Ultra Dynamic Sky

Update History

UE5 Updates

UE4 Updates

UE5 Updates

10-18-2023
Version 7.9B Hotfix
For UE 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3
● Fixed weather particles causing niagara crash when testing instanced stereo in
standalone
● Fixed snow particles getting pinned in place at world origin
● Added input to Surface Weather Effects to blend underlying normal map on
snow/dust
● Fixed global volumetric material extinction not updating with a change of Dust
Amount in some contexts.

10-11-2023
Version 7.9A Hotfix
For UE 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3
● Fixed Adjust for Path Tracer not automatically configuring sky light shadows
● Fixed Dripping Mesh droplet sprites appearing to orient the wrong way depending
on parent velocity
● Reimplemented snow particles sticking to surfaces
● Exposed DLWE snow WPO distance falloff to a setting
● Added inputs to Surface Weather Effects to individually replace normal and
position inputs

10-4-2023
Version 7.9
For UE 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3
● Static Clouds have been completely rebuilt. There are now 3 included static
clouds textures, and a new editor utility for rendering custom static clouds
textures from volumetric clouds. Static Clouds can also now be used with 2D
auroras.
● Added a new material function for weather effects on opaque surfaces. It's called
Surface Weather Effects, and it's intended to replace Wet Weather Effects and
 Snow and Dust Weather Effects in functionality. The old functions are still present
for legacy support, but I recommend using the new function moving forward.
● Added a setting to the Simulation category on UDS to replace the Gregorian
calendar with a custom calendar asset, which can have a different number of
months, lengths of months, days in a year, etc. The calendar selected will
determine how the date values are interpreted and controlled.
● Added a function to UDS, Get Day of the Week. Finds the current day of the
week based on the date and the calendar, outputs it as a string and an integer.
● Reworked the weather mask system on UDW, so that the Weather Mask Brush
and Weather Mask Projection Box now exist as component classes. The actor
classes still exist, but they now just act as simple containers for the component
class.
● The DLWE Interaction component now references a DLWE Interaction Settings
asset for its configuration instead of separate variables on the component.
There's now also a map (empty by default) which can play general impact
sounds based on the physical material of the ground, when the component isn't
touching snow/dust/puddles.
● Added two new niagara systems, Dripping Static Mesh and Dripping Skeletal
Mesh. When added as the child of a static mesh or skeletal mesh component,
these will spawn dripping rain particles from the mesh surface, based on the
weather state on UDW. See the new Readme entry Dripping Mesh Particles for
more info.
● Rebuilt the player occlusion system, used on UDS for Interior Adjustments and
on UDW for Sound Occlusion. Occlusion settings are now defined by a settings
data asset on UDS and UDW. If both blueprints use the same occlusion settings
asset, they will now share their occlusion logic, as an optimization.
● Added a component class called UDS Occlusion Portal. The occlusion system
will line trace to this portal component and affect occlusion values if the path to
the portal is unobstructed. This can be used to have things like open doors and
windows let weather sounds more naturally into an interior space.
● Changed how Cloud Speed is controlled by UDW. UDW uses wind intensity to
control a multiplier for cloud speed, but Cloud Speed is still controllable on UDS
with UDW in the scene. This way, Cloud Speed on UDS now serves the same
purpose Cloud Speed Multiplier on UDW did, which is now removed. Note, the
value range of Cloud Speed is now different as a result.
● Split the Sky Light Casts Shadows setting into two, one for if the sky light is
movable, and one for static/stationary. This is mainly so the UDS default
configuration can now have Distance Field Ambient Occlusion disabled, as this is
really all that's controlled by the cast shadows setting on a movable sky light, and
DFAO being on by default can cause problems for projects not well prepared for
it.
● 2D Dynamic Clouds now shift on the X and Y axes based on camera position, for
an effect of parallax when the camera is moved over long distances.
● Changed how weather particle spawn rate is exposed on UDW settings. There's
now a single spawn count variable for each weather particle type which
represents the total number of visible particles spawned per second. In Shared
Particle Settings, there's also CPU Particle Buffer Length, which sets the max
latency of valid tested particle paths.
● Added settings to scale the rain splash droplet particles and raindrop wetness
decal particles on UDW.
● Added a setting to select if the rain splash particles render as decal materials or
translucent materials
● Added a setting to the Rain Drip Spline to scale how much material wetness will
make drips spawn.
● Added settings to adjust how weather particle opacity scales with camera
distance
● Added a setting to scale the speed of volumetric fog noise movement
● Added settings to control volumetric ground fog with the amount of rain or snow
on UDW.
● Added an input to the DLWE function to replace the snow/dust normal.
● Added a random seed setting to UDW, which affects random weather variation,
lightning flash placement, etc.
● Added settings to control velocity randomization on UDW weather particles.
● Improved how the Weather Override Volume will handle UDW being
removed/loaded while a WOV is running.
● Changed Lightning Flash spawn settings on UDW to use a Lightning Flash
Frequency value, entered in average flashes per minute, instead of the interval
range used previously.
● Improved support for UDW being in a separate level from UDS
● Added a setting to adjust the fade distance of the volumetric aurora.
● Made the sun disk present in the real time sky light reflection capture, if sun
radius is high enough to avoid aliasing/flickering as a result.
● Added a Use Local Parameter input to the Glass Window Rain Drips function.
● Added an option to the Onscreen Controls widget to have Time Zone and
location presets change Time of Day to maintain the existing global time.
● Added an event dispatcher called Season Changed to UDW, called when the
current season changes, and outputs the new season as an enum.
● General blueprint optimization on UDS and UDW
● Fixed a bug with Onscreen Controls weather dropdown, caused by a change in
widget behavior in 5.3
● Fixed several bugs with the Ambient Sound (Time and Weather Controlled) class
● Fixed volumetric cloud flickering momentarily if an instant change to clear skies is
followed by a gradual increase in cloud coverage.
● Fixed bug with Volumetric Cloud Painter, if Cloud Coverage Target Resolution is
changed when target is already in use.
 ● Fixed a bug with saving and loading a weather state which could cause incorrect
weather to briefly appear.
● Fixed dust and fog temperature bias values not being used as intended on UDW.

6-20-2023
Version 7.8
For UE 5.0, 5.1, and 5.2
● The Temperature system on UDW has been redesigned some. Now, instead of a
single base temperature, each season has a min and max temperature, for more
specific control of how cold or warm it can potentially get in each season. The
final temperature value in that range is determined using bias settings which shift
toward the min or the max based on weather/time/etc.
● Weather Override Volumes now have their own specific seasonal temperature
settings which will be used in place of the global ranges when the player is inside
them, replacing the simple temperature offset which existed previously.
● UDW now has an option to apply a climate preset, in the Random Weather
Variation category. This uses new climate preset assets, the included ones
populated with real world data for 23 climates. When selected, the preset is used
to set the probability maps for random weather, for each season. It's also used to
set the min and max temperature for each season. These climate presets can
also be used on Weather Override Volumes, to configure their random weather
and temperature ranges in the same way.
● Adjusted logic for Random Weather Variation, when blending probability maps
between two seasons. It now normalizes the total of the probability values for
each season, so the season with the higher total doesn't take disproportionate
control of the random weather.
● "Avoid Repeating Weather Types" default setting is now false, in Random
Weather Variation settings on UDW.
● UDS' control of volumetric fog has been expanded, with a new Volumetric Fog
category. UDS now controls view distance and extinction scale with exposed
settings. A global volumetric fog material can be enabled, which can add 3D
noise to the volumetric fog, mask the volumetric fog using the Weather Mask
targets controlled by UDW, add a layer of ground fog which forms on top of
distance fields, and apply special underwater extinction and albedo values below
the water level set in the Water category. The volumetric scattering settings for
the sun and moon have both also been moved to the new volumetric fog
category.
● Added a widget blueprint, "UDS Onscreen Controls", which can be used to add
simple user friendly controls of the sky and weather to the hud. Has controls for
time, date, location, and weather, each of which can be toggled on or off in the
widget's details.
● Renamed "True Real World Time" option on UDS to "Use System Time" to better
clarify what the option does.
 ● Cleaned up some issues with color banding in sky color when using Simplified
Color
● Added settings to scale the aurora texture, and adjust how fast auroras change
shape, relative to their movement.
● Added an option for "Random Starting Time" to the Animate Time of Day
category on UDS, to randomize the Time of Day on startup.
● Made it so weather particles should render by default with the path tracer, if
Adjust for Path Tracer is enabled on UDS.
● Added a material function, Sample UDW Material State, which gets the material
effect parameters from UDW and samples the WOV target and Weather Mask
target in the same way as the included weather effect functions.
● Added a material function, Foliage Wind Movement, which outputs simple 3 layer
noise based WPO movement controlled by the state of wind on UDW.
● Screen Droplets on UDW will now make the screen fully wet when the camera
emerges from below the water level, if the water level is enabled.
● Added a setting to control the brightness threshold of the sun lens flare on UDS,
so the user can correct for color grading LUTs which break the effect by
darkening fully bright pixels.
● Renamed the function "Change to Random Weather" on UDW to "Change to
Random Weather Variation" to clarify what it's doing and avoid confusion.
● Added input to "Test Actor for Weather Exposure" function, to allow using a
specific component for the bounds tested.
● Added settings to scale the source angle for the sun and moon, as calculated by
Sun Radius and Moon Scale.
● Fixed "Disable Completely" option for sky light component not working correctly
● Fixed issue with using Space sky mode and Adjust for Path Tracer together
● Fixed cloud wisps going dark too early during an eclipse
● Fixed Change Sky Mode at Runtime sometimes leaving volumetric clouds visible
● Fixed several Simplified Color values not scaling correctly with Night Brightness.
● Removed the exposed settings for DFAO min occlusion and exponent in the sky
light category. This was just causing confusion and the BP wasn't doing anything
useful with its control of these values.
● Fixed Transition Time of Day sometimes stopping slightly short of its target time.
● Fixed Space Layer planet rings and atmosphere being broken if the UDS actor is
scaled
● Rewrote and expanded the readme, and added some new navigation features to
the utility.

5-12-2023
Version 7.7B Hotfix
For UE 5.0, 5.1 and 5.2
● Fixed issue with Simplified Color in 5.2, causing incorrect dark coloring
 ● Fixed issue with levels with painted volumetric cloud coverage opening in the
editor in 5.2 to incorrect global coverage

3-15-2023
Version 7.7A Hotfix
For UE 5.0 and 5.1
● Fixed volumetric cloud rendering bug when Saturation and Volumetric Cloud
Ambient Light Saturation are both increased.
● Fixed several effects of volumetric cloud layer altitude not being affected by UDS
position correctly.
● Fixed volumetric cloud ambient light not scaling with Overall Intensity
● Fixed a mobile rendering bug with snow coverage from DLWE.
● Fixed a visual artifact using post process wind fog with strong depth of field
● Added an option to control how much the second cloud layer is affected by the
painted cloud coverage.

