One of the coolest features that came as part of the Global update was low-level fog. It’s so cool to take off/land into, and flying over it to see hills poking out from below adds to the overall Infinite Flight experience.
But why limit these cloud layers to the surface? (There probably is a good technological reason for this, but I’m not a big computer guy so I couldn’t tell you). We know that adding individual clouds would kill the frame rate because of all the particle rendering involved. But what if the low level fog was just rendered at other, higher altitudes in a way that would create a cloud ceiling?
Let’s look at part of the METAR for my local airport: KXXX 231754Z 20017G22KT 10SM -RA FEW037 BKN065 OVC080 07/03 A3014. The weather here isn’t great, but because the visibility is 10 SM, Infinite Flight will simulate a perfectly clear day. But the METAR includes “FEW037 BKN065 OVC080”, meaning there are few clouds at 3700 feet, broken clouds at 6500, and overcast clouds at 8000. In aviation, broken or more constitutes a ceiling. Adding (something similar to) fog layers at 6500 and 8000 feet in this case would give a more realistic feel of flying with weather, which often isn’t as nice as the blue skies in Infinite Flight suggests. Feel free to comment and let me know what you think!
tl;dr: Make low-level fog render at higher altitudes to represent cloud layers when METARs include them.
