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No Clouds Custom Terrain

Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 9:58 am
by Mossy
Loving Condor so far but I was just wondering if anyone else has a solution.
I'd love to fly my home terrain SE Victoria Australia that i got from skylinescondor.com however there are no clouds.
I was wondering if anyone else has this problem or if it affects all user made/free terrains on skylines. I'm trying to download and try some other terrains from condor club and skylines aswel.
Can I fix it myself/should i make a post in the Landscape Development section?

Re: No Clouds Custom Terrain

Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 10:16 am
by Bre901
As far as I can understand your question, I would answer that clouds are not part of the landscapes you can download here or there (except for the ones that the landscape designers forgot to remove from the aerial or satellite photographs)

If you want to have thermal clouds, you need to set up the weather so that they appear, i.e. that the cumulus cloud base is below the inversion layer.

May I suggest that you take a look at the manual, especially chapter 4 : FREE FLIGHT/Weather/Thermals

Re: No Clouds Custom Terrain

Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 12:26 pm
by Mossy
Thanks so much mate, It's definitely the former as I've got the weather working on maps other than from skylines.
Would you happen to know anything about mapping thermals and cumulous clouds to a terrain in the case that the landscape designers left them out?

Re: No Clouds Custom Terrain

Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 12:33 pm
by Andy1248
Every scenery should have a 'Thermal Map' where the scenery designer has indentified areas more likely to generate thermal than others. This map is based on the terrain and gorund features i.e water = no thermals, built up areas = good thermals and all the other areas in between. This map should be an albedo (no shadows) greyscale map.

I am not familar with scenery you quote but no or a all black thermal map could affect thermal generation. I suggest you contact the scenery designer to ask about this.

EDIT - I have just tried the SE Victoria scenery and there is no problem with thermals or clouds.

Re: No Clouds Custom Terrain

Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 12:43 pm
by Mossy
Okay, sounds like pretty standard game dev stuff. Ill go looking for that albedo thermal map.
I wonder why yours is working and not mine, I've tried 3 different maps from skylinescondor.com and have had the same issue however maps downloaded from the Condor Club/Condor Updater work fine.

EDIT - I'm not finding any map in Slovenia or any other working map after searching the particular landscapes: root, textures and world folders.
I looked in all the others as well of course but they contain non image format files.
Would you happen to know where it is?

Re: No Clouds Custom Terrain

Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 2:54 pm
by 6266
Like Bre901 wrote, look in the task, there Weather and Thermals. Is there a cloud shown in the picture then you will have clouds in your flight. If not you can move the temperature left and right and the Inversion up and down. You will see what happens with the cloud. I can't believe that landscapes from skyline are different to them from CC, I use them too and if they were different I couldn't fly online together with others.

I suggest that you have a blue task without clouds. If you change the landscape the weather settings are still the same, you can try it with every landscape, nothing will change the weather. You have to change the weather settings. If you attach your flightplan here we can take a look on it.

All this you find in the manual (Bre901 wrote it too) https://www.condorsoaring.com/manual_en/
task.png

Re: No Clouds Custom Terrain

Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 3:02 pm
by Andy1248
The 'SceneryName' folder should have a 'SceneryName.tdm' file.

No .tdm file = no thermals. But I guess Condor would not run without the .tdm file but who knows.

Re: No Clouds Custom Terrain

Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 3:21 pm
by Mossy
Hey thanks for all the help guys, I absolutely had clouds in my weather settings but was not seeing them in game only on those maps however after downloading the top/most downloaded Clouds "Goodies" from the Condor Updater my clouds are flawless and oh my are they beautiful!
It may have been a problem on my end regarding not hitting "new" flight plan but i do remember having clouds in my weather screen, regardless after I downloaded the new clouds and hit new flight plan voila all my maps work.
Thanks for helping my understanding of how the Condor engine works regarding weather and landscapes anyway.

Thank you Andy1248 for giving me the file name/extension, I'm already on the road to making my own addons at this rate :D

Re: No Clouds Custom Terrain

Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 3:28 pm
by 6266
Good, that it works now. Maybe it was a problem with your installation, that the files for the clouds were missing, and the goodies installed some new. Remember when changing the landscapes you will not be able to fly online. You will be kicked off automaticly from the server with a message "modified landscape"

Re: No Clouds Custom Terrain

Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 3:31 pm
by Mossy
Thanks for the tip 6266 I'll sort out the multiplayer another day hahaha, looking forward to it though!
Good soaring everyone. :D

Re: No Clouds Custom Terrain

Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2021 5:32 am
by Mossy
Okay guys for anyone that is interested I figured out what the actual Issue I was having is.
TIME OF DAY....
I was starting in the morning for sunrise conditions and looking out my window like "yep clouds outside no reason there wouldn't be clouds in the morning... that can't be it"
I would hit new flight plan, change the weather and there you go, working fine, but I hadn't adjusted the time, leaving it at 12 so enough time for the sun to heat the ground and cumulous clouds to form.
Gosh I'm dumb it was so silly.
So now a general gliding question: How do storm fronts etc. (the clouds I see when I look out my window at sunrise) effect gliding conditions, and briefly (ill research further myself) does anyone know how they form? Are they forming in the same way, from heat and humidity and then just blowing over?
Will or does Condor have any storm simulation i.e. clouds other than the ones that form later in the morning 8, 9, 10 am directly from thermals?