2-28-2023
Version 7.7
For UE 5.0 and 5.1
● Added the ability to paint areas of cloud coverage into the volumetric cloud layer.
The tool for this is the Volumetric Cloud Painter utility in the Blueprints folder. See
the new Readme section "Painting Volumetric Cloud Coverage" for more
information about how to use the feature.
● In order to allow the volumetric clouds to show multiple levels of cloud coverage
at once, some aspects of the volumetric cloud material and its controls have
been reworked. Extinction, cloud tapering, and 3D erosion scaling with height
and cloud coverage are handled by a Cloud Profile LUT texture. Extinction Scale
is now just one value which scales the extinction value sampled from the cloud
profile.
● Volumetric clouds ambient light color is now fully adjustable using controls for
intensity, saturation, and tinting by time of day. The default look is mostly the
same, but now uses a somewhat cooler ambient light at sunset/sunrise, for a
more natural color gradient across the clouds at those times.
● Added an option, enabled by default, to allow effects on fog/lighting due to cloud
coverage to be disabled when going above the volumetric cloud layer at runtime.
Also added an option, disabled by default, to turn off height fog when above the
volumetric cloud layer.
● Added an option to scale volumetric cloud view samples when inside the cloud
layer.
● Added a new utility function to UDS, "Check if Point is Exposed to Sun or Moon
Light". Takes in a world location and outputs if the point is hit by directional light,
and approximates how intense that light is in Lux.
● Added a new effect of Volumetric Cloud Light Rays, found in a new category on
UDS. These light rays will be visible coming down through painted gaps in cloud
coverage when the local cloud coverage is high.
● Increased the default Cloud Shadows Intensity When Sunny to 0.7.
● Improved how weather particles respond to camera movement and their particle
motion blur as a result. There are two new settings in Shared Particle Settings on
UDW, for controlling how much weather particles are stretched with motion, and
how much their sprite velocity is affected by camera movement.
● Added a new scene component, "Wind Physics Force". This is a component
which can be added as a child of a primitive component which simulates physics,
to add force using UDW's current wind intensity and direction.
● Made it so on UDW if Temperature Scale is changed, all of the existing degree
values will be converted automatically to the new scale.
● Added an input to the "Wet Weather Effects" and "Snow and Dust Weather
Effects" material functions to use local scalar parameters for the material state
instead of UDW's shared parameters. Also added an input to allow replacing the
world vertex normal with a custom vector.
● Added settings to scale the overall speed (time dilation) of the snow, rain, and
dust particles.
● Added a new actor component called "Actor Weather Status". This component
can be added to an actor to track its exposure to weather and wind and its
temperature. It can also set parameters on an array of dynamic material
instances based on those weather status values. For example, you could add this
component to a character to have it keep track of if the character is wet from rain,
and have that wetness set a parameter on the character material. There are also
event dispatchers which fire when the actor's weather exposure changes, or
when its temperature goes past adjustable thresholds for hot and cold.
● Added a category to UDW, "Weather Above Volumetric Clouds", which allows
specific control for what happens to local weather when the camera goes above
the volumetric cloud layer at runtime. The default setup now zeroes the weather
values for rain, snow, dust, fog, and limits wind intensity above the cloud layer.
● Added an empty function to the Weather Override Volume called "Custom
Volume Behavior". This function is called when UDW tests against WOV actors
for local weather. It can be overridden by a child of the Weather Override Volume
class to add additional functionality to the WOV actors based on where the player
is inside/outside of them at runtime.
● Exposed the default Moon Masks texture on UDS to be changed out, in the
advanced dropdown of the Moon category. Only to be used if you want to author
a moon texture which uses its GBA channels for the moon phase in the same
way the included Moon Masks asset does. Otherwise, you should use the
Custom Moon Texture option.
● Added more controls for the color of Cloud Wisps on UDS.
 ● Saturation in basic controls on UDS now affects all sky and lighting colors,
including sky atmosphere, light and clouds.
● Added a scene component "Light Day/Night Toggle", found in Blueprints/Utilities.
When added as the child of a light component, it will turn the light on and off
using UDS' Sunset and Sunrise events, and can animate the intensity when
turning on to imitate a light powering on. Will also control a "Light Toggle" scalar
parameter on an array of dynamic material instances. Has "Light Turn On" and
"Light Turn Off" event dispatchers.
● Added a function to UDW, "Restart Random Weather", which can be used to
manually restart the random weather variation if needed.
● Reworked controls for light shaft settings on UDS, to make them a little easier to
work with and add more control for the moon. Each value for light shaft bloom
scale, max brightness, and bloom threshold is now 2 values, one for when the
light is high in the sky, and one for when it's nearing the horizon.
● Added a control for twilight color to Sky Atmosphere settings, which replaces
sunset/sunrise color when the sun goes below the horizon. Gives more specific
control of sky color during twilight.
● Fixed moon phase changes (when not using Simulate Real Moon) not adapting
to Time Speed or Transition Time of Day.
● Fixed issues with rain and snow ambient light scaling
● Fixed an issue with rain and snow particle sprite occlusion
● Fixed an issue with UDW caching behavior in Cinematic/Offline mode.

12-28-2022
Version 7.6B Hotfix
For UE 5.0 and 5.1
● Fixed a snow particle material compile error
● Fixed screen droplets sometimes getting stuck on screen if disabled at runtime
● Changed workaround for Temporal Super Resolution causing snow and rain
particle ghosting in 5.1

12-21-2022
Version 7.6A Hotfix
For UE 5.0 and 5.1
● Fixed texture mapping bug with new water caustics
● Fixed accessed none warning about Rainbow mesh
● Fixed "Cubemap with Dynamic Color Tinting" Sky Light Mode sometimes going
black when moon is disabled or completely below the horizon at night.
● Made "Construct Space Layer" function public, so it can be called to apply
changes to space layer planets/moons at runtime

12-19-2022
Version 7.6
For UE 5.0 and 5.1
● Added a new Space Layer category to UDS, where additional planets/moons can
be rendered in the sky material. An unlimited number can be added, and each
can have its appearance, movement and lighting behavior individually configured.
Note, this rendering of additional meshes to the sky layer makes use of the
Dbuffer, so dbuffer decals need to be enabled in project settings and supported
by the platform. Also note, sorting of meshes in the dbuffer was only added to the
engine in 5.1, so while this feature can be used in 5.0, multiple planets/moons
overlapping is only going to work with consistent sorting in 5.1.
● The sun lighting and sky coloring will now be affected by a solar eclipse, when
the sun either goes behind the moon, or behind one of the planets/moons in the
Space Layer. The settings to disable and adjust this behavior are in the Sun
category.
● Added a new sky mode, Space, which disables all atmospheric coloring, clouds,
fog, etc, and extends tiling star rendering seamlessly below the horizon. Intended
for use with scenes in outer space, where there is no planet/ground beneath the
viewer.
● Added a "Render Moon" setting to the Moon category, to easily toggle off both
the moon light and the moon rendering in the sky material completely.
● Added a new setting to UDS, called Project Mode. It has two options, "Game /
Real-time" and "Cinematic / Offline". It mostly determines how the blueprint
behaves at runtime. Cinematic / Offline mode will bypass many runtime
optimizations which are useful in real-time contexts but aren't needed when doing
offline renders. It will also automatically increase many quality settings at runtime,
so that things like volumetric clouds can use maximum quality while rendering but
stay at performance friendly settings while working in the editor.
● Added an option to the Animate Time of Day category on UDS, "Lights Update
Degree Threshold". This will limit how often the directional light rotation is
updated as it moves. If the value is above 0, it will move in increments scaled by
this value in degrees. This option can be used in combination with or in place of
the Lights Update Period option. Lights Update Degree Threshold has a default
value of 0.03, so it will have an effect by default, and can be disabled by being
set to 0.
● Added an option to enable water caustics for the sun and moon lights. This is to
help with the common problem of wanting both the cloud shadows and a water
caustics effect but being limited by the engine's max of one light function per
light. So UDS will use a light function that has both cloud shadows and caustics,
if both are enabled. The settings for this effect can be found in a new Water
category on UDS. If UDW is in the scene and it has its Water Level setting
enabled, Water Level will be controlled from UDW.
● Added an option to the Rainbow settings on UDW to add strength to the rainbow
effect regardless of weather state.
 ● UDS now directly controls the lighting channels on the sun and moon directional
lights, to correct for some lighting issues in 5.1. The lighting channels for each
are now exposed in the advanced dropdown of the Sun and Moon categories.
● Added options to show debugs for the traces used by interior adjustments on
UDS and sound occlusion on UDW.
● Added additional lighting settings for rain and snow particles on UDW. To scale
the ambient light intensity on both, and to scale the refracted light effect on the
rain particles.
● Fixed weather particles not responding correctly to Minimum View Distance
setting on UDW
● Fixed bug with weather mask target in 5.1, which could cause mask brushes to
not be visible immediately upon starting a level
● Fixed DLWE Interaction components not working if project setting "Can
Blueprints Tick by Default" is disabled.
● Fixed some parameters on UDS dependent on camera position not always
updating correctly
● Fixed edges of weather mask projection boxes sometimes conflicting if
overlapping
● Fixed weather particles sometimes not fully updating their movement behavior
with wind intensity during a very fast change of weather
● Fixed a slight jitter/flicker which could happen when UDS changes out cloud
materials with cloud coverage

11-8-2022
Version 7.5A Hotfix
For UE 5.0
● Fixed "Use Water Level" on UDW not affecting the new GPU particles for rain
and snow
● Fixed random weather variation not correctly clearing material dust coverage
when starting with a random weather type

