Rain - did not know this ...

[Paul Anderson]

(then again, do not know a lot of things - one more is not going to depress me)

In FS9 there were virtual cockpits and rain would show on the windshield.
I got so I would not download a plane without a virtual cockpit (and a pilot).
When FSX came out I changed the camera view to skip any 2d cockpit and go to the virtual one.
No rain on windshield, thought it was broken, then read FSX had disabled rain effects on 3d windshield for FPS reasons.
Then found there was a rain fix for FSX, loaded it and no change.
Recently I tried right clicking on screen and clicked cockpit (instead of my default virtual).
Lo and behold, there was rain on the windshield in the 2d cockpit.
This works whether the plane comes with a 2d view or not.
You can always right click screen and choose virtual to get back to 3d cockpit.

Who says old dogs can't learn new tricks, I'll go to 2d next time it's wet weather and check it out.

[napamule]

The Rain in Spain is Mainly in the Plain....

So where is the rain in FSX? In the 2D. And where are the windshield wipers? In the VC. Now that's REALLY a 'dog gone' trick alright! (hehe).
Chuck B
Napamule

[falcon409]

The Rain in Spain is Mainly in the Plain....

So where is the rain in FSX? In the 2D. And where are the windshield wipers? In the VC. Now that's REALLY a 'dog gone' trick alright! (hehe).
Chuck B
Napamule
Yep, that's the one feature that most would have probably enjoyed seeing and unless someone can figure out how to incorporate it again. . .we probably will be stuck with going to the 2D to see the rain. I wonder how much of an fps hit the rain would actually cause now. I always had the biggest hit from clouds...even with this new system, clouds still sometimes slow things down a bit. I can't imagine that with the way PC's have improved since the advent of FSX that it would be that much of a drag on the system anymore.

[n4gix]

If one has installed the missing "rain textures" (all 36 of 'em) in FSX, and is using an FS9 model, then you will see rain on the VC windshield.

Beware though, the so-called Flight1 "fix" isn't really a "fix" as such. They simply provide all of the missing textures, but have made them completely transparent... :blind:

It is possible for a modeler to re-create VC rain in a new FSX interior model, but it's a major PITA since all of the logic has to be coded to cycle the VC rain textures.

[Paul Anderson]

If one has installed the missing "rain textures" (all 36 of 'em) in FSX, and is using an FS9 model, then you will see rain on the VC windshield.

Beware though, the so-called Flight1 "fix" isn't really a "fix" as such. They simply provide all of the missing textures, but have made them completely transparent... :blind:

It is possible for a modeler to re-create VC rain in a new FSX interior model, but it's a major PITA since all of the logic has to be coded to cycle the VC rain textures.

Yes, thanks. After some Googling found lots of folks claiming fix worked, but made no mention of whether was 2d or 3d vc, or FS9 import planes or not.

Probably wrong forum to ask in, but does anyone know if 3d vc rain effects reinstated in upcoming P3D version 2.0?
From what I've read, there is more fps so should be more elbow room for effects also.

[n4gix]

The statement "it works" depends on the context of what one is speaking...

The Flight1 "fix" simply eliminated the opaque windows of FS9 aircraft's cockpit windows by making the "VC Rain" textures transparent.

The MS "fix" simply copies the FS9 "VC Rain" textures into FSX's ..\Texture folder, making the "vc rain" work again and eliminating the opaque windows.

As for P3D no one knows at this time other than the devs and some beta testers, neither of whom have said anything about it.

[Bjoern]

It is possible for a modeler to re-create VC rain in a new FSX interior model, but it's a major PITA since all of the logic has to be coded to cycle the VC rain textures.

Or just save yourself the hassle and use a static texture. The point of windshield rain is obscuring outside visibility, so why waste resources on overly complex animations?

The biggest PITA is setting up the wipers to not intersect with the glass plane and then cutting out the "wiped" area. The code for the wiper switch and visibility conditions is no big issue, once you've done it once or know where to find it.

