How’s the Weather: Simulating Weather in Elite Dangerous.

[lysan]

We all know its coming, some day, soonish. Well we already see it from space. So what can be done? what will the impact be on our GPU / CPU? are we going to see a collective meltdown of all the players computers as soon as this feature is unlocked?

Let's talk about the weather for a moment shall we?

When game developers, theorists, and critics discuss what features are most important when creating a realistic virtual world, they tend to focus on aesthetics and kinetics, or, in simpler terms, graphics and animation. Some aspects of “reality,” such as lighting effects and shadows, draw more attention than other, less dramatic, natural phenomena. The end result is that even the most realistic games offer a hodgepodge of realistic and very unrealistic effects; a patch of grass might flow in the wind, but a character standing in the midst of a terrible rainstorm won’t even get wet.

If you're going to do it, lets do it right from day one, we all know that standing in the rain and not getting wet is a NO GO!

Weather simulation in videogames is intriguing for many reasons. From the perspective of a game developer, the key issues are how effectively modern game technology is able to render weather and how such a feature might affect gameplay.

Looking at games, where the weather interact with the game, like in DayZ, Arma and flight sims the weather is just not a pretty back drop. Here the weather is a part of the game mechanics and will challenge you the player. In DayZ you need to take the weather into account if you want to stay alive, the flight sims use the weather to add more depth to the sim and challenge the player in the planning and how to execute the plan.

How deep will the rabbit hole go?

Ecology and Gameworlds

Ryan defines four features of worlds: “connected set of objects and individuals; habitable environment; reasonably intelligible totality for external observers; field of activity for its members” (Ryan, 2001, p. 91). Of all of these features, a “habitable environment” seems like the greatest challenge-much more of a challenge than the simple “navigable space” described by Manovich. It is the “habitable” feature that distinguishes gameworlds from game surfaces, such as basketball courts, baseball diamonds, or chess boards. “Habitable environment” suggests a game world where the represented species would have available to them all of the resources they would require if they actually existed. They would be born, reproduce, grow old, and perish-the game of Life on a grand scale. For these habitable worlds to be believable, the player must have some conception that there is life in the virtual world beyond what is immediately visible on the screen. It must always be raining somewhere, even if the sky is clear and sunny when we look outside our window.

NMS do some of this, however this world is only made to be a back drop, the design of the game is not to question why, its more to explore what is behind the next hill. So to make a world that is made within the known principles need to follow some rules related to this paradigme.

Sim Earth use the Gaia hypothesis to generate the evolution on the planet, it also simulate the weather and other environments. The graphics are awful, however the math behind it is actually very interesting.

In particular, developers of flight simulation games (flight sims) have made realistic weather simulation a key selling point. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight features one of the best weather simulation technologies ever designed. It is worth reflecting for a moment why, of all possible genres of videogames, flight sims would see the most radical innovations in terms of depicting realistic weather conditions that have non-trivial effects on the player's avatar (an airplane). The answer is the peculiarities of the flight sim niche compared to other types of videogames. Although some popular flight sims do feature narratives or goal-oriented missions like other games, most flight sims offer players non-structured experiences (even mission-based games typically have a "free flight" option to let players enjoy the virtual flight without interference). To put it simply, players just want to experience what it is like to pilot various types of aircraft. Flight sim developers compete to produce the most believable and true-to-life experience possible, including the addition of realistic weather-a factor which everyone knows is critical to real aviation.

Weather in flight sims are today very complex and they simulate all the different clouds and type of weather. This add depth to the game, and challenges to the player. Imagine that you need to land on a planet with strong storms, viability is almost zero and you need to struggle to keep your ship on the right flight path to get down safely.

Spoiler

[video=youtube;VW3kmboENLk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW3kmboENLk[/video]

https://youtu.be/U4zqiDT-XJs?t=43m16s

So what is you opinion regarding weather, is it something important or should it just be a pretty back drop in the world of ED?




Source

 

[Bomba Luigi]

Its very important, definitly something that must be there once we can land of planets that have weather. I also Imagine its one of the most difficult things to do, since it always must fit the condition for every planet and various places on the planet and all that. I'm glad I don't have to do it!

Also a must is that we then get a weatherforcast in the local news that is always wrong.

 

[777Driver]

We all know its coming, some day, soonish. Well we already see it from space. So what can be done? what will the impact be on our GPU / CPU? are we going to see a collective meltdown of all the players computers as soon as this feature is unlocked?

Let's talk about the weather for a moment shall we?



If you're going to do it, lets do it right from day one, we all know that standing in the rain and not getting wet is a NO GO!



Looking at games, where the weather interact with the game, like in DayZ, Arma and flight sims the weather is just not a pretty back drop. Here the weather is a part of the game mechanics and will challenge you the player. In DayZ you need to take the weather into account if you want to stay alive, the flight sims use the weather to add more depth to the sim and challenge the player in the planning and how to execute the plan.

