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[HiFlyer]

Some notes and questions:

Is it possible to make rain a bit more visible? Right now hard to see and I practically have to place my nose against the screen to see it, which is bad for my nose. Getting it to show up in a video is pretty hard unless you stand absolutely still. (The rain that is, not my nose)

Snow is much clearer, but moves around pretty wildly in the wind with a very weird 3d effect. For instance, in a moving plane you see the familiar "warp drive" effect of snow coming at you, but when you look to the sides, the snow is falling nearly vertically. The two effects are happening at the same time and kind of contradict/interfere with each other.

(Also, snow goes right through vehicles and ends up in the cockpit with ya')

Thanks for fixing the polygon breakup on buildings/objects when fog was active! Going underwater still causes wildness when looking at nearby objects like ships, though. Consider this a bug report!

Also (i'm on a roll) I wonder if we can get some rain sound effects from inside vehicles (rain striking the roof, etc)

Anyway, thanks for the update!

[aWac9]

 
It may not look good in movies, but in your pc monitor should look pretty clear.
in reality,, drops are not thick in some games I have seen to simulate rain, thick and horrible added stripes ..
pesonalmente I like the fine rain,, but it is difficult to approach reality.
tries to increase rainfall in the (F11)

[HiFlyer]

It may not look good in movies, but in your pc monitor should look pretty clear.
in reality,, drops are not thick in some games I have seen to simulate rain, thick and horrible added stripes ..
pesonalmente I like the fine rain,, but it is difficult to approach reality.
tries to increase rainfall in the (F11)

Still not clear even when you are standing still. 

Part of it is that when it rains it also becomes overcast, which hides the very faint rain effect even more. In your example, it wasn't until you added some snow that something became visible because the rain by itself was just too hard to see.

My ears pricked up early when I noticed that in the first rain effects video (from the developers) it was mentioned that Youtube compression was hiding the rain; but after getting my eager little paws on the update myself and playing around with it (a LOT!) it really does seem the effect is just too faint. Right now I can't tell its raining unless I practically press my nose to the monitor. 

Snow on the other hand is very very obvious.

One thing I noticed was that while rain is very hard to see even at 1080p on a monitor (and at high res on youtube) watching a video of Outerra rain in action from a tablet or phone is pretty much completely impossible; the rain effect is simply much too subtle on a tiny screen, leaving the viewer probably wondering why they are hearing rain and not seeing a thing! 

[zombie00]

It may not look good in movies, but in your pc monitor should look pretty clear.
in reality,, drops are not thick in some games I have seen to simulate rain, thick and horrible added stripes ..
pesonalmente I like the fine rain,, but it is difficult to approach reality.
tries to increase rainfall in the (F11)

Still not clear even when you are standing still. 

Part of it is that when it rains it also becomes overcast, which hides the very faint rain effect even more. In your example, it wasn't until you added some snow that something became visible because the rain by itself was just too hard to see.

My ears pricked up early when I noticed that in the first rain effects video (from the developers) it was mentioned that Youtube compression was hiding the rain; but after getting my eager little paws on the update myself and playing around with it (a LOT!) it really does seem the effect is just too faint. Right now I can't tell its raining unless I practically press my nose to the monitor. 

Snow on the other hand is very very obvious.

One thing I noticed was that while rain is very hard to see even at 1080p on a monitor (and at high res on youtube) watching a video of Outerra rain in action from a tablet or phone is pretty much completely impossible; the rain effect is simply much too subtle on a tiny screen, leaving the viewer probably wondering why they are hearing rain and not seeing a thing! 

I do agree that rain seems to be hard to notice in general, but the main problem with portraying realistic rain is that the visibility depends not only on the size of the drop, but on the illumination. The more light you have, the more likely you're to see the water drops as they seem to "light up" (not sure if that's the correct term) due to reflection. Watch a storm in the middle of the night and turn on a flashlight pointing out through your window and the drops become visible. This is hard to observe in a city/towns as there is always some artificial illumination spreading around.
I have had extensive experience with rain in the middle of nowhere while playing Airsoft and the moment it gets too overcast or the sun starts to hide, seeing the water drops on the rain gets really hard, absolutely imposible at night unless the moon is full and reflecting a good amount of light.
Not sure if the rain visibility can be made to depend on the illumination setting in game, that would probably be the best approach.

[HiFlyer]

A test. It seems that rain is linked to cloudiness, and it gets so dark that the rain is hidden. Fiddling with the settings to keep the fog and darkness at bay makes the rain more visible.

[Acetone]

The main problem with rain is youtube horrible bitrate. Everything detailed and moving fast is washed out.

A good example with Far Cry Primal and it's very detailed vegetation:

[HiFlyer]

The main problem with rain is youtube horrible bitrate. Everything detailed and moving fast is washed out.

A good example with Far Cry Primal and it's very detailed vegetation:

Granted. The explanation is very clear. But I can't see the rain on the monitor right in front of me while playing, either. 

If you look at my video while I am doing the flyby of the trees, the rain shows up very clearly against the darker background. Look upwards a bit to the grey sky and..... pretty much nothing. The grayness and fog completely washes out the rain effect.

This isn't uncommon or restricted to Outerra. Rain just doesn't show that well against very light backgrounds, but it seems there are some tricks. Lengthening the individual streaks, breaking up the background color, slowing the streaks and/or adding additional effects to cue the user that its raining. This is just an opinion, though. If everyone else is happy, then what do I know! 

But here's the type of thing I mean.



Would this be awesome, or whut!? 



War Thunder rain and their new cloud tech (they are claiming 300 mile cloud visibility with no FPS impact)

[cameni]

If you look at my video while I am doing the flyby of the trees, the rain shows up very clearly against the darker background. Look upwards a bit to the grey sky and..... pretty much nothing. The grayness and fog completely washes out the rain effect.

This isn't uncommon or restricted to Outerra.

What about RL? I find it somewhat similar in RL when checking if it rains - usually have to look at an object I know would be affected by rain drops, or else the haze makes it problematic to see.

One thing that Angrypig needs to fix are rain drops close to the camera. They currently fade too early (being too large particles).

[HiFlyer]

If you look at my video while I am doing the flyby of the trees, the rain shows up very clearly against the darker background. Look upwards a bit to the grey sky and..... pretty much nothing. The grayness and fog completely washes out the rain effect.

This isn't uncommon or restricted to Outerra.

What about RL? I find it somewhat similar in RL when checking if it rains - usually have to look at an object I know would be affected by rain drops, or else the haze makes it problematic to see.

One thing that Angrypig needs to fix are rain drops close to the camera. They currently fade too early (being too large particles).

In real life, you have other cues, though. The wetness on your skin, the smell of the rain, the humidity, the temperature, the wind.... (the super high resolution and contrast of real life.....)

In a game though, since many sensory cues are lost, I notice that developers often have to compensate for the missing data with... artistic license.

If i'm in a game, and just about the only cue I have that rain is happening is a rain sound and an occasional flicker, then I'm going to be like a cartoon character: sitting there in front of my monitor with a quizzical expression and a question mark floating above my head. 

(trust me, I look even stranger than usual with a question mark floating over my head) 

[cameni]

it rains

[Jagerbomber]