[Sascha66]

Or just save yourself the hassle and use a static texture. The point of windshield rain is obscuring outside visibility, so why waste resources on overly complex animations?


That might work. Not as immersive as animated water tracks though.

Sascha

[Bjoern]

That might work. Not as immersive as animated water tracks though.

I've tried animated rain with skinned meshes and running "wheels". While roughly capturing rain behaviour on cockpit windows, it was way too hard to set up and did not look convincing enough. Even the canopy rain on Lotus' famed L-39 uses an awfully complex system of bitmaps and visibility cycling code which blows up model complexity to a good extent.


Easiest thing to do is waiting for P3D to someday introduce a rain shader for glass materials. Enable the material to show rain and let the sim itself handle the rest.

[Naruto-kun]

Actually procedural generation of a rain texture with no loss of framerates is possible but...ill leave it at that...

[Bjoern]

Actually procedural generation of a rain texture with no loss of framerates is possible but...ill leave it at that...

The same as gradual lighting.
Unless you don't go open source on it though, it remains a privilege of the few.

[Naruto-kun]

Well it is really just a matter of "heighten the level of skill and imagination"...

[Dangerousdave26]

Paul here is the instructions to fix the VC rain effect problem from FSInsider

http://www.microsoft.com/Products/Games/FSInsider/tips/Pages/SupportAlertAdd-onAircraftCockpitsOpaqueintheRain.aspx

They provide the fs9 textures in a zip file.

It only works on FS9 models in FSX.

[Bjoern]

Well it is really just a matter of "heighten the level of skill and imagination"...

...and starting to work way outside of FSX' box.

[anthony31]

The same as gradual lighting.
Unless you don't go open source on it though, it remains a privilege of the few.

Easy to do.

Create a VC texture over your windows. Tile it if you like to get more raindrops per centimetre and you can then use a smaller 256x256 texture. Using a smaller VC texture is good because using a 1024x1024 VC texture eats up 50MB of RAM while a 256x256 texture only eats 3 MB of RAM.

Use a ONE - ONE src/dest blend on your VC texture. Anything black is transparent.

Then using a VC gauge you can draw your rain.

Lovely. And so much more framerate friendly than making 32 or 64 visibility layers which gobble up drawcalls like nobodies business.

Now, if only we knew of someone who was making a nice new plane that used this method... I wonder... Who could that be...

[heywooood]

Easy to do.

Create a VC texture over your windows. Tile it if you like to get more raindrops per centimetre and you can then use a smaller 256x256 texture. Using a smaller VC texture is good because using a 1024x1024 VC texture eats up 50MB of RAM while a 256x256 texture only eats 3 MB of RAM.

Use a ONE - ONE src/dest blend on your VC texture. Anything black is transparent.

Then using a VC gauge you can draw your rain.

Lovely. And so much more framerate friendly than making 32 or 64 visibility layers which gobble up drawcalls like nobodies business.

Now, if only we knew of someone who was making a nice new plane that used this method... I wonder... Who could that be...

lol - now I really cant wait for the new T28's

You are a carnsarned GENIUS Ant

[Bjoern]

Then using a VC gauge you can draw your rain.

You mean using a control gauge to cycle each tile?

[euroastar350]

I would be very interested in learning this trick, but am using 3DS Max for my projects

[anthony31]

You mean using a control gauge to cycle each tile?

It wouldn't be just a control gauge. It would be the gauge that draws each tile. Create a small piece of logic within the gauge to control a rain counter and then use a case statement to display the appropriate image depending on your rain counter.

[Bjoern]

It wouldn't be just a control gauge. It would be the gauge that draws each tile. Create a small piece of logic within the gauge to control a rain counter and then use a case statement to display the appropriate image depending on your rain counter.

That's what I tried to imply.

It's an interesting approach, provided one is willing to have 10^20 raindrop objects in the hierarchy.


I bet you'll show it off in a T-28 promo video, right? ;)