During the daytime, you would have your default texture, I just have used the satellite imagery as a reference for making roads.

Light poles wouldn't be a problem. I can create them easily.since it is just a night texture. We don't need high resolution imagery ,Whole UK may just take from 1 to 2 gigabyte of your disk space, but in another hand, it is a realistic night texture, you know when you are flying over your city it is really your city not some repetitive textures that exist all over the world. It doesn't matter if it's America or Europe, or Africa. Bdf369 I asked a real pilot to review my night texture, and he said it is very close to what you see in a real world in nights from your cockpit. And think about when you are doing a VFR flight, how beautiful and helpful it would be if you had a realistic road and texture?

 

I still don't quite understood how you're going to do this in the end...

 

Will you edit FSX' default night ground textures to improve ground lighting?

 

Or will you basically do a night photoscenery of a given region?

If the latter is the case, I advise against this. The visual difference between the default and your custom textures will be very recognizable, especially at dusk when FSX blends the night texture onto the day texture.

As others said, I don't want to discourage and I think it's an interesting idea to use night-only photo textures. Just a few thoughts/comments:

 

 

 

Whole UK may just take from 1 to 2 gigabyte of your disk space

 

So that means around 80G for USA. It sounds like a lot to me, but there are terabyte SSD's available now so I guess that's not much of an issue these days. My understanding is that putting a lot of photo into FSX can cause OOM's so being able to selectively enable/disable different regions would be useful.

 

I'd want some higher LOD's since in the video it looks too blurry to me when close to the ground.

 

If you use XML to place objects then I think those objects are present 24/7. Might be better to add the lights as autogen annotations instead, then they are only loaded when your texture loads. Since you're using real-world roads, you might want to look at scenProc (see fsdeveloper or scenerydesign.org) for automating the annotations if you choose to go that way, since scenProc can use OSM vector data for annotations.

 

If you do use XML then for performance tuning you might want to allow the user to control how many light objects to place using the scenery complexity slider. I only looked at one placement BGL but it looked like you're using VERY_SPARSE on all objects.

 

As Bjoern above mentioned, I'm also wondering about the day/night transition between non-photo and photo texturing.

 

Also FYI for people that like to buy photoscenery (not me), MSE is supposedly going to provide night textures as a free upgrade.

 

+1 on the suggestion to ask over at fsdeveloper, the folks there have many years of experience developing for MSFS and could better evaluate the pros and cons of your technique.

Also, probably you know this and the above download is a prototype, but since you're talking about making a payware, you can't use watermarked imagery like this, you need permission from the provider, or purchase a license to redistribute, or use public domain imagery. Lots of threads over at fsdeveloper talking about this, for example: http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=426307. There are sometimes free data from government or academic sources.

Thanks guys for your advises ,very appreciated.

I made the night texture for Bristol city as i promised.

 

 

 

and this is BGL file .you need to put it in the add on scenery

http://mohsenfff.dl.rapidpars.com/4780/2476969/tck07u2znu7/SCENERY(2).rar

and also you need to download this file to be able to see the lights

http://mohsenfff.dl.rapidpars.com/4780/2458572/u37cphpanc3/Global.rar

please download it and leave a comment

And it is a very interesting video clip from the Bristol night. I highly recommend it to everyone who loves the realistic night lighting.+

I don't live in Bristol, although I have passed it on the M4 many times. Anyway, that's immaterial. I have however, spent many a happy hour (more than I care to count) staring out the window of whatever aircraft I happened to be on gazing out the window whist all the other passengers were more interested in watching the movie, reading or sleeping. I was the one, with my window shutter open lol. Although I'm not an expert on what night lighting should look like its certainly something I'm very passionate about.

 

I've, tried every type of night lighting in FSX and do know that so far, nothing has managed to capture the right 'feeling' of night lighting so far in my view.

 

Your video looks VERY promising and watching it, instilled the right feeling in me. I will download your files later and give them a try to see of they do the same in the sim.

Mohsenff, great video and congratulations on the work you have done so afar. However, I too am a little confused, I fail to understand how the transition takes place when I am flying with LC/ autogen textures during the day and then at dawn or dusk it changes to the photoscenery night textures? How does this take place? Cheers...

i freakin' loves the Bristol night textures. Amazing detail. i was able to pick out VRP's easily, at night.

 

But unfortunatly my fps hit rock bottom, so not really useable for me, at the moment.(2.6fps)

Your video looks VERY promising and watching it, instilled the right feeling in me. I will download your files later and give them a try to see of they do the same in the sim.

I hope you enjoy it. Please download it and give your comment on my texture, but beware of the performance hits, I forgot to set the Autogen slider for different objects. I'm working on it to fix the issue.

. However, I too am a little confused, I fail to understand how the transition takes place when I am flying with LC/ autogen textures during the day and then at dawn or dusk it changes to the photoscenery night textures? How does this take place? Cheers...

Hi rockfill, did you try it? Did you like it?

Your question is a good question. .transition is really A big problem here, because we are dealing with two different texture, so you will not have a smooth transition, you simply can fly with my night texture from dusk to dawn. Alternatively, I can have my scenery enabled automatically from "6' PM to "5' AM.

