With all of the upcoming improvements in scenery, at the surface and in the skies, it would be great to finally have a properly represented Moon on X-Plane's skies, with realistic rise / set times, phases, etc...

 

Ask Austin!  I have already, either for an internal change, or for oppening the code so that 3pds can take care of it :-)

This option in the shadows will be called "Melt your CPU and GPU".  :wink: (just kidding)

 

I'm not sure that rendering the shadow of the Earth on the Moon would be the best solution.

these devs would be perfect for the job:

 

http://secure.simmarket.com/ar-mods-new-realistic-moon-hd.phtml

HD Moon here (free):

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=19217

Thx for the links guys, but my problem is that the Moon position and phase are wrong :-/  This products will enhamce the textures, but not the placement and phase :-(

 

But I also understand the LR team, and Austin, Ben, have a lot more to concentrate on right now, so, I told him I will ask him again when X-Plane 11 get's released ;-)

 

I really want a nice and stable 10.30, with great new textures, autogen, etc... and those add-ons, free and payware, that will turn our X-Plane 10 World even more plausible.

 

Guys, the more I look at those screens from P3D v2, which look great of course, the more I like X-Plane 10 and what we already have...

I suspect the moon phase has not been updated and reflects the phases of some year in the past.

Thx for the links guys, but my problem is that the Moon position and phase are wrong :-/ This products will enhamce the textures, but not the placement and phase :-(

 

But I also understand the LR team, and Austin, Ben, have a lot more to concentrate on right now, so, I told him I will ask him again when X-Plane 11 get's released ;-)

 

I really want a nice and stable 10.30, with great new textures, autogen, etc... and those add-ons, free and payware, that will turn our X-Plane 10 World even more plausible.

 

Guys, the more I look at those screens from P3D v2, which look great of course, the more I like X-Plane 10 and what we already have...

The Sundog SilverLining SDK includes correct moon phases etc.......

 

I don't know if that will be implemented as part of the new Skymaxx clouds yet though.

SilverLining™ also provides a visual simulation of the sky itself. This is no simple gradient of blue drawn in the background – this is based on a real-time physical simulation that starts with NASA data of the solar spectrum, astronomical computations of the solar position relative to the local horizon, and simulates the atmospheric scattering of this light through the Earth’s atmosphere as it makes its way through the molecules and particles of the air.

 

This is done using a highly accurate clear-sky model developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory adapted for real-time use, in conjuction with previously published work on sky luminance distribution.

 

The result: accurate skies for any time of day, for any location on the planet. Sunsets and sunrises with red horizons. Illuminated full-moon nights. Long shadows in the winter. It all adds up to increased realism for your outdoor scenes.

 

How do we do all this computation in real-time? Much of the calculation is offloaded to your 3D graphics card using custom shaders written to compute the sky color at any given direction in the sky. This allows SilverLining™ to continue its calculations while the sky is simulated in parallel using the processor on your video card.

 

There are more things in the sky than just the sun. SilverLining™ also accurately computes positions of visible stars and planets for nighttime scenes, and renders them accurately according to their stellar magnitude.

 

The moon also acts as a light source in SilverLining™, and its position and phase is simulated and affects your outdoor scenes as well. On dark nights, especially bright planets or stars are also subjected to a physically-based glare simulation, which is also offloaded to your graphics card as a shader.

 

Your outdoor scenes include more than just the sky and clouds. SilverLining™ can help you accurately light everything else.

 

The SilverLining™ library will return to you the same directional and ambient light information it uses to illuminate its own clouds. This light information is subjected to a sophisticated tone mapping operation; the actual range of luminance between day and night is much more than a computer monitor or projector can display.

 

SilverLining™ actually simulates how the human eye and brain responds to light, so for example – moonlit nighttime scenes still remain visible (but without color perception and with a blue shift). Night smoothly turns into day, with a warm glow from the rising sun illuminating your scene.

 

Physically-based outdoor scene lighting provided by SilverLining™ lends extra realism to your outdoor scenes. Your moonlit nights will look just like humans perceive them and expect them to look, and daytime scenes will take on the proper hues from the direct sunlight and scattered, ambient skylight.

 

 

The Sundog SilverLining SDK includes correct moon phases etc.......

 

??? What is this?

??? What is this?

 

Its the engine around which Skymaxx is based........  :smile:

 

I've probably posted links to the demo a bajillion times over the last few years

 

http://sundog-soft.com/sds/features/real-time-3d-clouds/

Devon, how could I have missed that?

But now I recall some of your posts... I didn't quite read them, just looked at the shots and thought it was something for TerraScener :-/ duh!

 

 

Thank you ;-)  Looks great!

Just a side note we are hoping to implement a procedurally drawn sky which will have, accurate moon phases, star locations and sun placement.   B)

 

Right now, we don't have access in the X-Plane SDK to do this, but be patient nothing like this has been fully accomplished before for X-Plane.  Its just going to take some time  

 

 

Just a side note we are hoping to implement a procedurally drawn sky which will have, accurate moon phases, star locations and sun placement.



Right now, we don't have access in the X-Plane SDK to do this, but be patient nothing like this has been fully accomplished before for X-Plane. Its just going to take some time

 

That's indeed GREAT NEWS!!!! Thank you, and I will certainly be patient ;-)

That's indeed GREAT NEWS!!!! Thank you, and I will certainly be patient ;-)

To be 100% clear we are actively perusing this feature in X-Plane.   It may not happen in a V1 release but if we get what we need, then most certainly in an update.....

This feature alone could make me 15% happier about X-Plane!!!

To be 100% clear we are actively perusing this feature in X-Plane.   It may not happen in a V1 release but if we get what we need, then most certainly in an update.....

I will adopt a puppy this week and name it Jspahn :lol:   you're awesome!