Frequently Asked Questions¶

This is an ongoing section of commonly asked questions. You can skip to a specific section by clicking below.

We update a pinned thread for each released build documenting the “known issues” of that build. this will initially be populated by issues found internally through testing, but as issues are found by users, the common ones will be added into this thread to allow for a place to view issues, as well as see potential workaround for the issues. This can be found here https://simul.co/support/exchange/

Sections¶

Setup¶

“createfile2 not found in kernel32.dll”¶

This will be due to Windows 7. Unforunately, we do not support Windows 7 anymore. If you wish for Windows 7 Support please contact us directly.

I can’t edit the values in the sequencer / Sequencer is blank¶

Ensure your licence is valid by selecting Windows->trueSKY Licence.

The camera view is upside down¶

Try checking/unchecking the “Flipped View” option in the TrueSkyCamera component.

My trueSKY folder in the content browser is empty¶

For UE5 and later: The content is stored in your project directory. “yourProject/Plugins/TrueSkyPlugin/Content”. If the files are not here, try re-installing the plugin.

Sky¶

My Sky is Black in editor¶

Make sure your trueSKY Actor has an active sequence selected.

The Sky updates with black spots!¶

Decrease the Atmospheric Amortization setting on the trueSKY actor. This will cause the Sky to update more frequently.

Performance¶

trueSKY is taking too many milliseconds to render a frame. How can I reduce this value?¶

With default settings, the cost of trueSKY should be between 2 and 4 ms per frame. If this is not being achieved, there are many settings that can be adjusted to give you the correct balance of visuals and performance.

How do I make the clouds appear less pixelated?¶

Try increasing the Maximum Resolution setting, in the details panel of the trueSKYSequenceActor.

Weather Effects and Celestial Objects¶

I don’t see any rain¶

Make sure there are enough clouds above to produce rain!

I don’t see any rain, but rain streaks are working¶

For rain and lightning to render in UE, you need to have added trueSKY translucent as a post process material. This should be automatic, and is added as part of initialization. Firstly, add a post process Volume to your scene, and make sure it is global by enabling “Unbound”. Then go to the Rendering Features within the Post process Settings. Add a new element to the post process materials, and choose asset reference when prompted. Finally, add the trueSKY translucent material. If you do not have this material, you need locate the trueSKY assets.

Rain drops are large and blocky¶

Try lowering the rain drop size on the trueSKY Actor.

I can’t see Snow!¶

Try increasing the Snowflake size on the trueSKY Actor.

The rain moves too quickly when I move the camera¶

This can happen when the camera is moving quite quickly. If you do not want to lower the speed of the camera’s movement, then try lowering the metres per unit setting of the trueSKY object.

The sun is too bright¶

Post process effects can cause issues with trueSKY. Try lowering the intensity of the volume’s bloom setting. Otherwise, there are settings within the Sky Layer settings. Alter the Irradiance or diameter. On the trueSKY Actor you can tick Max Sun Radiance. Then, when you change the Radiance the sun’s size will adjust to produce the same amount of power with a limited Radiance.

The sun/moon is too big/small¶

Try altering the sun and/or moon diameter setting in the sky layer, or if you have “Adjust Sun Radius” ticked on the trueSKY object, then adjusting the radiance of the sun will change it’s radius.

Lighting¶

It’s too dark at night¶

Try lowering the brightness power setting in the sky layer.

Everything is Grey at night¶

Deleting Unreal’s Atmospheric Fog should fix this issue. We do not recommend using Unreal’s atmospheric fog, as trueSKY produces it’s own fog. You can create fog from a Sky Keyframe.

Objects are light too brightly, especially at night¶

Try disabling Global Illumination, or set Indirect Lighting Intensity to a small vale (e.g. 0.001) on a PostProcessVolume. Adjust your true Sky Light in the scene. Also check if you are creating any light through Cubemaps or alternate lighting methods.

The sun is flickering¶

This may be caused by how post-processors deal with large brightnesses, along with the small pixel size of the sun. To get around this, we’ve introduced MaxSunRadiance as a property of the trueSKySequence Object. When sun radiance goes past this value, the size of the drawn sun is increased, and the radiance decreased, so that the overall energy is kept constant, but the output brightness reduced. Additionally, if you haven’t already, try deleting the default Atmospheric Fog and Sky Sphere actors.

Clouds¶

How do I make my clouds the same each time I launch my program?¶

Make sure the editor starts at the same time at each launch and the clouds should stay in the same formation.

My Clouds have an obvious pattern in them, how do I make it go away?¶

Noise is used to hide repetition, have a look at our Noise Settings to learn how to hide patterns effectively. If it is still an obvious grid, consider changing the size of the Window Grid, both it’s size in Km and the number of divisors. This is done in the trueSKY actor within the world under Window Grid Size Km and Window Grid. Reducing both these values will make the grid sections smaller, resulting in higher quality clouds. This may however affect performance. Multiple cloud layers can also be used to help remove the appearance of repetition by making them intersect. Finally, make sure there is breaks within the clouds, as a sheet of clouds will always look the most repetitive.

My Clouds change with only one keyframe¶

Setting the ‘Noise Period’ value in the cloud layer to the minimum possible will stop the clouds from changing shape over time.

How do I make the clouds move independently of time-of-day?¶

You can enable Real-Time Weather Effects, which causes effects such as wind and precipitation to occur regardless of time of day progression.

On PS4, there is an apparent “trail” in the sky as the camera moves¶

The Unreal Engine screen clear is faulty in some versions: the Hardware Clear option does not work. To fix this, go to Project Settings -> Rendering -> Optimization and change “Clear Scene” to “Clear at Far Plane”.

Other Issues¶

Unreal - Plugin ‘TrueSkyPlugin’ failed to load because module ‘TrueSkyPlugin’ could not be found¶

If you are getting this error when packaging, you will need to convert your project from a blueprint project to a C++ project. This will not change your project in anyway, and you can continue to use blueprints. To do this, go to Tools->New C++ Class. Add any parent class to your project, and after this has finished you can package again, and the plugin will be loaded.

My Question is not in the documentation, what can I do?¶

If our documentation hasn’t covered your issue let us know via the Q+A Forum. Your question may have already been asked by a member of the community, and if not a member of the team will get back to you with a solution or for more information!

If your issue is a bug report or a company / personal pricing quote you can enter a bug directly through the support page found here - https://simul.co/support/

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