WIP: JTD Weather And Climate

OK, this is the current state of things: in order for me to "solve" the odd sky-showing-through-the-fog thing, I need to implement a comprehensive weather management system, so this is what I propose to do :).

Currently, our proposal looks like this:

Default behavior is decided by user config. All parameters for the following behaviors can be set up, disabled, tweaked etc.

Additional to this, there will be 4 mission-available modules to override the config, for mission makers to have more control. These modules are:

1. Disable weather management completely (to enable other weather systems like NIM_dynamic_weather)

2. Default mission-set weather progression with JTD SkyFog implementation.

3. JTD-variable weather within mission set parameters (basic variable weather, ranges between the editor current weather setting and the forecast weather setting).

4. (The big, fiddly one ;)) Full JTD controlled weather, based on parameters such as latitude, time of year, possibly altitude. Climate controls will be appropriate for geographic location, for example tropical maps will have either sunshine, or lashing rain, with little variance in between those extremes. Based on time-of-year. Other climate types will include arid (mostly dry) moderate (highly seasonally variable) and continental (again highly seasonally variable but with less chance of extremes).

So you see we've got our work cut out for this :) however we've had great success already with the SkyFog implementation, but we need a weather management system for it to function properly.

Test vid as posted in the old JTD SkyFog thread:

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Weather and climate control can be visualised using this simple example. In the below image, you see an overcast value mapping formula in graph form. The vertical left-hand line represents a random value of 0-1, or some other managed value. You follow that value along until you hit the red line, then you read off the mapped value below, along the horizontal line along the bottom. As you can see, there is very little chance of a medium value being output, while there is a high chance of one of the extreme values being put out. I estimate, from the drawing below, that there is a 50% chance of hot & sunny, 30% chance of lashing rain, and a 20% chance of any of the between-weather types. Very approximately :)

And weather values traversing from 0.4 to 0.6 say, will "dash" across the medium weather types in short time. I think, for the tropics, that this behavior is appropriate.

This is an example of how a tropical overcast system might be managed, in my direct experience tropical environments are either sunny & moist, or absolutely lashing it down, with very little variance between those two behaviors:

There will be separate functions for rain, fog, and wind, each tweaked for monthly variations within that climate type.

So now, for I believe the first time, there will be compelling reasons to take notice of the actual date that you set your mission in, as tropical environments have definite rainy seasons.

*shakes head*

This could get real interesting, real fast. :D

Should we also mention that we'll be adding a new player class? Meteorologist. The great thing is that he can be wrong 50% of the time and still keep his job. ;)

Yeah. Thinking of adding a "wet finger in the air" action too ;)

This sounds very promising.

sweet, looking forward to seeing where this goes

wow great plan! good luck with it

Superb idea!!!

And with you guys making this, its a safe bet it'll a) work flawlessly, and b) sync across clients properly!

Well done guys... it's definitely something that needs done properly and done well... sounds like another automatic "must-have" in the making....!

B

Superb idea!!!

And with you guys making this, its a safe bet it'll a) work flawlessly, and b) sync across clients properly!

Well done guys... it's definitely something that needs done properly and done well... sounds like another automatic "must-have" in the making....!

B

That's a good point to mention actually, to be MP compliant it will have a CBA dependency. I know it's not a great deal for most people, but I mention it here now :)

Sounds great, any plans on adding snow?

Do you plan to add barometric values aswell?

The reason i'm asking, the F-16 will have the altimeter switchable from radar to barometric. So if your system offers barometric data, i might include this info in the altimeter functionality.

Sounds great, any plans on adding snow?

Well, one of the 5 basic climate types includes polar conditions, and I did have plans to basically model it, even if it just meant extreme overcast (i.e. very low or very high) and no rain ever and also never any really dense fog. I don't know how to simulate snow if it's anything more involved than spawning particles everywhere, but if that's all it involves then I guess it will make it in at a late stage of development.