11-3-2022
Version 7.5
For UE 5.0
● Rain and Snow particles now have additional GPU particle emitters, for added
density. These GPU particles reuse the collision information generated by the
CPU particles, allowing the system to push total particle counts much higher by
default. The amount of these GPU particles are scaled by two new options, "Rain
GPU Particle Spawn Multiplier" and "Snow GPU Particle Spawn Multiplier".
● Added a variable, "Weather Speed" to UDW, which can be used to globally
speed up or slow down all weather changes across the whole system. Affects
Change Weather, Random Weather Variation, as well as changes on Weather
Override Volumes.
● Added a setting to the Volumetric Cloud settings on UDS, to control the number
of High Frequency Noise samples. Can be increased for further cloud detail or
decreased to 0 to disable the HF sample entirely.
● Added a new setting to UDS, Formation Change Speed, which scales how fast
volumetric cloud formations change, relative to the speed they're moving.
● Added a new actor class, Weather Mask Projection Box, which captures the
objects within a volume to mask snow, dust and wetness directly below. It works
by making use of the same weather mask target framework that the Weather
Mask Brush actor uses, so it doesn't involve any more material logic than what
already exists for the mask brushes. The new class is found in
Blueprints/Weather_Effects.
● Added a setting to UDS to scale volumetric clouds view sample scale down when
overcast.
● Added a setting to UDS, "Extra Night Brightness when Cloudy", to boost night
brightness when cloud coverage is high.
● Added a setting, Lightning Bolt Length, to UDW, to control how long the lightning
bolt is during a lightning flash, in units.
● Added a new input to the Flash Lightning function on UDW, to supply a Custom
Lightning Target. If a non-zero value is used for that input, the lightning bolt will
end at that exact position in world space. Can be used to make lightning strike a
specific point.
● Added an option to Rain Drip Spline, to close the spline loop.
● Added an option to UDW, "Blend Season Probabilities", which can be used to
disable the behavior which uses a blend of the probability maps for random
weather, when the Season value is between whole numbers.
● Added an option to UDW, "Season Day Offset", which can be used to adjust how
the day of the year is turned into the Season value, when deriving the season
from the UDS date. Additionally, the default setting of 0 offset now aligns the
"peak" of each season value with the mid point between the equinox/solstice.
● Exposed more variables to cinematics on UDS and UDW. Now, everything that
can be affected at runtime without additional steps is exposed by default.
● The UDS property cache period now monitors for changes in Target positions,
when using Manually Position Sun or Moon Target.
● Added an option to UDS to tint the moon glow color applied in Simplified Color.
● Added a compass which shows up on UDS when any of the Simulation options
are turned on, to indicate the cardinal directions of the simulation.
● Improved weather particle spawning behavior, to do a more reliable job of
correcting for a very fast moving camera, to help avoid the camera "outrunning"
the existing particles.
● Some refinements to rain and snow particle materials. Rain particles have an
amount of world space turbulence on high material quality. Snow particles have
lower opacity by default (can still be increased using Snow Flakes Alpha). Rain
 splash particles have had their splash animation redone and are now more
nondirectional and randomized to reduce obvious repetition.
● Improved support for spawning a Weather Override Volume at runtime. The
settings are exposed at spawn, and a vector array "Runtime Spline Points" can
be used to define the spline shape when spawned.
● Added an option to the Weather Override Volume to have its own local Wind
Direction
● Fixed an issue where DLWE interactions could create artifacts at the edges of the
DLWE render target
● Changed name of "Avoid Extreme Weather Shifts" on UDW to "Avoid Extreme
Cloud Coverage Shifts" to better describe what it's actually doing. Also, added an
option, "Extreme Cloud Coverage Shift Threshold", to adjust the difference in
cloud coverage allowed by that limiter.
● Fixed weather sound not responding correctly to sound occlusion being
completely turned off.
● Fixed issues with weather override volume target when ending play in editor
● Fixed a bug with the Simulation timing which could result from specific
combinations of time zone and date.
● Fixed several bugs with the "Change Sky Mode at Runtime" function on UDS.
● Adjusted the "Apply Location Preset" function on UDS, so it can be called at
runtime to apply a preset, using the function input.
● Fixed a bug where sequencer could break UDS' timer for its property caching,
causing properties to not recache.
● Fixed compile issues with Rain Drip Spline and Configuration Manager when
brought into 5.1 preview, in advance of 5.1 support.

9-21-2022
Version 7.4A Hotfix
For UE 5.0
● Fixed an issue with the Rain Drip Spline blueprint which could cause a
performance drain
● Fixed weather mask brush not updating mask target immediately when destroyed
● Fix for warning about a missing light component which could happen when
opening old maps
● Adjusted moon texture brightness curve to align more directly with sun fading
below horizon

9-15-2022
Version 7.4
For UE 5.0
● Weather Override Volumes now work differently by default in how they impact
material effects. Instead of just affecting the global material parameters as the
player enters, weather override volumes now draw their own local material state
 into the space outlined by the spline, so the material effects are visible from
outside the volume, and the outside material state is visible from inside the
volume. This new behavior is on by default, but can be turned off to revert to the
old behavior from the new Weather Override Volumes category on UDW.
● Added functions to the Weather Override Volume for more control of its weather
state at runtime. "Change Weather" works the same as the function of the same
name on UDW, to transition to new weather settings for the volume. "Change to
Random Weather" will transition the volume over to the random weather mode,
from the single weather type mode. There are also functions for "Enable Volume"
and "Disable Volume", to toggle the effect the WOV has on weather.
● Added a material function "Sample UDW Wind" which samples the shared
parameters for wind intensity/force/direction and outputs them with descriptions
and in multiple ways.
● Added an option to the advanced dropdown of Basic Controls on UDS, "Adjust
for Path Tracer", which applies adjustments to help correct for the current
limitations of the path tracer as well as possible.
● Added an option, enabled by default, to fade down sun light intensity below the
horizon when the intensity setting is high. Useful when using very high physical
lighting values to ease the transition to twilight lighting/night lighting.
● Added a new blueprint actor, UDS Occlusion Volume, which can be used to
manually control the occlusion systems on UDS (for Interior Adjustments) and
UDW (for Sound Occlusion) and optionally also block weather particles. There
are new Occlusion Sampling Mode settings on UDS and UDW for determining
the source of occlusion information (trace for collision, test for occlusion volumes,
or both)
● Added a depth fade to lightning glow particle material to avoid hard intersections
● Moved the settings on UDW for water level to their own Water Level category
● Combined the two DLWE interaction render targets into one to save a texture
sample and cost of drawing to both.
● Improved the look of DLWE snow trails fading over time, with the trails softening
more naturally as they fade.
● DLWE Interaction components will now disable when beneath the water level, if
the water level is enabled on UDW.
● Fixed slight hitch at midnight in sun/moon movement
● Fixed bug with simulate real stars orientation spinning around at certain times.
● Fixed bug with the simulted moon popping to a different orientation at certain
times when the date is many centuries from the default.
● Fixed moon phase sometimes going out of date while adjusting values if using
simulate real moon.
● Fixed moon phase and alignment sometimes being calculated wrong depending
on the longitude.
● Fixed Sky Mode Scalability Map incorrectly changing to volumetric clouds instead
of using the map as intended.
 ● Fixed Aurora Phase not being updated correctly at runtime
● Fixed temperature offset on Weather Override Volumes not being correctly
applied
● Fixed a bug which could cause Sunset, Sunrise, and Hourly dispatchers to not
fire when they should
● Fixed drop scale for Rain Drip Spline not applying on play
● Fixed several variables on UDS and UDW which weren't saving into
configurations correctly.
● Fix for distant sky atmosphere rendering issues when using forward shading
● Fixed an issue where real time sky light capture could break if conflicting with
effects scalability
● Fixed weather mask brush not updating mask target immediately if spawned at
runtime while masks already exist in the level
● Fixed angle for lightning directional light sometimes not aligning with the direction
of the lightning flash

8-2-2022
Version 7.3B - Hotfix
For UE 5.0
● Fixed DLWE interactions sometimes being blocked from triggering
● Fixed Lens Flare sometimes disabling based on camera direction when it
shouldn't.
● Fixed Transition Sky Light Intensity sometimes being interrupted/stopping mid
transition.
● Fixed Weather Override Volumes with Random Weather starting up with a
momentary change of state
● Fixed several bugs with weather when applying a saved weather state on level
startup.
● Fixed Lights Update Period not working correctly when set above 0.
● Fixed UDW Season occasionally not updating its associated material parameter
and added a setting to UDW to control the season update period

7-29-2022
Version 7.3A - Hotfix
For UE 5.0
● Fixed "Clouds Move with Time of Day" option being broken by 7.3 update.
● Fixed DLWE snow depth sometimes starting up with the wrong value.

7-26-2022
Version 7.3
For UE 5.0
● Added new settings to Volumetric Clouds, which use the base clouds samples to
vary the height of the cloud layer bottom. Has a significant effect on overcast
skies by default. The settings are the ones for "Floor Variation" in the Volumetric
Clouds category.
● Added a new Post Processing category to UDS. From there you can add any
number of post process components which get their blend weight from time,
cloud coverage, fog, dust, or interior occlusion. This makes it simple to add post
process settings which are only applied in specific conditions like night time,
foggy weather, outdoors, etc.
● Added a Location Preset setting to the Simulation category on UDS. Select from
a list of 144 major cities and their Latitude, Longitude and Time Zone will be
applied to the Simulation settings.
● Completely rebuilt the 2d (non volumetric) aurora effect for an improved look, a
little more similar to the volumetric auroras. New settings are available in the
Aurora category to scale the samples and adjust the appearance further.
● Added a setting to change the texture used for the aurora (both 2D and
volumetric)
● Added a setting to Fog Color's advanced section, Fog Color Mode, which allows
overriding the automatically selected source of fog colors. Useful for testing, but
changing the project setting is still preferable for best results.
● Revised default settings on fog density, mostly lowered the density contribution
values some.
● Small increase to default Sun Light Intensity
● Added a daytime and nighttime multiplier for fog density
● Made it possible to increase the Sky Light Color Multiplier settings above a value
of 1, to selectively brighten the Sky Light with time.
● Added a setting to control the speed that 3D noise for volumetric clouds moves
vertically.
● Default shadow settings on Sun and Moon directional lights have been updated
to be the same as UE5's defaults for directional lights.
● Made it so by default if the Sun Lens Flare effect is enabled on UDS, the image
based lens flares will be disabled to keep the effects from overlapping. This
behavior can be disabled with a setting in the advanced dropdown of the Lens
Flare category.
● Added a function to UDS to change Sky Mode at runtime.
● Separated View Sample Count Scale for volumetric clouds into a day and night
value, with a lower default value for night, as it's possible to go lower with sample
count at night with less noticeable artifacts than in the daytime.
● The Cloud Wisps layer now shades brighter around the sun and moon, imitating
light scattering through the layer. The amount of this effect can be adjusted in the
advanced dropdown of the Cloud Wisps category.
● Cloud Wisps Opacity is now controlled by two values, one for clear skies, and
one for cloudy skies. By default, wisp opacity is now lower in a clear sky.
● Added a material function "Day to Night Color" which takes in a day input and
night input and lerps between them as the sun goes up/comes down.
● Added a material function "Active Sun or Moon Vector" which outputs either the
Sun or Moon forward vector, depending on which light is present.
● The setting for Rayleigh Scattering Color has been separated into a Day,
Dawn/Dusk and Night setting for more control.
● Changed behavior for volumetric cloud shadow tracing distance, so it scales with
the cloud coverage and sun height, to always make the best use of the shadow
traces and reduce artifacts when possible.
● Some changes to default values for the night sky. Moon Light Intensity has been
reduced some, Stars Intensity has been reduced, Moon Light Color is a little
more saturated, Night Sky Glow has been increased and the balance of its
effects have been adjusted some.
● Removed workaround for volumetric fog start distance engine bug that was fixed
in 5.02.
● Added settings to the Rainbow category on UDW to allow masking the rainbow
above the cloud altitude, or below the water level.
● Added a World Spawn Offset setting to Shared Particle Settings on UDW. Allows
adding an arbitrary world space offset to the spawn location of weather particles.
Useful for 2D / Top Down games where the camera is at a constant remove from
the ideal spawn location.
● Lightning spawn height, for lightning flashes and obscured lightning, now sits at
the cloud bottom level by default, and is adjustable with Lightning Height Offset
on UDW.
● Lightning effect materials now mask with the volumetric cloud layer.
● Added a Lightning Effect Color setting to UDW, to allow changing the color of the
lightning flashes and obscured lightning.
● Game thread optimization of DLWE Interaction component. New exposed
settings for controlling max active distance and component tick interval with
distance.
● Added a Sound Class to the Sound folder called UDS Outdoor Sound. It's not
used by any of the included sound effects, but instead is for you to use on your
own ambient sounds which you want to be non-directionally attenuated inside
interiors using the UDW Sound Occlusion logic, if enabled.
● Improvements to rain and splash particle materials shading behavior
● Adjusted weather particle spawning logic to more aggressively bias spawn
locations in the direction the camera is facing, to make more efficient use of the
spawn rate. This can be adjusted with a new setting on UDW, Spawn Direction
Forward Bias. Default max spawn rates for rain, snow and dust have been
reduced.
● Added additional splash droplet elements to raindrop splashes on Epic and
Cinematic effects quality.
 ● Added a setting to control how much thunder is delayed after a lightning flash,
based on distance. Can be used for a realistic speed of sound if desired.
● Improvements to the Post Process Wind Fog effect. The 3D noise samples are
more volumetric in their distribution, and their number and behavior can be
adjusted with new exposed settings in the Post Process Wind Fog category.
● Reworked controls for the intensity of the Post Process Wind Fog. Intensity is
now determined by separate contribution settings for Fog, Rain, Snow and Dust.
● Support for Dynamic Landscape Weather Effects being used with the Virtual
Heightfield Mesh plugin. If you want to try this, make sure to read the new
readme section specifically about how to set it up.
● Added a new editor utility widget, Mini Controls, found in the Blueprints folder. It
contains the basic controls for time of day and weather in a compact widget.
Useful to add to the editor layout while working on things like level design or
lighting to quickly test different times and weather states.
● Game thread optimization for UDS and UDW. They now employ a system which
periodically caches many changing properties (things like light rotations, fog
colors, material parameters, etc) and interpolates between the cached values on
the rest of the frames. You can change the maximum amount of time between
these cache updates with a new setting in Basic Controls.
● Wrote a description for every function on UDS and UDW.
● Cleanup/organization pass on all material graphs.
● Fixed a bug with the Water Level settings on UDW not affecting player occlusion
● Fixed rare divide by zero warning with color logic for dynamic tinted sky light
● Fix for manual calls of Flash Lightning sometimes being ignored.
● Fixed bug with lightning flashes caused by weather inside weather override
volumes not triggering.
● Fixed Digital Clock widget formatting 0 hours wrong with 24 hour time.
● Fixed a bug with player occlusion update timing not being set correctly.