I just wish I had enough time and a powerful PC to do this for all Europe and US.

i freakin' loves the Bristol night textures. Amazing detail. i was able to pick out VRP's easily, at night.

 

But unfortunatly my fps hit rock bottom, so not really useable for me, at the moment.(2.6fps)

Thank you.

Yes, you're right. I'm working on it. It is an Autogen problem. I will post the modified file in the next few hours.In the meantime, you can try deleting the  LIGHTINING.BGL file from Scenery folder.

By the way , you need to copy global folder to :

C:\Program Files \Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Scenery\Global

I have to say, I've not seen a city so lit up - amazing! well done you.

 

Your right, I got between a 10 and 20% hit. Also, and maybe its me, all the lights from around a 2-5 mile radius (guess) of the plane are all twinkling like crazy so it didn't look as good as on your video. I'm only using GEX and UTX so maybe I'm missing something?

 

A couple of small observations so not a criticism. When flying low around 3000ft in a real plane, because the roads are lit up by sodium lighting the roads tend to have a sodium afterglow. I don't know if motorways can be made to stand out a little more, through the city it gets a little lost. Maybe I was lost lol.

 

I know its work in progress, and as such is a really good effort. I only use DX10 and everything works, so another plus.

 

Well, I installed Bristol and flew at night - WOW, I thought, this is excellent.  Possibly still needs a little tweaking, e.g. the water masks in the Bristol Channel/Severn estuary.

 

Whilst this looks great at night, I am using with UK VFR photoreal scenery and the scenery goes on top during the day.  I can understand how dawn and dusk would be a problem though and it seems that I may need to disable the scenery for day flights and re-enable for night.

 

I'm sure I can remember Raymond Taburet doing something along these lines for FS9 - UK Roads?  Night lighting was great but looked odd inlayed onto the standard FS9 scenery.

 

With your night scenery, I did notice a small framerate hit, but nothing too drastic on my machine.  Locked at 30 I was down to 25 sometimes (but not often), but 25 is still good for me.

 

How long did it take to Put the Bristol files together (I live in Bristol by the way and am very familiar with the area)?.  I've tested so far by day and night with 27 and 09 approaches into both Bristol and Filton (now closed in the real world).  Would expanding the area to cover the approaches to EGGD from Bath in the east to Weston Super mare in the West?

 

I fly out of Bristol quite regularly at night on commercial flights and it looks pretty realistic.  Still need to test at higher altitudes, but suspect that will be even better.

 

IAN

all the lights from around a 2-5 mile radius (guess) of the plane are all twinkling like crazy so it didn't look as good as on your video. 

A couple of small observations so not a criticism. When flying low around 3000ft in a real plane, because the roads are lit up by sodium lighting the roads tend to have a sodium afterglow. I don't know if motorways can be made to stand out a little more, through the city it gets a little lost. Maybe I was lost lol.

 

I know its work in progress, and as such is a really good effort. I only use DX10 and everything works, so another plus.

 

The twinkling is due to the DX10.

Nice observations, please do more observation, I need that.

You mean all the roads have sodium afterglow or just the main roads?

I haven't thought the motorways would stick out a mile.

OK. I'll take them into consideration. Thank you.

water masks in the Bristol Channel/Severn estuary.

With your night scenery, I did notice a small framerate hit, but nothing too drastic on my machine.  Locked at 30 I was down to 25 sometimes (but not often), but 25 is still good for me.

 

How long did it take to Put the Bristol files together (I live in Bristol by the way and am very familiar with the area)?.  I've tested so far by day and night with 27 and 09 approaches into both Bristol and Filton (now closed in the real world).  Would expanding the area to cover the approaches to EGGD from Bath in the east to Weston Super mare in the West?

 

I fly out of Bristol quite regularly at night on commercial flights and it looks pretty realistic.  Still need to test at higher altitudes, but suspect that will be even better.

 

IAN

Thank you cianpars. Please do more tests.

If I'm going to make it as realistic as possible, I need a real pilot's opinion.

I could have added water, but is it necessary for night?

Frame rate hit is normal because there are so many light sources out there. When I was putting light, I just forgot to set the Autogen density for them.

It toke about two days for me to make night  texture for this city can finish the whole UK in few months.

 

You said it's pretty realistic, in your opinion on which part of my work. I need to work more to make the scenery as realistic as possible?

I think it looks great!

I would be willing to pay for the area I live in to be done like that!

 

 

Sent from my Apple communications device.

I edit the scenery and light and add some traffic, please download the file, first back up the LIGHTINING.BGL.and replaces the contains of the rar file into your scenery folder. http://mohsenfff.dl.rapidpars.com/4780/2482441/p5sxw2qyjfz/light&traffic.rar I change the places of some light's sources. Please test it to see how the new placements works. I change the places of some light's sources. I reduced the city lightning a bit and spread it around. Please test it to see how the new placements works.

I think it looks great!

I would be willing to pay for the area I live in to be done like that!

 

 

Sent from my Apple communications device.

thanks man, making night texture is very delicate and time consuming process. and your kind offering can actually make up for time and energy i put into this work. it is a fair suggestion.