Captain Kitten

Not the most fantastic quality, but another video at least.

I am sorry to bring some bad news. It was not something that we expected and have never said that we support (yet), but VR does not work in xE1.10 and will not work in 1.10. How much work it is to get xE VR ready is uncertain. We will concentrate on that in a later stage. Sorry... As for the screenshots: Clouds are not in focus in these tests and are therefore very simple. Disregard artifacts. (I have completely fallen in love with the HotStart TBM...)

HotStarts fantastic TBM is working with xEnviro 1.10t61 in x-plane 11.30b1. That is great news. It looks like the xEnviro+Gizmo bug that created a lot of CTD's and such is crushed. No promises before a larger scale test run, but looks like it. ?

Was just about to post that ? thnx

Testing different aircraft (only the FFA320 in these shots) and seeing if they behave well with X-Plane 11.30b1 AND xEnviro 1.10t61 T61 has no variation in clouds. This is just for concentrated testing purposes. As we expected all along there is no conflict what so ever with xE 1.10 and X-Plane 11.30.

Preassure differences tests. We hope to be able to have all tested features in 1.10 - but some of them have a very high demand on performance. We'll see where we end up.

In the xEnviro facebook group I am bombarded with questions and sometimes pretty hostile comments on what, why and how we wasted time not fixing stuff in previous versions of xEnviro from 1.06 through 1.09. While I have answered this numerous times before I guess it's naive to think that people have read or will read my previous answers. So I'll explain some of it here and try to add to it as questions are answered. “Why did you not fix x? Why was version x like…?” I have explained this before. It’s not as if we’re not aware of the problems that have occurred. Past and present things such as performance issues in 1.09 and so on. xEnviro team is small. That is why we need to make some unpopular decisions and focus hard on where we want to go. Going back and “fixing” something in the older versions is just not an option. If we had done so we would still be stuck chasing x-plane updates and ironing out bugs that followed that path. We wouldn’t be able to get where we are today and 1.10’s volumetric clouds would still be an untouched canvas that is not even framed. The jump to 1.09 (through 1.08) was made after a complete rewrite of xEnviro to be more independent of x-plane’s constant changes to how xEnviro used its resources. Hence the long update time between 1.07 and 1.08. And at the same time we could dive in to noise rendering and get some thorough real world tests. The pressure to get a new version out led to the release of 1.08 and we got noise rendered 2d billboards. The unfortunate effect of that was that 1.09 (the hotfix of 1.08) became very power hungry and the resolution slider was introduced. We got into a complete mess with perspective and horizon shifts that "broke" the ability to zoom and a whole can of worms we needed a dialogue with Ben Supnik to sort out. Time wasn't on our side while we waited for some answers (not blaming LR for this - we understand that they are occupied with not only their own development, but other 3rd party devs as well) One could claim that the release of 1.08 / 1.09 was a mistake. But we don’t think so. Not by a long shot. We learned a lot from it. One of the things we learned was to not give in to the pressure of releasing too early. And we won’t. I’ll add to this: A couple of things in 1.06 and 1.07 are simply not possible to fix, and no “bugfree” solution exists. Like with the haze. The top border is sharp no matter what you do because of the way it is presented in x-plane. It’s a plain polygon and it’s flat and sharp. Of course you can add a bunch of blended polygons on top to hide or mask the original, but it opens up a whole new category of bugs and issues. While they blend nicely with terrain and sky, it just does not work against the 2d billboard clouds. And having haze only in CAVOC conditions is not an option. While this example was explained now as one of the many things that we just had to move away from I will not go into more detail – or discuss this problem in any way. It’s a part of the past. One of many. We have moved on. “Where are you now in the development?” We are 3/4th of the way in production. We have about 20 items left on the “must do” list and have another 20 items on the “want to do” list before we release 1.10. It is impossible to say what these 20 “must do” items represent in a time estimate. While some of you claim that the screenshots I post are proof that xEnviro is ready, it’s not. Why would we hold back on it if it were ready? That just doesn’t make any sense. Among the to do list is finalizing haze and cloud integration. That is a large task. While it looks good I am posting the images where we feel we are succeeding. That does not mean that it looks fantastic all the time. We have some artifacts that will iron themselves out in next phases, but to be sure we assemble and dissemble the different LEGO parts that is xEnviro’s base code – and test. We test a LOT. “What about Performance in 1.10?” No clue yet. As of now we are seeing a hit of 10-20 fps. That is before optimizing. So our goal of “better than 1.09” is still well within our reach. “What about other bug/issue x in x-plane/xE1.0x will 1.10 fix it?” No. 1.10 replaces the entire way weather is represented and substitutes it with a new version. This does not mean that we won’t have issues, but any issue emerging from 1.10 is 1.10 issue. Stuff like multiple screens and VR not working are not issues. Those are features to be supported in the future (albeit on “wish lists” for 1.10) “What about what I want? I want feature X now!” Frankly? We can't afford to care for that now. We have a very clear picture of what we need to do to get this out. Half of your requests and questions are either plainly unobtainable or non-issues in 1.10. The team is working their ass off to get this out the door and we need to focus on getting a well performing and stable platform to add eventual features on. We will take requests and do listen to what you want. Just don't expect it to come with the next update. Will the clouds be in better resolution when 1.10 releases? Well, yes and no. And there are two types of no in that answer. Yes, there will be types of clouds that look crisper. (we are not talking in terms of resolution in niose rendering). So there is your yes. The no is split in two because 1: Many types of clouds are not crisp and look almost exactly like you see in some of the screenshots. and 2: Making clouds very detailed is a matter of performance. Performance todays computers are unable to deliver. As mentioned: I will add to this post as new questions get answered. This way we have one place to go to for this. (I am dead tired and will hopefully be able to edit this post again soon maybe make a plain Q&A post as well)

