Captain Kitten

b53 doesn't look too bad though...

Alright... here's the deal. Or rather what we have dealt with the past weeks: (no these are not release notes, sorry) Details vs performance and issues relating to artifacts and sector borders. So we had a chance to look at higher resolution clouds. Not where we want to end up kind of resolution, but way way better than 1.11. This caused some performance issues so we had to revert back. Not exactly a dead end since we now have seen what xE is capable of. So resolution will be the same as 1.11. (Do NOT confuse this with grain - grain has nothing to do with resolution in this case). The major sector issues should be solved. So there should be less "bad sectors" but we can not control bad meta data other than picking up on the sectors reported by users in our discord channel. We then change or update the source to fix it. Sector border lines are seen from the underside of the clouds and will be something we attack in 1.14. We have a plan but need headroom in performance. Some of the known issues we so far know will be present in 1.12 are: Artifacts when clouds clip terrain (this is a hard one) Sector lines Contrails and particle effects make clouds invisible Performance is still bad on 4k Low horizon detail (some jaggedness may occur) Artifacts on horizon when on ground (occationally) Grain is reduced by 40-60% but will have "hot spots" Grain prominent when clouds are lit up by landing lights - and clouds look flat Volumetric lights not adjusted for every airframe. Terrain line at dusk/dawn (depth clip) Mountains vanishing at horizon (x-plane problem since x-plane only draws terrain 160 km) A lot of these we can fix once we have performance headroom. "So you reduced detail? What does that look like?" It basically looks like 1.11 but with less grain. It just won't be as detailed as the screenshots we have published lately and less grain may make clouds look less defined. A good trade off if it is temporary. And it is. (No it is not possible to make an option for this that would be like developing two programs simutaniously) Next update will be all about performance. No side tracking what so ever. Here are some examples of what to expect: 1.12b51 (and how 1.12 will look) We will get back to the beautifully detailed cloud layers above. We just need to up the performance game a couple of notches. What we had to revert to is not ugly, but we want more. It also remains to see if we strike gold in one of our 5 performance paths. If we do we will get multi monitor and VR back in the scope. As performance stands now any higher pixel count demanding features is just a waste of time. Back to work! Some more shots of how 1.12 will look.

Seriously ticking off items fast on the list now. Assembling r01 once all issues are gone. Team has been working extremely efficient the past few days with the aim of getting r01 ready today. BUT (!!) some issues create two or three new ones that have to be adressed. Just the nature of development and what every developer has to deal with some times. Hence we will never give ETA's. So, we're at the last 2-5% of 1.12. The hardest part of the build..

These are Norway (NO source) ortho imagery. No new textures. The summer images are the original ones and the autumn colored ones are the ones that are altered by xEnviro in real time. Yes, it works on default, ortho, SFD Global and Orbx scenery. (Yes it works on airports as well - any scenery) xE seasons will include autumn and snow on top of that. Both being accumulative. We will probably ship these with 1.12 (been working on this inbetween when testing is needed and we had idle time) xE1.12b24

if msfs2020 having support for more than 30 layers of clouds with good performance on Directx11 ... why would x-enviro only have only few for now.... Because x-plane isn't in any way optimized for the implementation this type of weather engine. And FS2020 has been built to include it. what are the avenues in x-plane engine that limit the hands of x-enviro developers .... is Laminar planning to make your work easy and open all blockages to give you free-hand to express the full potential of future x-enviro releases .... I won't go in to detail about our diuscussions with Laminar.

We didn't release a "grain fix" patch because it is still being worked on. While testing was done on those aspects we developed other items like autumn so we didn't waste time idling.

Season: Autumn in combination with snow. Both effects accumulate.