5-18-2022
Version 7.2
For UE 5.0
● Changed the exposure settings applied by UDS by default. The setting "Use
Exposure Range" has been renamed to "Apply Exposure Settings". Instead of
limiting the auto exposure range, the new settings apply an exposure
compensation curve, selectable in the Exposure category. It also has settings to
adjust the current exposure bias up and down with time and weather.
● Fixed fog behavior when "Support Sky Atmosphere Affecting Height Fog" is
enabled, to avoid moon light directional scattering popping at dawn/dusk.
● Added a new category to UDS, called Interior Adjustments. With "Apply Interior
Adjustments" enabled (it's disabled by default), UDS will detect if the player is
enclosed in an interior space (using the same occlusion behavior used for Sound
 Occlusion on UDW) and can apply a number of common adjustments useful for
interior spaces, like adjusting fog start distance, intensity of the lights, or
changing exposure bias in interiors.
● Added a rainbow effect to UDW. Can be enabled from a new Rainbow category.
● Added a twinkling/shimmering effect to stars, enabled on High and Epic material
quality. Can be adjusted from the Stars category.
● Added an optimization to disable cast shadows on the directional lights when
cloud shadows have completely occluded the light. Found in the Cloud Shadows
category. Enabled by default.
● Improvements to dust effects on UDW. Added some small individual dust
particles in addition to the big dust cards. Reworked material to add more variety
between particles.
● Fixed selected weather preset on UDW sometimes being incorrectly cleared out
on launch
● Adjusted 2D cloud color behavior, making the light cloud color dim a little more
when overcast.
● Added new options to the Temperature category on UDW, to allow temperature to
be affected by if the player is inside (making use of the sound occlusion values).
The feature works by lerping to an Interior Temperature setting based on current
occlusion, and an Interior Insulation setting determines how much the Interior
Temperature will be used (so that at values between 0 and 1, the interior can
partially be insulated from outside temperatures, but still be affected by them
some). The function has an input (Apply Interior Temperature) to enable/disable
the feature (useful for if you just want to sample the global/outside temperature).
● Added an event dispatcher to UDW called "Weather Display Name Changed"
which fires when the output of "Get Display Name for Current Weather" changes.
● Fixed a bug where the random weather state on a weather override volume was
not replicated correctly in some contexts
● Fixed a bug with wind debris particles not always getting a custom texture
applied at runtime.

4-27-2022
Version 7.1
For UE 5.0
● Added a function to UDW called "Get Display Name for Current Weather" which
outputs an enumerator and a string for a short description of the weather
(Replacement for the old Get Current Weather Type function which relied on the
removed Weather Type enum)
● Added a function to UDS called "Transition Time of Day". When called, the time
of day will animate to the new input time over the supplied duration. It also has
inputs to determine the easing function of the transition (Linear, Ease In/Out, etc).
● Fixed a bug where cloud height could fail to be updated at runtime correctly
 ● Renamed the setting on UDW called "Simulate Changing Material Effects with
Weather State" to "Material Effects Take Time to Change" to better communicate
what the setting does.
● Added a static switch parameter to the DLWE function to specifically disable the
World Position Offset for snow depth.
● Added a setting to scale the color intensity of the cloud wisps
● Adjusted behavior of fog so that "Support Sky Atmosphere Affecting Height Fog"
and Dim Directional Lights with Cloud Coverage can be used together by
transitioning off of sky atmosphere color and over to UDS fog color logic as lights
are dimmed.
● Added settings to control how much the sun and moon source angle can be
scaled with cloud coverage and fog. Also added a setting to scale the source soft
angle of both.
● Added a function to UDW to sample the current sound occlusion values.
● Fixed a bug where fog color could flicker with the sun and moon in certain
orientations
● Made it so when Volumetric Fog is enabled, fog start distance is always 0, to
correct for an engine bug with volumetric fog.

4-19-2022
Version 7.0
First Version for UE 5.0
Sky Changes:
● Added a new "Color Mode" option, beneath Sky Mode, in Basic Controls. The
two options are Sky Atmosphere (still the default), and a new alternate color
mode called Simplified Color. All of the Sky Modes are compatible with both color
modes. Simplified Color determines sky and cloud colors by sampling a light
scattering LUT texture, combined with adjustable color settings found in the
Simplified Color category. Simplified Color replaces the old Legacy Color modes
from previous versions.
● Added a Fog variable to Basic Controls on UDS, to control the fogginess of the
level, irrespective of the cloud coverage. Made use of by the new weather system
changes, outlined below.
● Added a Dust category to UDS, which adjusts fog color and density with an
adjustable amount of dust/sand in the air. Made use of by the new weather
system changes, outlined below.
● Fog Color and Density logic has been reworked completely, and moved to two
new separate categories, called Fog Color and Fog Density.
● Fog Color is now determined by separate contributions from the sun and the
moon lights, with a color variable to adjust the tint of each contribution to fog
inscattering. Those tint colors are each multiplied by a scattering curve to affect
their contribution with the elevation of each light. The saturation is then adjusted
with fog and cloud coverage, using settings in Fog Color, and darkened with
 cloud coverage using separate Overcast Brightness settings for day and night,
also in Fog Color. If the project setting "Support Sky Atmosphere Affecting Height
Fog" is enabled, most of this logic is replaced with the sky atmosphere
contribution, the influence value of which is determined with a curve in the
advanced dropdown of Fog Color, and further scaled with the Overcast
Brightness settings using cloud coverage.
● Fog Density is now determined by a Base Fog Density, which is then added to by
the maximum of three separate contribution values for when it's cloudy, foggy, or
dusty. Height Fog Falloff is handled the same basic way. Start Distance is now
handled slightly differently, being determined using the fog density directly. It uses
a Start Distance When Clear variable, and a Fog Density value for when the start
distance should reach 0.
● The Sky Light category now has a Sky Light Color multiplier for day, dawn/dusk,
and night, which apply to all three sky light modes, for simpler tweaking of
ambient light with time of day.
● The logic for the Dynamic Tinted Sky Light has been simplified. It now only uses
one flat cubemap, rather than a blend of three, because the function to blend
cubemaps on a sky light is broken in UE5. It also makes use of the new fog color
logic to determine its tint color, instead of relying on a bunch of color curves of its
own.
● The Exposure post settings applied when "Use Exposure Range" is enabled now
factor in the project setting "Extend Default Luminance Range for Auto Exposure
Settings" when applying the range. It also now applies an auto exposure mode
(Auto Exposure Histogram) when enabled, in addition to controlling min and max.
● The Cloud Shadows light function will also attenuate the directional light with the
current fog and dust, using Fog Shadows and Dust Shadows settings, found in
the Cloud Shadows category.
● At runtime, the Tracing Max Distance of the volumetric clouds is now determined
by if the camera is inside/outside of the cloud layer. By default, a lower max trace
distance is used if inside the cloud layer, to avoid artifacts caused by the samples
being spread out too far.
● Added a setting to adjust the fade distance of the volumetric clouds (the distance
from the camera that clouds will reach their full extinction)
● Added a setting to distort the high frequency noise layer of the volumetric clouds
● Clouds Move with Time of Day has been disabled by default
● Sun, Moon, and Sky Light Mobility settings have been moved to their respective
categories.
● Added a new Hourly event dispatcher to UDS, which fires at the top of every
hour, and outputs the new hour as an integer (0 to 23).