OCT 23 2018 : LET THE TESTING BEGIN Basic haze procedures have been set and we are moving to the testing stage where we must ensure the haze looks natural and inline with x-plane environment, lighting and terrain in as many weather situations as possible. We still have a decent list of items ahead of us, mostly visual effects and artificial adjustments to increase the overall quality of the environment and we are going to address all of them in parallel with the testing.

Disregard cloud artifacts and grainynes. Rain effect missing still. Haze and color matching and adjustments. cloud

Haze / pollution tests

Haze, horizon and elevation/distance density focus Distance density tests haze/fog Different haze horizon tests

Allright I don't think I need to repeat that these are WORK IN PROGRESS.... We are aware of the artifacts and low resolution on ground and objects edges. Almost under cirrus cloud layer: Almost over cirrus cloud layer: Sunbow

Look... xEnviro is a complete environment engine with its own atmosphere that calculates the visuals based on the light from the sun and molecule calculations. This means that everything you see is variable based on sun's position in relation to weather and altitude data. Call it our form of ray tracing if you will. (same but different) Light is affected by the atmosphere it travels through. This has an effect on everything. Even seasonal and mountain snow. Shadows look more real and natural because they are cast from volumetric clouds. The shape of the cloud shapes the shadow. Further more they will be effected by haze and other environment effects (which has been removed in the last pics). It's all complex but getting less fragile for every step we complete. I guess what I am saying is that you can not compare 1.09 with 1.10. It's two very different environment engines now where 1.10's atmosphere has been reworked from the ground up.

Are you using a shader or similar? I don't see that problem at all. But. In any case the whole atmosphere model is reworked for 1.10 so comparing 1.10 to any previous version will be hard.

Clouds have always moved. 1.10 will be no different except that clouds form are affected by the wind to some extent as well.

And a couple of beautyshots ?

In the following screenshots you will see some artifacts and rough edges, horizon and ground low rez blending - and do not pay attention to the ground shadows. This and a lot of other stuff is being worked on.

Thank you. But. This is all Andrey, my friend. He is the math genious behind xEnviro. I am only here for the glory.