Individual Clouds
Introduction
Nova supports adding individual three dimensional ray-marched clouds to the scene. There are a variety of shapes to choose from and each cloud can be tuned to the user’s desired length, width, height and density. Additionally rain columns and lightning can be commanded to originate from the clouds. Several clouds can be placed together to create more complex cloud systems.
Since these clouds use the same rendering method as the normal cloud layers and cloud weather regions, their behavior with natural and artificial lighting is identical.
Currently 8 clouds can be added to the scene at one time.
Types
The following images demonstrate the available types to choose from. All clouds were placed with a size of 20km x 20km and 4000ft height. A density value of 0.9 was used. These values are only used to demonstrate the general shape of the cloud. They can be made much larger and taller if desired.
Type | Entity Type | Image |
|---|---|---|
1 | 21421 |  |
2 | 21422 |  |
3 | 21423 |  |
4 | 21424 |  |
5 | 21425 |  |
6 | 21426 |  |
7 | 21427 |  |
8 | 21428 |  |
9 | 21429 |  |
10 | 21430 |  |
11 | 21431 |  |
12 | 21432 |  |
13 | 21433 |  |
CIGI Control
Entity Control Packet for Ray Marched Individual Clouds
Parameter | Value and Range | Nova Variable Mapping |
Entity ID | Host determined | n/a |
Entity Type | 21421 - 21521 | rmCloud3D[i].type |
Parent ID | n/a | no parent |
Roll | n/a | no roll |
Pitch | n/a | no pitch |
Yaw | n/a | no yaw |
Latitude / X Offset | Degrees | rmCloud3D[i].latlonalt[0] |
Longitude / Y Offset | Degrees | rmCloud3D[i].latlonalt[1] |
Altitude / Z Offset | Feet | rmCloud3D[i].latlonalt[2] |
Weather Control Packet for Ray Marched Individual Clouds
Parameter | Value and Range | Nova Variable Mapping |
Scope | Entity | n/a |
Layer ID | 31 | n/a |
Entity ID | Host determined | n/a |
Weather Enable | 0: Disable 1: Enable | n/a |
Random Lightning Enable | 0: Disable 1: Enable | rmCloud3D[x].lightning_cloud3D |
Cloud Type | n/a | n/a |
Severity | Rain Column in 3D Cloud When RainShaftOpacityControl is enabled for Nova, a value of 0-127 is used to control the opacity of the rain shaft. | rmCloud3D [x].rain_cloud3D |
Scud Frequency | Softness of the cloud ( -127 – 127 ) | rmCloud3D [x].softness |
Coverage | density of the cloud (0 - 100) | rmCloud3D[x].density |
Thickness | Vertical size of the cloud in meters. | rmCloud3D[x].height |
Visibility | Visibility in the cloud in meters | rmCloud3D[x].min_visibility_range |
Component Control Packets for Ray Marched Individual Clouds
CompID | Functionality Mapping Spy: rmCloud3D[] | Description | Control Parameter |
0 | patchy | Patchy mode | GetCompdata() |
size[0] | Size in the X direction ( meters) | GetFloatCompData(0) | |
size[1] | Size in the Y direction ( meters ) | GetFloatCompData(1) | |
darkness_factor | Darkness of the cloud ( 0.0 – 1.0 ) | GetFloatCompData(2) | |
3 | precip_type | The type of precipitation under the cloud. 0 – none 1 – rain 2 – snow 3 – hail | GetCompState |
precip_intensity | The intensity if the precipatation | GetCharCompData(0, LSB) |