Weather Changes:
● The weather controls have been reworked some. The Weather Type enum and
its uses have been removed, in favor of unifying the system around the
 UDS_Weather_Settings object class. In Basic Controls on UDW, you now select
a starting weather preset by directly selecting one of the weather settings objects
from Blueprints/Weather_Effects/Weather_Presets. This change makes it much
easier to make and use your own presets, by simply duplicating one of the
existing ones in that folder and using the new preset on UDW.
● The system is now more oriented around the settings objects, but it is still
possible to use a manual weather state, useful for things like directly animating
weather in sequencer. To use the manual weather state, just clear the Weather
variable in Basic Controls, so no preset is selected. Then make your adjustments
to the settings in the Manual Weather State category.
● As the Weather Type enum is gone, the probability maps used by random
weather variation are now maps of the weather settings objects directly. Again,
this makes it easier to add your own presets and reference them in the probability
maps, without the intermediary step of also adjusting an enum.
● The weather settings themselves have been expanded and changed for added
control and variation. The full list is now Cloud Coverage, Rain, Snow,
Thunder/Lightning, Wind Intensity, Fog, Dust, Material Wetness, Material Snow
Coverage, and Material Dust Coverage. Because of how the system is structured
now, the limiters which kept things like rain or thunder from happening under a
clear sky are now removed. You're now free to manipulate these settings
individually to whatever combination you need, without dealing with disabling the
limiters.
● The Change Weather functions have been consolidated into one, simply called
Change Weather, which takes one of the weather settings objects and transitions
to that over the specified transition time. The additional inputs for transitioning
back to random weather have been removed, in favor of a new separate function
called Change to Random Weather, which will transition from current settings to
the random weather variation, if random weather variation is enabled.
● Lightning flashes now respond to the presence/absence of rain, eliminating the
falling rain sheet element of the niagara effect, if no rain is present.
● The option for Use Sound Effects is replaced by individual options for each sound
type (Enable Rain Sounds, Enable Wind Sounds, etc)
● The Season on UDW is now handled as a float value instead of an enum. This
allows the seasons to blend from one to the next in their effect on random
weather variation, instead of changing in steps. The value is formatted from 0 to
4, starting with Spring. So for example, 0 is Spring, 1 is Summer, 1.5 would be
halfway between Summer and Autumn. This new float season value can be
referenced in your materials as well, using a new material function called
"Sample UDW Seasons". It outputs a 0 to 1 value for each season, allowing
materials to change in response to each one. For example, you could use the
autumn output to make a leaf material go red in autumn. In addition, the behavior
of the season is now set in a new Season category on UDW. By default, it
 derives the season from UDS' current date (moving this option from where it
previously existed on UDS).
● Dust/Sand weather effects have been added to UDW. There are two new
weather presets (Sand Dust Calm and Sand Dust Storm) for the dust weather.
Material Dust Coverage can be simulated with weather state just like material
snow coverage and wetness.
● Rain, Snow, and Dust particles now have their own categories with individual
settings and Enable toggles on UDW. There's also a Shared Particle Settings
category with the settings which affect all weather particles.
● Rain particles now, in addition to splashes, can spawn small rain drop decal
particles which affect roughness only. The resulting effect is like rain drops hitting
dry surfaces and leaving a momentary wet drop. These decal particles are
enabled by default, but can disabled from the Rain Particles category.
● Post Process Wind Fog now scales directly with the fog density. The options for
scaling it with weather settings have been replaced with a single Intensity
variable.
● The Dynamic Landscape Weather Effects material function has been reworked
some because of UE5's removal of tessellation. The snow depth (if enabled) is
now achieved using a parallax effect rather than any sort of geometry
displacement. There's a new static switch parameter, to specifically toggle the
parallax effect. The function's Displacement input and output have been
removed. It now additionally outputs Pixel Depth Offset as part of the parallax
effect. A new input, Modulate Coverage, can be used to replace how
displacement was used to affect coverage. If used, the input for Modulate
Coverage should still be derived from height data, but it should be a smaller
value range, centered around 0. Positive values will increase coverage, negative
values decrease. The DLWE function can now also handle dust coverage,
reusing the same material logic that snow uses. UDW will switch the look over to
dust dynamically with the material effect state.
● The Snow Weather Effects function has similarly been modified slightly to serve
the dual purpose of Snow and Dust, using the same material logic for both. It's
been renamed for that reason, to "Snow and Dust Weather Effects".
● Added "Dust/Sand Forming" and "Dust/Sand Clearing" event dispatchers to
UDW, which work the same as the existing snow and rain dispatchers.
● Added a setting to the Ambient Sound (Time and Weather Controlled) BP to
scale volume with dust/sand weather.
 UE4 Updates

8-16-2022
Versions Affected: 4.26 and 4.27
● Fixed weather override volumes disabling incorrectly when control point is far
above/below.
● Fixed divide by zero warning for dynamic tinted sky light
● Fixed manual calls of Flash Lightning sometimes being ignored.
● Fixed Digital Clock widget formatting 0 hours wrong in 24 hour time
● Fixed weather override volumes sometimes taking 1 frame after playing the level
to have an effect
● Fixed warning message about UDS reference on UDW when packaging in some
configurations
● Fixed several 2D Cloud Appearance settings not always updating their effects
correctly when adjusting settings
● Fixed warning about bad date/time formatting resulting from daylight savings time
● Optimized memory use/asset loading behavior of UDS and UDW
● Fixed screen droplets animation cutting off incorrectly after some fast weather
transitions
● Fixed clouds moving with time of day when using true real world time and
simulate real sun
● Fixed stars orientation with Simulate Real Stars sometimes not updating the
hemisphere when latitude is changed.

3-16-2022
Versions Affected: 4.26 and 4.27
● Fixed 2D Dynamic Clouds compile error when using GPU Lightmass plugin.
● Fixed a rain splash particle material compile error on mobile.
● Fixed weather override volume not always removing itself correctly when the
level it's in is streamed out.
● Improved 2D Dynamic Cloud colors when height fog gets colors from sky
atmosphere.
● Improved cloud shadows behavior when sun is close to the horizon.
● Added an option to scale fog color when cloudy

3-2-2022
Versions Affected: 4.26 and 4.27
● Fixed 2D Dynamic Clouds broken rendering when UDS actor is very far from
origin.
 ● Changed behavior of "Height Fog Gets Colors from Sky Atmosphere". Now it's
determined by the project setting (Support Sky Atmosphere Affecting Height Fog)
directly, rather than relying on a setting on UDS. This change is to avoid issues
with UDS not being configured to match the project setting. In addition, the
feature has been expanded, with the sky atmosphere influence on fog being
determined by a curve instead of a single value, and being affected by cloud
coverage as well, for better results with weather.
● Adjusted rain and snow particle materials to behave better with different lighting
settings.
● Fixed an editor crash which could happen when saving configs from the
configuration manager.

2-23-2022
Versions Affected: 4.26 and 4.27
● Fixed cloud formations sometimes not aligning with the editor at runtime when
they should.
● Fixed volumetric cloud shadows sometimes not aligning correctly with the clouds
that cast them.
● Fixed Moon texture mapping being broken when Manually Position Moon Target
and Simulate Real Moon are on at the same time.
● Fixed wind debris particles not showing correctly in 4.27
● Fixed Wind Whistling Sound Volume not working correctly
● Fixed warnings caused by Flash Lightning not finding a camera
● Added a button to the readme to view the update history

2-16-2022
Versions Affected: 4.26 and 4.27
● Added a new Weather Mask Brush actor to use with Ultra Dynamic Weather.
When placed, it masks out material effects (snow, wetness) using simple brush
shapes. The amount each brush masks snow and wetness is individually
adjustable, and the mask affects DLWE interaction sounds and particles as well.
Use of this mask is enabled on the weather material functions by default, but can
be disabled with the static switch parameters for "Apply Weather Mask Brushes
to Wetness" and "Apply Weather Mask Brushes to Snow".
● Added an option to manually position the sun and moon using a movable target.
The options are Manually Position Sun Target and Manually Position Moon
Target in their respective categories. Replaces the old option for static moon
rotation.
● Added a new class called AmbientSound_Time_and_Weather_Controlled. It's a
child of the Ambient Sound class, with additional logic for the volume of the
sound to change with day/night and weather. Can be found in Blueprints/Sound.
● Added Wind Debris to UDW. Can be enabled from a new Wind Debris category.
Adds small debris particles flying through the air during heavy wind. The included
 debris texture is a sheet of small leaves and twigs, but the texture can be
replaced with any 4x4 sheet using a setting in the category.
● Added a new material function "WaterSurface_Rain_Ripples", for applying simple
rain ripples to a water material.
● Added a new material function "GlassWindow_Rain_Drips" for adding refractive
rain droplets to flat transparent glass. Uses the same textures as the screen
droplets effect.
● Added a new feature for volumetric clouds called Overcast Turbulence. Renders
an additional layer of 2D turbulence when the sky becomes overcast, to add
more texture and interest to overcast skies. This extra layer is also used by the
lightning on High and Epic quality to fake some extra illumination of the cloud
layer, with the intensity of that light being adjustable from UDW.
● Changed the logic on UDW for how weather type presets are stored. They now
exist in data assets in Blueprints/Weather_Effects/Weather_Presets. You can
adjust which one is referenced for each type and add references to new types in
the Preset Settings map found in the advanced dropdown of Basic Controls on
UDW.
● Added simple widget blueprints which can display the current time on screen.
UDS_Analog_Clock and UDS_Digital Clock. You can find them in the widget
designer palette under Ultra Dynamic Sky Widgets.
● Default Sun Inclination increased from 15 to 30.
● Improved visuals for Low and Medium quality volumetric clouds, while reducing
their performance cost further. They now make use of the high frequency noise
layer which was previously specific to High and Epic quality.
● Added settings to allow volumetric cloud sample counts to be scaled with global
material quality level, with High using the unscaled sample count settings. By
default, it now scales down sample quality to 80% for Low materials and 90% for
Medium materials, and scales up to 115% for Epic quality.
● Added an optimization to the volumetric clouds which increases the high
frequency volume texture mip with distance from the camera. Can be adjusted
with the variable "High Frequency Mip Increase by Distance".
● Fixed cloud movement logic to work better with world origin rebasing.
● Fixed a bug where cloud shadows could pop slightly when changing cloud
coverage
● Fixed UV logic for real stars which could cause a UV seam on custom textures.
● Added a setting to make snow flakes stuck to surfaces live longer before fading
out. Snow Flakes Stick Time on UDW.
● Fixed a bug where inside cloud fog could render at the wrong altitude.
● Changed many macros on UDS and UDW over to pure functions to better
support modifying functionality in a child class.
● Added a control for Inside Cloud Fog Color on UDS.
● Added settings to control the minimum weather intensity and cloud coverage for
lightning flashes.
 ● Added settings to control the range used by Dim Directional Lights with Cloud
Coverage.
● Added some extra detail/sharpness to the Epic quality (128x) volume texture
used for volumetric cloud detail.
● Fixed an error with lightning on dedicated servers
● Fixed a warning when using static lighting and sky mode scalability map together.
● Fixed an issue where random weather could start transitioning to a new type
early without waiting the change interval.
● Added a sky mode for No Clouds using Color Curves (Legacy Mode).
● Some optimization work on sky material
● Made it so event dispatchers on UDS and UDW are called as part of construction
script as well, so any actors which bind to those events as part of their own
construction script can potentially be affected by them in editor.