Actually, particles coupled with dense fog might make a good way to simulate dense snow :)

---------- Post added at 09:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:49 PM ----------

Do you plan to add barometric values aswell?

The reason i'm asking, the F-16 will have the altimeter switchable from radar to barometric. So if your system offers barometric data, i might include this info in the altimeter functionality.

No plans unfortunately. For your purposes, it would need to be altitude-variable in any case right?

No need to be sorry. :D Just stumbled upon this thread and was curious what is it about and if some really minor goodie could be included in the F-16 systems.

I'm no meteorlogist nor a pilot so i would have to do some research also about correct behaviour of barometric pressure and it's relations to weather systems.

I wont ask you to include such a system if it doesn't have any benefit your yourself since for the F-16 it wouldn't be much more as a minor "nice-to-have-but-not-grounbreaking" tiny feature.

I'm sure I read somewhere there was a basic snow script somewhere inside Arma2... I'll try to find the post.....

===============

edit*... Binkowski mentions snow via a simple script HERE (and in subsequent posts)... Might be worth asking him what he was on about....

B

@DMarkwick: You know, as I was reading your fog thread yesterday, I wondered to myself if you are planning a full weather mod. Then I went "Nahh, it'd be great, but he's surely got better things to do". Glad to see I was very, very wrong :cool:

Now I propose a real challenge to you. If you can pull off the fog, the monsoon rain, dust devils, snow and whatnot, please go overboard and throw in some northern lights for those arctic night battles. You do that and I'll dig up a special rain making witch doctor's mask for you :D

@DMarkwick: You know, as I was reading your fog thread yesterday, I wondered to myself if you are planning a full weather mod. Then I went "Nahh, it'd be great, but he's surely got better things to do". Glad to see I was very, very wrong :cool:

Now I propose a real challenge to you. If you can pull off the fog, the monsoon rain, dust devils, snow and whatnot, please go overboard and throw in some northern lights for those arctic night battles. You do that and I'll dig up a special rain making witch doctor's mask for you :D

Did you say dust devils? :)

Ohais, yes I have a snow script. However it's from OFP and Kegety's made it soo if you want to edit it into A2 specs just drop me a PM.

Aha!

Thanks Bink... I'd guessed you were talking about some arma2 inbuilt thing like the fog...

B

Kegetys made some nordic lights for OFP too. See if you can implement that if possible?

Hey, since you're making it so complex, add a temperature gauge as well (colder in the mornings in northern latitudes and when you're up on a high hill). That way we can add the consideration of having to fight the elements as well if we wanted ;)

Great initiative, as always.

Regards,

Wolfrug

Did you say dust devils? :)

So you really did put up that vid! I was thinking I'd dreamed it up myself :D

Awesome - just awesome! Smoke and fire and now this!?

Initial tests with a mapping function are positive, I set a mission with gradually increasing Overcast (increase of 0.01 every ten seconds, roughly a 16 minute cycle) for a tropical climate. Had sunny to mildly cloudy conditions for half the time, then a quick "dash" across all the medium weather states, and into heavy rainfall for the duration. Very nice activity and just what I was hoping for. Now to factor in appropriate fog going the "other" way, with a reversal for heavy rain, see how that goes :)

is it also possible to add some subtile colourfilters like the namalsk map has one for every climate? i mean for jungle a more saturate "juicy kind of lightning and for dusty desert maybe less saturation. that would be cool.

Initial tests with a mapping function are positive, I set a mission with gradually increasing Overcast (increase of 0.01 every ten seconds, roughly a 16 minute cycle) for a tropical climate. Had sunny to mildly cloudy conditions for half the time, then a quick "dash" across all the medium weather states, and into heavy rainfall for the duration. Very nice activity and just what I was hoping for. Now to factor in appropriate fog going the "other" way, with a reversal for heavy rain, see how that goes :)

Don't be shy to post video of your advancement ;) ...even if it's unfinished stuff. You could get very good constructive comments.