here is list of the SP1+ improvements made:
- Further redesign and improvement in visibility depiction and configuration
- Adjusted volumetric fog / surface visibility layer to be dynamic based on conditions - for better overall visuals in most cases
- Eliminated visibility-related flashing at certain altitudes
- Adjusted visibility layer selection processes to reduce vis changes when flying in variable mountainous terrain
- Adjusted visibility graduation to be exponential for more realistic depiction
- Various adjustments to improve/increase apparent visibility in appropriate conditions
- Various adjustments to decrease apparent haze near horizon in higher-visibility conditions
- Adjusted Automatic Upper Visibility Adjustment logic to bias towards higher visibility
- Added volumetric fog + overcast awareness and special depiction mode for more realistic experience
- Further volumetric fog smoothing adjustments
- Eliminated auto adjust upper visibility options when Volumetric Fog is enabled (now automatically adjusted for best results)
- Added volumetric fog smoothing delay when overflying temporary/occasional areas of reduced visibility, to prevent significant back and forth changes in such conditions
- Added detection, re-syntehsis and automatic refresh on user-initiated change of P3D volumetric fog option (no longer requires AS16 restart)
- Adjusted visibility depiction to remove 2nd visibility layer when Maximum Upper Visibility setting is 200 miles, which can improve performance
- Visibility depiction improvements to prevent depiction anomalies in low visibility especially in mountainous terrain
- Changed default Maximum Upper Visibility setting to 199sm (the maximum vis with 2 visibility layers)
- Further adjustments to apparent visibility graduation ceiling, providing quicker clearing of skies when climbing above surface level when volumetric fog is enabled
- Experimental upper visibility depiction handling change with Volfog on (P3D), attempts to increase apparent visibility while still masking cloud draw distance using typical "masking" upper max visibility settings of approximately 80 miles
- P3D Experimental upper visibility depiction handling change via previous HotFix made permanent


ASP4 further improved the visibility depiction experience based on feedback and our own trials and tribulations through the process. There are too many changes to list but you can check out our product pages and website update release notes (which continue) for details. AS16 for P3Dv3 is not currently receiving new feature enhancements as we have moved our development efforts to more recent products/platforms.

Note that for both products, your visibility settings, including max upper visibility, can have a very big effect on this. Please see the user's guide and readme for additional notes on this which may help significantly.

See, the visibility highly depends on temperature and dew point and we know well that they change drastically in height.

Our global modeled and soundings-based temperature/dewpoint analysis and synthesis attempts to follow a basic Skew-T style prediction and accounts for temperature inversions, surface layer mixing and more for the most realistic results. There are some challenges in depiction however, and complex consideration, especially with VolFog and the potential for variable terrain elevations to influence the overall depiction quality (things like how vis intersects with terrain, when both below, in and above the surface transition to aloft). Smoothing the surface visibility changes with Volfog layers was an incredibly difficult task and while it works great and provides great transition experience, it comes with some drawbacks in the surface-to-aloft visibility depiction transition area and I think that is probably what you are seeing. Again, maxim upper visibility setting has a huge affect here. Please read the user's guide and readme info on this again and try experimenting, you may find a great balance in settings and compromise that work for you.

We are already working on more advanced visibility depiction (for new versions) and there is a priority on improving this part of things as well as removing the complexity for users in regard to option settings (making intelligent depiction choices automatically based on the specific scenario). I appreciate demand and the possibility of accomplishing more realistic "low hanging fog" type experiences and this feedback will definitely make it into our design choices. Thanks again for your feedback all, and as always, keep it coming please!

 

[leghorn]

Dear Damian,

Thank you for the extremely detailed and professional explanation. I will experiment with my settings and looking forward for future releases as always. I's awesome, knowing that developers care and listen! All the best to the entire team!