12-17-2021
Versions Affected: 4.26 and 4.27
● Added a new Lens Flare effect to UDS. In the Lens Flare category you can
enable an optical lens flare for the sun. Presets for multiple lens types included.
● Fixed a bug where weather material effects would not be updated correctly when
affected in certain ways.
● Added a new function to UDS called "Transition Sky Light Intensity". It can be
used to fade the sky light intensity to a new level over a specific amount of time.
● Adjusted default sample balance for volumetric clouds to reduce noise at the top
of the sky.
● Added an option to the Rain Drip Spline to have it ignore the weather state.
● Adjusted range of weather intensity cutoff with cloud coverage, so rain/snow
under somewhat lower cloud coverage is possible by default.
● Adjusted behavior of weather when wind intensity is at 0, to make the snow
movement calmer and the sound effects a little quieter.
● Made it so "Enable Rain and Snow Particles" can be set at runtime to
enable/disable particles manually.
● Added an option to have rain/snow particles be cut off as the camera goes above
the volumetric clouds.
● Fixed a bug with random weather variation starting up with the wrong rain/snow
value.
● Fixed a bug where cloud shadows could flicker in some scenarios.

11-25-2021 (Hotfix)
Versions Affected: 4.26 and 4.27
● Fixed an error message related to the new Screen Droplet effects.
● Fixed problems using Screen Droplets with sequencer.
 ● Fixed an issue with weather state sometimes not updating on instant transitions
correctly.
● Fixed weather override volumes not always updating smoothly
● Added a setting for the sun directional light's max specular scale.

11-23-2021
Versions Affected: 4.26 and 4.27
● Added a Screen Droplets post processing effect, which applies rain droplets to
the camera when it's exposed to rain. Disabled by default, can be enabled from a
new Screen Droplets category on UDW.
● Added a setting to UDW for "Water Level" which applies a simple kill height for
the rain/snow particles. Also occludes weather sound and disables screen
droplets below the level.
● Added controls for Sunset/Sunrise Color to the Sky Atmosphere category, to
more easily adjust the colors of the sky at sunrise/sunset, with the fog colors
affected as well.
● Added a "Directional Balance" setting to UDS, to scale the contribution of
directional light on the scene without affecting the brightness of the sky. Default
intensity has been increased some as well. If you want to return to the old default
look I'd recommend reducing Directional Balance to 0.7.
● Added an option to scale the amount of inside cloud fog for volumetric clouds.
● Changed logic for Sunrise and Sunset event dispatchers, so by default they will
always happen at actual sunrise/sunset regardless of dawn/dusk time or
simulation settings. The Event Time variables have been replaced with Event
Offset variables, which offset the time the event is fired from the actual
sunrise/sunset time.
● Changed logic for sun disk radius. The default size is the same as the old, but
customized values may need to be readjusted.
● Fixed missing glow in static clouds moon lighting
● Improved blending of static clouds
● Adjusted behavior of 2D Dynamic Cloud colors to bring brightness of the overcast
sky in line with the other sky modes.
● Made the default Sun Disk Intensity brighter.
● Replaced the setting for Captured Sky Light Lower Hemisphere Brightness with a
color tint, for added control of the lower hemisphere color.
● Slightly decreased the saturation of the daylight fog color.
● Increased default Directional Lights Absent Brightness
● Improved accuracy of cloud shadows falloff within cloud layer
● Added a setting to scale the overall fog density resulting from all the other fog
density settings.
● Changed Fog Start Distance When Clear back to 10,000
● Fixed border artifact on lightning flashes.
● Reduced default max exposure to 1.0.
 ● Fixed a bug with weather override volumes and nativization.
● General blueprint optimization on UDS and UDW. Added an option to UDS,
enabled by default, to skip updating many active parameters unless cloud
coverage is changing. Added a similar option to UDW to skip updating many
parameters unless current weather state is changing.

10-19-2021
Versions Affected: 4.26 and 4.27
● Fixed weather sounds broken by 4.27.1.
Added a "Z Disturbance" setting to the volumetric clouds, which distorts clouds
on the Z axis. Not enabled on Low material quality.
● Added a "Temperature Offset" setting to Weather Override Volumes, to allow the
"Get Current Temperature" output to be made arbitrarily colder/warmer inside of
weather volumes.
● Added a setting to control how soft/sharp the edge of the sun disk is.
● Fixed a visual bug with the raindrops effect in the DLWE function.
● General performance improvements to weather effects.
● Improvements to compatibility with blueprint nativization.

10-5-2021
Versions Affected: 4.26 and 4.27
● Fixed broken snow trail particle material
● Added an input to the new "Test Actor For Weather Exposure" function, to allow
testing only the bounds of collision components.

9-29-2021
Versions Affected: 4.26 and 4.27
● Improved how fog and cloud wisps are lit by changing moon phases.
● Adjusted DLWE base wetness behavior to make more of the surface wet before
puddle coverage starts.
● Improvements to particle materials for forward shading.
● Added event dispatchers to UDW for "Started Raining", "Finished Raining,
"Started Snowing", "Finished Snowing", "Getting Cloudy", and "Clouds Clearing",
to make it simple to trigger blueprints using these basic weather events.
● Added an option to UDS to allow using a custom sky sphere material.
● Turned off lightning flashes contribution to volumetric scattering, to fix
compatibility with "Dim Directional Lights" option on UDS.
● Added inputs to the DLWE function to customize the snow color and roughness.
● Added a new utility function to UDW called "Test Actor for Weather Exposure".
The function takes in an actor reference and, based on the actor's bounds, uses
line traces to approximate how directly exposed the actor is to the current rain,
snow, and wind.
● Added refraction output to High and Epic material quality rain particles.
 ● Added logic for sound occlusion to specifically ignore the player pawn, when
possible.
● Adjusted light pollution behavior to be unaffected by moon positioning.
● Added a setting to UDW to allow material snow coverage to light up the height
fog color proportional to the amount of direct light present, to simulate the indirect
light bouncing off of the snowy ground.
● Improved how the rain and snow particles avoid going through thin collision
surfaces.
● Added an experimental version of the DLWE function which uses a custom
parallax occlusion setup for the snow trails, rather than relying on tessellation.
The rest of the behavior is the same, so it can be used to replace the existing
function without any modification. As it's experimental, it's not exposed to the
function library, to avoid confusion with the standard function. You'll have to add it
manually from the Materials/Weather folder if you want to try it.
● The readme has been revised and reworked, with a new search function to make
finding specific entries easier. There's also a new Common Issues section for
troubleshooting.

9-3-2021 (Hotfix)
● Removed an unintended plugin dependency from the new configuration
manager.

9-2-2021
Versions Affected: 4.26 and 4.27
● Added a new editor utility, the Configuration Manager, which can be used to save
and apply full configurations of all settings for either UDS or UDW. The manager
can be found in the Blueprints folder.
● Added two functions to UDS, to simplify saving and loading the state of the sky
and weather, when creating save files or moving between levels. The functions
are "Create UDS and UDW State for Saving" and "Apply Saved UDS and UDW
State".
● Added a post process based effect to add fog inside clouds when not using
volumetric fog. Enabled by the existing "Enable Fog Inside Clouds" option.
● Changed default settings for Volumetric clouds to reduce rendering artifacts
inside cloud layer and on distant clouds.
● Added settings for Light Pollution to UDS, to simulate city lights contributing to
sky glow and volumetric cloud lighting. Exists in a new category called Sky Glow.
● Night Sky Glow lights up volumetric clouds and fog, and its settings have been
moved to the Sky Glow category.
● The aurora effects will now light up the volumetric clouds a little bit.
● Added a Sky Light Temperature setting, to more easily adjust the color
temperature of the sky light, independent of the sky light mode.
 ● Added an option to UDS and UDW, enabled by default, which spreads out some
of their tick behaviors over 3 frames, as a game thread optimization.
● Adjusted behavior of sound and particles on UDW to fix some issues with
sequencer.
● Modified behavior of rain splash particles to create scattered duplicates of each
particle, to artificially increase the density of the splashes during heavy rain. Can
be controlled with two new settings in the Rain and Snow Particles category.
● Made a change to Wet Weather Effects and DLWE functions to reduce texture
seam artifacts in puddles.
● By default, sound occlusion on UDW now uses the camera location. There's an
option in the Sound Occlusion category to have it use the Control Point Location
like before.
● Made some changes to rain/snow particle behavior to better account for a fast
moving camera.
● Fixed behavior of DLWE components to work with some configurations of level
streaming and world composition which were broken.
● Brought default start distance of height fog down to 0 for all weather, because
height fog with start distance greater than 0 appears to be broken in 4.27.
● Reworked manual overrides for legacy colors, since they weren't well integrated
with the rest of the current system. Moved them out of their old category into an
advanced dropdown of the Legacy Color category.
● The 2D Dynamic Clouds Appearance and Distribution categories have been
combined into one 2D Dynamic Clouds category. The distribution settings can be
found in the advanced dropdown.

7-5-2021
Versions Affected: 4.26
● Fixed a bug with setting material parameters which could cause broken normals
on materials using Wet Weather Effects.
● Adjusted how DLWE functions, so that it can work better with world
composition/level streaming and so that the effects can be used on static meshes
as well. UDW no longer requires a direct reference to the landscape actor(s) for
DLWE.
● Changed implementation of rain/snow particle color settings, so that color is also
multiplied over the refraction effect.
● Adjusted raindrop effect on DLWE so that it's tiled independently from the puddle
interactions. The default render target area for the puddles is now much larger.
● Optimized limits of DLWE render targets, so that Interaction components can use
more of the full render target space.
● Fixed DLWE render targets trying to recenter when neither dynamic snow or
puddles are present.

6-24-2021 (Hotfix)
 Versions Affected: 4.26
● Fixed errors caused by Ultra Dynamic Weather looking for the player pawn
location when there isn't a player pawn.
● Fixed the DLWE Interaction components sometimes ticking when they shouldn't.
● Fixed an issue with the Rain Drip Spline actor which kept the collision data from
updating correctly.
● Replaced several float range variables on UDW with normal floats, to fix a
potential packaging error.

