Dynamic might solve a lot of perceived issues......
I'm not sure. Currently it's right for certain time of day and day of year and atmospheric setting, but people complain that it's not right because of their selected real-world experience at a different time, or worse, in a different game/simulator that doesn't even use a real-time physical atmospheric scattering. If it was dynamic, yeah we could say it's currently such air condition.
The atmospheric model is incomplete, but the problem is that it can only get more hazy if we add more variables. If you turn off Mie scattering (one from water vapor), what remains is scattering from air molecules, free of any dust. What the scattering coefficient slider does is thinning out the air, lowering real atmospheric pressure to get a sharper image.
IMHO, it's again mostly about perception and personal preference, not so much about realism. We would all like the real views to be as sharp as photoshopped ones, but when I try to recall any real one I ever saw, it was far from those.
Its well explained Cameni. And this is very useful for complete my explanation also in this point and what i am trying. And where i think the problem can be after time thinking on it.
You are right, in the life things are not that sharp. But the life has more variety and range of colors. Like we see in drone video, all is sharp when we see around near (100-200-500 meters, some Kilometer). And then we begin to see the atmosphere effects slowly.
For this reason, My point of view here, after a long think in colors, lights haze, etc, is.. I love the haze and atmospherics effects in outerra because you made an amazing math atmosphere. But at the same time, all get a bit more monotonous and less sharpen, even near. I think this is the thing around this.
So, faking atmosphere it was a good idea and maybe even necesary, because we are not flying still over the real world. Our world in outerra still dont have all the colors with the 500 m earth textures. Also in the real life we have a longer range, like high dinamic range of colors. Many objets and diferent colors all over, etc. So the atmospheric eefects in a clear day end up in a "clear" view full of details and colors.
when we increase the haze in Outerra we get a less defined world and more monotonous (parts all light and parts all dark). This together with the little problem in get equilibirum between highlights and shadows, make the world too dark if u want more sharpen and less haze, or more white but less sharpen if u put higher. This is for me the quid of the question around haze, lights, etc.
This was my focus all the time. Sharpeness and colors. And at least for me, after looong trying, this problem ended. Now i enjoy flying in a 0.50, 0.75 or even 1 scattering.
I will post a little video where i show images with the tweaks in sharpen and color, and with high scattering numbers.
In light, with a few tweaks is almost all done and nice in Outerra. The only little problem i find is to get equilibrium between white parts and dark parts. The shadows lighting tool will be very useful again in this update, and maybe a negative bleach too (i dont know if this filter would be very dificult to implement). But without it, i used something that worked. Getting the rock texture a bit darker in photoshop. Because the top mountains was too much white. I dont know if there is a way to make a texture absorb less high light, so keep less lighting even in this situation (everest for example). That i can do in max, Blender, etc. but maybe the problem is in the texture bluemarble itself.. The top of mountains are more lighted, and this together with a lot of sun, end in a too white mountain.
I tried the same with the snow but i didnt find the texture. I think we cant touch texture snow. Any chance for make this posible in the future?
It would be a good posibility for equilibrate all. Because main problem in burn whites is snow (and clouds, but here is more natural, maybe anyway make clouds color/light redefined by user would be also great).
This, at least without Global Ilumination. Maybe in the future you will also implement it i dont know.
Another point will be the afternoon in outerra. There i see all a bit too dark when the sun just dissapear, even increasing scattering. But this is another history, i will talk after about it.