Activating weather effects in the sim - CurryKitten/CurryKitten-Sim GitHub Wiki

https://github.com/CurryKitten/CurryKitten-Sim/blob/master/Wiki/052b-sunrise.jpg

New in 0.52b is the option to activate graphical weather effects. This is currently a purely cosmetic effect i.e the wind and rain have no bearing on the control of your model. However, it's a way to break the monotony of constant clear skies and sun.

The weather effects are off by default - this is because it does add a significant amount of load to the rendering. Whilst, not a problem on an up to date PC with a decent graphics card, older systems were less able to cope. You can access the main weather menu by pressing W whilst the sim is active.

https://github.com/CurryKitten/CurryKitten-Sim/blob/master/Wiki/052b-weather-off.jpg

Once the weather effects are enabled, you will have access to the other menus. The Current Weather is a drop-down box containing all the possible weather effects available. Simply select one of these and the weather will transition over to that state. Certain weather effects such as rain and thunder come with their own sound effects, but if you don't want to hear them, then untick the box.

The default weather settings graphics are set to "high" (not this is different from the overall graphics settings in the setup menu) high graphics use volumetric clouds which cast shadows. If this hits your frame rate slightly too much, then try Low from the drop-down menu, this will render the clouds in 2D and they won't cast shadows which saves quite a bit of processing.

https://github.com/CurryKitten/CurryKitten-Sim/blob/master/Wiki/052b-weather-on.jpg

You are able to set your time of day in the sim. This will move the position of the sun and change the way the scene is lit and the way shadows are drawn. At night the moon comes out but will still light the environment enough to see. You can set your time explicitly, or let a simulation of time flow by making sure the "Allow time to Flow" box is ticked. You can then decide how long you'd like the day/night cycles to last.

Whilst everything in the weather setup menu is saved, because of the way time will continually flow, the Time of Day setting is only saved if the "Allow time to Flow" box is unticked. But of course, you can retick this box afterward if you want the sim to start at a certain time of the day and also have time flowing.

Finally, whilst in the sim itself, you can press Z to transition to a new random weather effect.

https://github.com/CurryKitten/CurryKitten-Sim/blob/master/Wiki/052b-random-weather.jpg

Because of the potential mismatches between the levels of effects each user is able to run comfortably, weather effects are currently to use in the single player game only and won't work in an online game.