6-23-2021
Versions Affected: 4.26
● Added "Dynamic Landscape Weather Effects" to UDW. This is a new material
function designed to add dynamic snow and puddles to landscape materials, with
dynamic snow trails and ripples in puddles caused by moving objects. Please see
the new readme section about these effects for a full explanation of the required
setup.
● Added a new blueprint, the Weather Override Volume. This actor can force
current weather to change as the player enters a region. You can customize the
shape of the region and the width of the transition zone. The zone can apply a
single weather type or its own local random weather stream.
● Added an option, enabled by default, which replaces the volumetric cloud
material with a much faster simplified version when cloud coverage is heavily
overcast/foggy. The transition to the simplified version is smooth, and the loss of
detail in typical use cases is not very perceptible.
● The volumetric clouds have gotten some small visual improvements and
refinements to default visual settings.
● There is now a setting to directly control the color of volumetric clouds.
● Overhauled the replication setup of UDS and UDW to be more bandwidth
efficient and robust. One significant change to note here is that the "Multiplayer
Weather" option no longer exists, because changes to how weather replicates
and the addition of the Weather Override Volume have made it redundant. If you
were using that option with the Change Weather functions to achieve local
weather changes, you'll need to use Weather Override Volumes instead.
● Added a simple Sound Occlusion option to automatically dim weather audio
when inside interiors. Enabled by default.
● Reworked cloud movement in both 2D and Volumetric clouds so that cloud
direction can be smoothly changed at runtime. A new Wind Direction category
has been added to UDW, where you can enable a simple random variation of
wind direction.
● Added an option to replicate the direction of lightning flashes to all players, rather
than determining them based on camera orientation.
 ● Added a new effect to UDW, Post Process Wind Fog, which aims to cheaply
mimic the look of volumetric wind effects in heavy weather, using a post process
effect.
● Simplified the behavior of Random Weather Variation, in how it transitions
between types. The transition length is now controlled entirely by a single
variable, Transition Length, which is entered as a fraction of the current change
interval.
● Changed the behavior of UDS setting UDW season based on Simulation date, so
that the seasons will be correctly reversed for latitudes in the Southern
hemisphere.
● Added options to control the color of rain and snow particles.
● Added two new options for control of volumetric cloud shapes. Shift Curve and
Minimum Erosion. These can adjust the way clouds are tapered and eroded from
top to bottom.
● Added an option to the Cloud Shadows category to use a custom light function
material in place of the included cloud shadows material.
● Added settings to the Height Fog, to control the fog start distance using
cloudiness. By default, height fog now starts further from the camera in clear
weather and comes in close for cloudy/foggy weather.
● Fog Color Strength is now two variables, one for daytime and one for night, to
allow adjusting fog brightness specifically for either.
● Added an option to the advanced dropdown of the Height Fog category called
"Height Fog Gets Colors from Sky Atmosphere". It requires the project setting
"Supports Sky Atmosphere Affecting Height Fog" to be enabled.
● Adjusted the behavior of Volumetric Cloud Scale to better retain the look of the
clouds as they're scaled.
● Added options to scale the moon or sun as they near the horizon.
● Added an option to dim directional light intensity down to 0 when the sky is
overcast, as a workaround for limitations with raytracing and other shader effects.
● The Saturation adjustment in Basic Controls now also affects fog colors.

3-15-2021
Versions Affected: 4.26
● Added a new Simulation category. Includes options to simulate the real positions
of the Sun, Moon and Stars using coordinates, date and time. See the new
Readme section about this for a full breakdown of how to use these features,
plus some notes on the accuracy of the calculations.
● Added an option to enable a second layer of volumetric clouds above the first.
The default look for the second layer is to appear like a higher altitude
cirrocumulous type layer. Of course, rendering this second layer comes at a
significant performance cost, so it is disabled by default.
● Added a setting to UDW, to disable the limit which keeps rain/snow from
happening when there isn't enough cloud coverage.
 ● Fixed the Moon texture being mirrored.
● Added an option to scale distant rain/snow particles.
● Adjusted snow particle material to be less darkened by its texture.
● Added a setting called "Stars Daytime Intensity" to easily make stars visible
during the day.
● The Stars texture has been revamped.
● Separated the Moon's light color and texture/glow color into two different settings.
● The Moon texture's intensity is now controlled by a nighttime variable and a
daytime variable, so they can be changed independently. The moon's
intensity/visibility in the daytime has been increased to a more realistic level.
● Improvements to the look of the nighttime sky without the moon present.
● Made an adjustment to how volumetric cloud shadows work to make them more
accurate.
● Added an option for the clouds to move with time of day, enabled by default.
Animating Time of Day in any way will now affect cloud movement without having
to use Time Speed or manipulate Cloud Speed. This option can be disabled or
adjusted from the Cloud Movement category.
● Some performance improvements to 2D Dynamic clouds.
● Added a setting to 2D Dynamic Clouds to soften the clouds near the horizon.

2-5-2021
Versions Affected: 4.26
Fixes
● Fixed a crash which could be caused by some of the niagara systems in certain
multiplayer configurations.
Weather
● Made improvements to volumetric fog particles (for heavy rain/snow) to keep
them from coming through the other side of collisions as much.
● Added inputs to Wet Weather Effects which control the angle cutoff of the
dripping effect and the puddle effect.
● Added an option to change the length of lightning flashes, defined by a
customizable random range.
● Added an option to scale the intensity of the wind set on the wind directional
source.
● Added an option to scale the vector parameter Wind Force, in
UltraDynamicWeather_Parameters.
● Added an option to UDW called "Multiplayer Weather". Enabling this will allow
each client to handle their own current weather state, allowing for individual
players to experience different weather.
● Added a function to UDW called "Get Current Temperature". It uses values from
a new Temperature category to generate a temperature (in Fahrenheit and
Celsius) which corresponds to the current weather, season and time of day. To
 clarify, this temperature value doesn't affect weather itself, its just a simple
approximation to be sampled for gameplay purposes.
● Added inputs to the Flash Lightning function on UDW to allow for a custom
Lightning location, so the user can now manually spawn a lightning flash at any
time and place, regardless of weather.
● Exposed more UDW variables to sequencer by default.
● Changed material effects behavior on UDW so that material effects can be
controlled by sequencer directly without issue.
● Added settings to clamp material wetness and material snow coverage at a
maximum value.
Lighting
● Added an option to update directional light rotations at a customizable frequency.
The default is still every frame.
● Capture Based Sky Light (with real time capture) is now the default sky light
mode.
● Created new categories for each sky light mode, containing the specific settings
for each.
● Added an option to control if the captured sky light uses real time capture, which
it does by default.
● Added an option to enable/disable Time Slicing on the real time sky light capture.
● Replaced the logic for Lower Hemisphere Color on Capture Based Skylights, to
use an ambient color based on the time of day, the intensity adjustable by a new
variable.
● Made various changes to the sky and volumetric cloud materials to improve
performance for real time sky light capture.
● Added a Light Shafts category to UDS, which exposes light shaft bloom settings
for the Sun and Moon directional lights.
● Added a setting to the Sky Light category to toggle Cast Shadows on the sky
light.
● Exposed DFAO controls to advanced Sky Light settings, with less intense default
values.
● Added a setting to control the color of the sun light source.
● Dynamic tinted sky light now uses a blend from a selectable clear, partly cloudy,
and overcast flat cubemap, instead of the two texture setup used previously. The
flat textures also now have a slight color gradient to make the tinted sky light
more natural looking and less monochrome.
● Dynamic tinted sky light now uses three color curves for determining its tint, for
different levels of cloudiness. The curves have been adjusted to better align with
the general ambient color at all weathers and times of day.
Time of Day
● Made it so Time of Day can be increased past 2400 and time will proceed
logically. Useful for sequencer.
Fog
 ● Volumetric Fog is no longer enabled by default, because of its incompatibility with
real time sky light capture. If you want to enable Volumetric Fog, I would
recommend changing Sky Light Mode back to the old default, the Cubemap with
Dynamic Color Tinting.
● Added a setting to scale the intensity of fog inscattering color.
Clouds
● Exposed control of the volume textures used in the volumetric clouds material, for
each material quality level.
● Added a level of large scale variation to volumetric clouds, to reduce
homogeneity of cloudscapes. Adjustable using the new variables "Macro
Variation" and "Macro Scale". Only present on High and Epic material quality
level.
● Made some changes to the volumetric cloud shader and the default volumetric
cloud settings to improve performance.
● Added a setting to manually control the mip level of the base clouds texture used
for volumetric clouds. Turning this up can actually get some alright looking
cirrocumulus clouds.
Moon
● Added options to brighten the dark side of the moon, and adjust the amount that
moon light intensity is affected by phase.
● Added a setting to use a static rotation for the moon, instead of having it move
with time of day.
● Reworked the Moon Phase, so that it's incremented smoothly, instead of
incrementing once per day. An overdue change since the material setup for moon
phase was reworked.
Stars
● Adjusted the default intensity of stars and their implementation in the sky shader,
to keep the brightest stars from casting their own light shafts when the moon has
light shaft bloom enabled.
Aurora
● Added a setting to adjust the amount of the vertical lines in 2d aurora effects.
Also changed the implementation of that effect to have more variation.
Mobile
● Added a Mobile category to UDS for mobile specific settings.
● Added an option to replace Volumetric Clouds with a replacement sky mode
when running on mobile platforms. The default replacement is static clouds.
● Added an option to replace a real time sky light capture with a replacement sky
light mode when running on mobile platforms. The default replacement is the
dynamic tinted cubemap.
● Replaced the old "For Mobile Renderer" option with a new "Adjust for Mobile
Renderer" option, enabled by default, which is applied on mobile platforms
automatically.
 ● By default, all of these mobile overrides are applied when the platform is Android
or IOS, but the list of platforms considered mobile can be customized as well.
Documentation
● Added new sections to the readme about using both UDS and UDW with
sequencer, and using UDW with multiplayer.
● Added some new sections to the technical documentation.

1-6-2021 (Another Hotfix)

1-5-2021 (Hotfix)
Versions Affected: 4.26
● Changed sky light capture resolution to 128, on the Capture Based Sky Light
component. A crucial change to support the real time capture, enabled in the
latest update, but mistakenly left out of that update.

1-4-2021
Versions Affected: 4.26
● Added a new option to Volumetric Clouds, called "Volumetric Cloud Rendering
Mode". Among other things, it determines if clouds can render in front of opaque
objects, which is now disabled by default to reduce artifacts and improve quality
for typical use cases. It's highly recommended you read the tooltips for each
mode and choose one which fits the needs of your project.
● Removed "Initial Settings" category from UDW and improved how those settings
are communicated in Random Weather Variation. There are now two settings
"Use Random Weather Variation" and "Start with a Random Weather Type" in the
Random Weather Variation category.
● Fixed cloud movement direction not correctly aligning with wind direction.
● The capture based sky light component now uses Real Time Capture by default.
● Added Drop Scale setting to Rain Drip Spline.
● Changed the behavior of Sky Light Intensity. Default is now 1.
● Reduced default stars intensity
● Added controls for height and altitude of volumetric aurora.
● Added an option to scale the splash particles caused by rain.
● Improved static cloud textures
● Adjusted default values for fog density
● Added settings to control height falloff for height fog.