How deep will the rabbit hole go?

Ecology and Gameworlds


NMS do some of this, however this world is only made to be a back drop, the design of the game is not to question why, its more to explore what is behind the next hill. So to make a world that is made within the known principles need to follow some rules related to this paradigme.

Sim Earth use the Gaia hypothesis to generate the evolution on the planet, it also simulate the weather and other environments. The graphics are awful, however the math behind it is actually very interesting.



Weather in flight sims are today very complex and they simulate all the different clouds and type of weather. This add depth to the game, and challenges to the player. Imagine that you need to land on a planet with strong storms, viability is almost zero and you need to struggle to keep your ship on the right flight path to get down safely.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW3kmboENLk

https://youtu.be/U4zqiDT-XJs?t=43m16s

So what is you opinion regarding weather, is it something important or should it just be a pretty back drop in the world of ED?




Source

Will we see realistic weather patterns? Not a chance, we'll get a very good representation of what it will be like, nothing too deep. I'd expect the basics to be simplified like DCS, storms/Fog/Rain/High winds etc, perhaps with the added factor of temperatures and pressure influencing the weather patterns on planets.

That's as deep as it will go, realistic dynamic weather simulation kills CPU cycles. Modern high end simulators have it easy, they can download complex global weather real time from NOAA. The ED devs don't have that luxury with trillions of alien planets, besides at least 80% of the playerbase wouldn't even notice the difference.

 

[lysan]

Will we see realistic weather patterns? Not a chance, we'll get a very good representation of what it will be like, nothing too deep. I'd expect the basics to be simplified like DCS, storms/Fog/Rain/High winds etc, perhaps with the added factor of temperatures and pressure influencing the weather patterns on planets.

That's as deep as it will go, realistic dynamic weather kills CPU cycles.

Yes there are a fine balance, it has to look realistic, however under the hood it can be more basic. The trick is to make so you have all the effects without the numerous calculations.You can add the live weather package for prepare3d, that is actually a great addon and I would recommend it if you like to fly i realistic weather environments.. DCS 2.0 are also more complex now regarding the weather so it is something that will advance in the future.

http://www.opussoftware.co.uk/opusfsi.htm

 

[777Driver]

Yes there are a fine balance, it has to look realistic, however under the hood it can be more basic. The trick is to make so you have all the effects without the numerous calculations.You can add the live weather package for prepare3d, that is actually a great addon and I would recommend it if you like to fly i realistic weather environments.. DCS 2.0 are also more complex now regarding the weather so it is something that will advance in the future.

http://www.opussoftware.co.uk/opusfsi.htm

Yeah, I used to work with a developer a few years back, our software would interface with Active sky for weather integration. Pretty sure Active sky is still around, similar to what Opus are doing. Weather for these types of software is downloaded from the NOAA servers.

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/isd

 

[lysan]

Yeah, I used to work with a developer a few years back, our software would interface with Active sky for weather integration. Pretty sure Active sky are still around, similar to what Opus are doing. Weather is downloaded from the NOAA servers.

Maybe FD could make a data base of different kind of weather, categorize it into levels and then design how the graphical representations and impact on the models will work?

Disclaimer, I have no clue of what I'm talking about regarding software development.

 

[Tinman]

Weather (and therefore clouds) is IMO the whole reason why we can't land on planets with atmosphere (but no life) yet. Atmospheric scattering isn't a huge blocker and it wouldn't surprise me entirely if the scattering we already see from orbit in ED actually already works at groundlevel internally to at least some level. Clouds/weather and liquid bodies due to pressure is the reason why we need to wait a while for these worlds.

 

[Khelder]

I would love to weather in the future. Fortunately, I have very little knowledge on the subject so there is no real way for me to judge (and therefore be disappointed) by "unrealistic" weather patterns. I like it when it rains every now and then in Minecraft. It probably wouldn't take much to please me.

The interesting thing would be how the weather interacts with the surroundings. This was mentioned in your original post. And I'm not just talking about direct influence (i.e. it's windy so it's more difficult to control my descent). But if we are cruising around in our SRVs in the rain, will we be driving through mud? Will craters and ravines fill with water?

I'm hopeful, but I've got to say that it's going to be a really big ask.

That's as deep as it will go, realistic dynamic weather simulation kills CPU cycles. Modern high end simulators have it easy, they can download complex global weather real time from NOAA. The ED devs don't have that luxury with trillions of alien planets, besides at least 80% of the playerbase wouldn't even notice the difference.

The weather patterns would need to be PG like everything else. Once they have algorithms they are happy with, generation shouldn't be an issue. On PCs at least, there is still a lot of headroom as far as CPU cycles go. I'm guessing it would be the additional rendering that would be the killer, not the actual calculations.

