UE5 Flight Sim Visualization

I need a seasoned Unreal Engine 5 developer who can build the outside-window visual system for a military-grade flight simulator. The core requirement—and my top priority—is a fully dynamic time-of-day cycle that cleanly transitions through dawn, daytime, dusk, and complete night, all in real time and fully synchronized with the simulator’s internal clock.

Beyond the lighting cycle, I also want to see believable atmospheric effects: rain that streaks past the canopy, rolling banks of volumetric fog, and snowfall when conditions demand it. While combat visuals such as explosions and tracer rounds are mentioned in the broader roadmap, this first engagement is focused on nailing the day-night lighting and the three weather states listed above; we can treat ordnance effects as a follow-on phase once the foundation is rock solid.

Technical notes
• Engine: Unreal Engine 5 (latest stable release).
• Expected performance: smooth 60 fps or better on a multi-screen setup running native 4 K.
• Tooling: Blueprints are welcome, but any heavy lifting that impacts frame time must be implemented in C++ or optimized Niagara systems.
• All shaders, materials, and particle systems should be authored with scalability tiers so we can adjust quality on lower-spec trainer rigs.
• Source control: you will commit to our private Git repository; regular, small merges are preferred over large drops.

Deliverables
1. UE5 project with:
• Real-time sun & moon system (accurate azimuth/elevation calculations).
• Seamless skybox and cloud layers that blend across the full 24-hour cycle.
• Weather modules for rain, fog, and snow, each switchable at runtime via exposed API calls.
2. Clean, well-commented code/blueprints plus a brief setup document so our in-house engineers can hook the visuals into the existing simulator framework.
3. One packaged Windows build demonstrating all requested effects from the pilot’s viewpoint.

Acceptance criteria
• Lighting, shadows, and clouds interpolate smoothly—no visible pops or harsh transitions.
• Precipitation and fog respond correctly to wind speed and aircraft velocity.
• Night lighting remains readable without excessive bloom or banding.
• The packaged demo maintains ≥60 fps on an RTX 3070 at 4 K.

If this sounds like your wheelhouse, let’s talk timelines and milestones so we can get this cockpit glowing. Also runway lighting with control flag need to developed.