12-5-2020
Versions Affected: 4.26
● Added support for volumetric clouds. These are now enabled by default. The 2D
dynamic clouds are still fully supported, and can be used by changing the new
Sky Mode variable in Basic Controls.
● Added a new weather system blueprint called Ultra Dynamic Weather. It can be
found in the Blueprints folder. It can simulate rain, snow, wind, thunder and
lightning with particle effects, sound, lighting and material effects. A "Weather
Basics" section has been added to the readme to help getting started adding
weather to your project.
● Added a Static Clouds Sky Mode. Uses a static texture for the clouds, designed
to generally mimic the look of the volumetric clouds. Intended mostly for use as a
minimum spec substitute for dynamic clouds.
● Added a Volumetric Aurora Sky Mode. This will render a volumetric field of full 3D
aurora effects, but cloud rendering is sacrificed to make that happen. Probably
only useful for very specific projects.
● Aurora colors are now controlled by 3 color variables in the Aurora section, rather
than a texture.
● Cloud Density has been renamed to Cloud Coverage. The range now goes from
clear sky to overcast to foggy, by default, to work better with the weather system.
● The "Animate Cloud Density Changes" section has been removed, as the
function was made redundant by the weather system.
● Sections specific to the 2D dynamic clouds have been renamed to indicate as
such.
● Adjusted some details of sky light and fog behavior to better align with the
weather system.
● The default height fog settings now have volumetric fog enabled by default.
● Cloud Speed is now properly adjustable at runtime, meaning cloud speed can be
changed/animated in game and the clouds will change their speed as expected.
This is made use of by the weather system when changing wind speed based on
weather.
● Added a Sky Mode to completely disable clouds.
● The Sub-UV based moon phase textures have been replaced with a setup that
generates the phases using some vector math. This allows the full resolution of
the Moon texture to be much higher, so the moon can now be made huge without
a blurry texture.
● Update functions in the Ultra Dynamic Sky blueprint have been renamed and
reorganized. There are now two functions called Update Active Variables and
Update Static Variables. The first is run on tick, and controls parameters and
variables which are designed to change with time of day/weather/ect. The second
controls parameters and variables which are set once at launch and never
supposed to be altered.
● Some variables are now marked as Advanced. This just means they are hidden
by default in an extra dropdown in each section.
● Renamed "Lights and Fog" section to "Component Selection and Mobility".
7-30-2020
Versions Affected: 4.24, 4.25
● Fixed a bug which could make the moon fail to render properly on some devices.
● Added Sun Vertical Offset and Moon Vertical Offset variables. These push the
sun or moon higher and lower in the sky. Can be useful in combination with
inclination for recreating extreme latitudes.
● Added a Contrast setting to Basic Controls, which can boost color contrast
across the entire shader.
● Added a new cloud noise type, Voronoi Diverse, and made it the new default. It
incorporates more noise types and more low frequency variation to produce
cloud shapes which vary more significantly in density across the sky.
● Added a new variable "Directional Lights Absent Brightness" which adds an
artificial extra brightness to the sky and sky light when both the sun and moon
are absent. By default, it's set to an intensity which helps smooth over the gaps
where the sky could get extremely dark otherwise.
● Added an additional layer of varied high frequency noise to cloud generation.
Adjustable with a setting in Cloud Appearance. Not present when material quality
is set to Low.
● Fixed a minor visual artifact in cloud layering where unsightly lines could appear
between clouds.
● Changed the Moon so it takes the alpha channel of the custom texture into
account. The content in the alpha channel still needs to fit inside the moon's
circular footprint, but it can now be an arbitrary shape within that circle.
● Made adjustments to the sun shine edge effect to appear more natural and
varied.

6-25-2020
Versions Affected: 4.24, 4.25
● Added a Cloud Distribution section, enabling some basic control of the clouds'
distribution across the sky. Specifically you can now control the density gradient
from the horizon to the zenith as well as radial gradients around the sun and
moon. For example, this could allow you to keep the cloud coverage localized to
the horizon, or cut an opening in cloud coverage for the moon to shine through.
● Significant work has been done on optimization, specifically to reduce pixel
shader instruction count and improve scalability. Several parts of the UDS
material are now handled more efficiently at the vertex level with no noticeable
reduction in quality.
● The Material Quality Level setting now affects the UDS sky material, with certain
effects being disabled on lower quality levels. The most significant impact being
that when Material Quality is set to Low, the sky will automatically reduce to a
single dynamic cloud layer.
● All of the material graphs have been reorganized and cleaned up.
 ● Reorganized UDS variable sections. Split Clouds section into several since it was
getting pretty big. Moved Cloud Density into Basic Controls. Split "Moon and
Stars" section into two.
● Replaced the ungainly "Wisps+Stars+Moonsprites" texture with individual
textures, so that it's simpler for the user to replace each with their own custom
texture. I also added a texture variable to that effect for the wisps and the stars.
● Added a variable to control stars tiling.
● Created a new default set of color curves for legacy coloring which better aligns
with the current version of the sky and the value range of the default sky
atmosphere setup.
● Some visual improvements to the way the moon lights the clouds.
● Fixed strange circle artifact that would appear in cloud shadows.
● Fixed a minor banding issue with cloud shading.
● Fixed a sharp shading artifact which would happen at high cloud density.
● Changed the behavior of the bright shine edges on the clouds. If using two cloud
layers, the alpha of the first cloud layer will now "shadow" the shine on the
second cloud layer, avoiding the sometimes awkward layering that would happen
around the sun or moon.
● Changed the cloud base texture selection to a more intuitive enum variable, with
specific options for the included noise textures, plus a custom option.
● Added a new clouds noise texture, "Voronoi Smooth" which uses the same type
of cloud shapes as default Voronoi, but without as much of the higher density
noise. Results in more rounded, smoothed out cloud shapes.
● Added a specific setting to control just the brightness of the sun disk, without
affecting anything else in the sky.

6-2-2020
Versions Affected: 4.24, 4.25
● Fixed "Disable Completely" option for Sky Light component
● Added a Dawn Time and Dusk Time in Basic Controls, to directly set the Time of
Day when the sun comes up and goes down. The default is still 600 and 1800.
● Added new failsafe to keep moon light from sometimes unnecessarily being used
when the moon is out during the day.
● Generally improved the look of the moon when visible during the day.
● Reworked logic for moon phase changes. Moon phase will only iterate when the
moon is down.
● Added a function, "Get Time of Day in Real Time Format" which outputs a
standard Hours/Minutes/Seconds time code.
● Added a function, "Set Time of Day using Time Code" to set the current Time of
Day using an hours/minutes/seconds time code.
● Seperated the Soften Clouds variable into Soften Cloud Layer 1 and Soften
Cloud Layer 2, for if you want a wispy cloud layer on top of a hard cloud layer, for
example.
 ● Renamed "Set Solar Angle" function to "Set Sun and Moon Rotation"
● Moved the readme to a much more comfortable location for easier reading. It's in
an Editor Utility Widget, located in the blueprints folder. To open it, right click on
the Ultra_Dynamic_Sky_README asset and select Run Editor Utility Widget.
● Added a Technical Documentation section to the readme. Gives a brief overview
of the workings of the materials and blueprints, for users who want to make
modifications.

5-15-2020
Versions Affected: 4.24, 4.25

Changes:
● Fixed bug with cloud coloring at sunset, affecting 4.25.
● Added variable to Cloud settings to adjust cloud shadow softness.
● Added variables to adjust cloud shadow intensity and softness with cloud density,
so the lighting can appear correct when the sky goes overcast.
● Added a variable to adjust the amount of the swirling clouds texture which
appears at high cloud density. Also adjusted the default value to be more subtle.
● Changed blueprint/variable settings to work with network replication.
● Added control of mie anisotropy based on cloud density, so that sunlight appears
to scatter properly when overcast.
● Added a "Soften Clouds" option. Erodes and softens the edges of the clouds, to
make a more wispy, hazy appearance.

5-11-2020

Versions Affected: 4.24, 4.25

Changes:
● Reworked Height Fog integration. When using sky atmosphere, the height fog
now uses more appropriate color curves to determine inscattering color and
directional inscattering color, with those curves tuned to align well with the default
look of the sky.
● Added a Height Fog section, with variables for the curves it uses to determine
color.
● Added an option to use a curve to change fog density throughout the day. The
feature is disabled by default, and the curve provided is a flat value, meant to be
edited to fit the user's preference.
● Revamped the Sky Light integration. The default is now a much improved version
of the old "Fast Skylight" option, now labeled as "Cubemap With Dynamic Color
Tinting". A capture based sky light (the old default) is still accessible by changing
 Sky Light Mode to capture based. I've also added a simple option to use a static
custom cubemap texture.
● Added Sunrise and Sunset event dispatchers, controlled similarly to the existing
Start Rain and Stop Rain ones. Useful for controlling lights or ambient sound.
The specific times that these events are fired can be set in the Animate Time of
Day category.
● Reworked the sun so it's scale independent. The default size of the sun is around
the same, but Sun Radius values now scale differently.
● Added a Cloud Sharpness variable. Increasing this gives the clouds exaggerated
hard edges and can give the sky a somewhat stylized look.
● Changed the default exposure range, to compensate for changes to
auto-exposure made in 4.25.
● Added settings for Night Sky Glow and its associated color. Basically a soft
unform glow that fills the sky at night. Previously this was connected to the
starlight intensity and not easily editable. Now it's its own effect.
● Made a change to how sky atmosphere colors clouds, to make them more scale
independent.
● Optimized the sky sphere mesh, particularly to use less geometry on the bottom
half where the UV resolution isn't needed.
● Fixed the implementation of Night Brightness, which wasn't working as intended
when using Sky Atmosphere.
● Edited the sky material to properly mask out all of the clouds, stars, moon, ect on
the bottom half of the sky sphere.
● Improved the way Moon Phase affects the strength of moon lighting and colors.

4-7-2020

Versions Affected: 4.24

Changes:
● Fixed a bug which could cause flickering and breaking of volumetric fog. This
involved adding a specific "cast shadows" option for the sun and the moon, in
their respective categories. Shadows are enabled for both by default.

3-25-2020

Versions Affected: 4.24

Changes:
● Added mobility settings into the Lights and Fog section to make handling static
lighting easier.
 ● Added two event dispatchers to the sky to help control weather effects. They're
called "Start Rain" and "Stop Rain". The dispatchers will trigger when the cloud
density hits a user set threshold. Simply bind the dispatchers to events in your
weather blueprint and rain/snow can be controlled by the changes in cloud
density.
● Disabled the sky mesh visibility to ray tracing by default. An apparent engine bug
in 4.24 is causing the sky mesh to seemingly break RTGI without shadows being
turned on for the mesh. So by default, with RT enabled, reflections will fall back
to skylight/captured reflections for the sky. (Based on my own tests, this is
probably a good move for RT performance anyway.)
● Changed default Disabled Brightness on the built in sun and moon components,
so that distant meshes aren't as dark by default while cloud shadows are
enabled.

2-18-2020

Versions Affected: 4.24

Changes:
● Changed some default settings, mainly for intensity of lights and exposure, to
avoid the overexposed/washed out look that lots of new users were seeing.

1-24-2020

Versions Affected: 4.24

Changes:
● Fixed a bug which caused significant FPS drops on some projects
● Fixed directional light default settings which could cause an engine bug with
bright gray flickering artifacts across the whole screen.

1-17-2020

Versions Affected: 4.24

Changes:
● Integrated Sky Atmosphere system by default
● Reorganized settings
● Added built in lighting solution, with an option to replace each component with an
external actor individually
● Various bug fixes and adjustment
Notes on this document:
This formal changelog was only created in early 2020, so it’s update history doesn’t go
back to the beginning. For a long time, these update notes only existed in a temporary form in a
forum thread, so they just weren’t being saved. This document will serve as an actual long term
record of all the updates to UDS from here forward.