 

[777Driver]

Maybe FD could make a data base of different kind of weather, categorize it into levels and then design how the graphical representations and impact on the models will work?

Disclaimer, I have no clue of what I'm talking about regarding software development.

Am sure whatever they come up with will be good, I just wouldn't get my hopes up for anything more than a basic simulation with weather severity based on some predefined figures (Gravity/temperature/atmosphere type & pressure)

For example, with something like Opus you'll see a fairly realistic representation of weather effects when flying over a mountain range (updrafts/windshear/heavy turbulence) That's because the sim is not doing any calculations, just retrieving live data from a station in the area you are passing through. Switch of opus and P3D won't simulate those effects, it will just give you basic weather.

 

[Vorxian]

Sulphuric rich planets raining eats your hull integrity?

Yikes, stay away from yellow snow! (and rain)..

 

[Muetdhiver]

Weather ? surely not a accurate model. Climate, on the other hand, might be possible to some extent with simple models.

One thing I would keep in mind is that ED planets atmospheres have pressures/temperatures/compositions that can be very
far from earth. So, they'll have to do stuff like a believable venus type weather, low pressure mars type worlds and slilicate vapour 21K atm at 3000K hell worlds and so on.

Beyond the "weather" displayed, the atmosphere type & "climate" will dermine stuff like :

• bassin and river beds if liquid is present.
• erosion in most cases.
• flight model (think venusian high density atmosphere with high winds...)

And so on. As usual folks seem to mix-up weather with climate.

 

[lysan]

Weather ? surely not a accurate model. Climate, on the other hand, might be possible to some extent with simple models.

One thing I would keep in mind is that ED planets atmospheres have pressures/temperatures/compositions that can be very
far from earth. So, they'll have to do stuff like a believable venus type weather, low pressure mars type worlds and slilicate vapour 21K atm at 3000K hell worlds and so on.

Beyond the "weather" displayed, the atmosphere type & "climate" will dermine stuff like :

• bassin and river beds if liquid is present.
• erosion in most cases.
• flight model (think venusian high density atmosphere with high winds...)

And so on. As usual folks seem to mix-up weather with climate.

Yes, there to different models, weather and climate. In Sim Earth you can simulate the climate, and the impact on the planet environment.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Am sure whatever they come up with will be good, I just wouldn't get my hopes up for anything more than a basic simulation with weather severity based on some predefined figures (Gravity/temperature/atmosphere type & pressure)

For example, with something like Opus you'll see a fairly realistic representation of weather effects when flying over a mountain range (updrafts/windshear/heavy turbulence) That's because the sim is not doing any calculations, just retrieving live data from a station in the area you are passing through. Switch of opus and P3D won't simulate those effects, it will just give you basic weather.

Ok, didn't really dig into how it works, just that I like it

 

[the100thmonkey]

besides at least 80% of the playerbase wouldn't even notice the difference.

But the ones that will are likely to be the ones with the beastly rigs that can handle it, or an approximation of it at least.

 

[Vihear]

We all know its coming

Do you mean: Winter is coming?

 

[lysan]

Do you mean: Winter is coming?

NO!

 

[Random Task]

I think one huge thing that will need to be addressed with weather besides the physical clouds rain etc is the effect our ships have flying through it. What happens when we fly through heavy wind? Or get hit by a bolt of lightning? Or what happens if we're entering an atmosphere/world with flammable gasses? And even the effects of entry when our shields are deflecting thousands of degrees of heat then it hits a cloud. More steam? I love thinking of how beautiful it's going to look when we can land on those types of planets

 

[CMDR Argent Steel]

I wonder how deep the sim will go but I think I agree that it is unlikely to be very deep. It would be amazingly impressive if we had to deal with ice forming on our ships and clogging up the maneuvering jets or something like that, but it would be as much a nuisance as it would be interesting.

 

[Rhaedas]

Weather is definitely something where FD's approach will work best. Basic systems in place, placeholders where they can try and tweak to the point where it doesn't break things. Probably have settings where you can show more or less, depending on what your PC can handle. I don't think weather is something that can be used to affect ships all that much for this very reason. Wind would seem to be the only universal thing, as that is more of a handling issue to make it seem like you're being pushed, and not something that has to be displayed so much.

 

[lysan]

I think one huge thing that will need to be addressed with weather besides the physical clouds rain etc is the effect our ships have flying through it. What happens when we fly through heavy wind? Or get hit by a bolt of lightning? Or what happens if we're entering an atmosphere/world with flammable gasses? And even the effects of entry when our shields are deflecting thousands of degrees of heat then it hits a cloud. More steam? I love thinking of how beautiful it's going to look when we can land on those types of planets

Even frozen clouds, there are so many possibilities.

 

[Pazmino]

but the curved clouds at 8s? this feels wrong and shouldn't deform like they do in the vid. Could be the FOV settings or a odd viewer-cloud distant setting.