X-Plane 10: Experimenting with art controls (Raleigh scattering)

[Murmur 3,941]

Regarding the distant visibility, there seems to be a problem, in that (apparently) there is a discontinuity in how the lighting is calculated, between the hi-res dsf and the low-res planet rendering. Apparently, the default values of datarefs have been tuned to minimize this discontinuity, but it becomes evident when using non-default values (see the attached images). This is a pity, since I think that with these tweaks, the hi-altitude blurriness could be minimized: for example, see the comparison image I formerly posted, in which you can see that War Thunder has less max visiblity than X-Plane, but there is no distant blurriness, thanks to the well made atmosphere scattering effect.

Probably, this discontinuity issue can only be fixed by Laminar themselves (or maybe a very skilled 3rd party, by tweaking the shaders?).

 

Default values:

 

 

Modified values:

 

[mtaxp 666]

Or just wait until they'll start to load more DSF's at the distance,as I read in this forum it's supposed to happen in 10.30

[deetee 164]

Or just wait until they'll start to load more DSF's at the distance,as I read in this forum it's supposed to happen in 10.30

A large part of the community are no doubt keeping their finger's crossed that it will happen in 10.30. I see a GREAT opportunity for LR to show the simming world what the XP10 engine really can do when it's fine-tuned, by taking these art adjustments on board (return of cloud shadows, scattering etc), at the same time fixing the well-documented visibility issues (high altitude "goo", Stephen King fog etc), and proving that P3Dv2 really is still just old creaky 32-bit FSX engine with HDR tagged on.

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[Pascal_LSGC 298]

Thanks all for your enthusiastic reactions ! I don't have the time right now to answer everyone, but I see Murmur is taking as much fun as I do, and comes to the same conlusions for the horizon problem.

 

Just one thing before I go to bed: don't raise your hopes too much about the blurred far textures. For now, you can see on the screenshots posted by Murmur right above, that the tweaks puts even more in evidence the "resolution barrier". At this point, only Laminar can really solve/enhance this issue, and I'm pretty confident that they will.

 

Pascal

 

Wow, talk about an overreaction.  I never suggested you shouldn't use it.  I simply pointed the readers of the thread to information on the subject from an authoritative source.

 

The links I provided show that while you can "play" with the art controls in DRE to your hearts content, all it does is show the potential of X-Plane and is NOT something that developers/users should consider a permanent or long term solution from their end.  This was confirtmed in Ben Supnik's response as follows…

 

So no, Pascal, it's not a problem for me at all.  I was just informing the community of the limitations of the art control Datarefs.

 

 

Sorry if I misinterpreted your message, but it was a bit dry, and left the door open to interpretations akin to "what you're doing is really bad"

 

Pascal

[tonywob 4,768]

wow, that's incredible. Absolutely incredible finding, and I'm shocked these aren't easily configurable, settable by default.

[Pascal_LSGC 298]

Hey, it looks like the thread is "sticky" now ! thanks to whoever did that !

Quick report: I'm talking with Ben about the details now, after some emails hiccup.

 

Pascal

[scotchegg 4,164]

Very good to hear! I haven't really played around too much with them, just used Mik's settings, but yours in the originial pics in this post are the clear winners.

[klamal 282]

Those first pics at the beginning of this post...OMG!!!!!!

 

How can we be sure these are actual pics from inside the sim??? I'm not literally asking this question. I'm asking it as the best possible way I think you can compliment how ABSOLUTELY STUNNING these pics are. When you can't tell the difference from reality and the sim other than the word "Paused" being in one of them...well, that's really as good as it gets, isn't it? You can't get any better than duplicating reality. By far and away the first time I've ever looked at flight sim pics and couldn't tell the difference.

[Pascal_LSGC 298]

Thanks Klamal !

Besides these screenshots, inside the sim the effect adds a lot to the sensation of beeing "high in the air". This is weel known since Leonardo da Vinci, the atmospheric perspective is an important component of our sense of depth.

Concerning the "reality" of these shots, I'd say the clouds still give it away.

 

Pascal

[Murmur 3,941]

Here is a rule of thumb guide for the various tweaks, with some baseline values:

 

.) first of all, if you want to minimize the distant blur issue at medium and hi altitudes, set your max visibility to 40-60 miles (the exact value depends on the latitude, just experiment); the visiblity reverts back to the max (100 miles) above the lowest cloud layer, so if you want to retain the limited visibility at altiude, be sure to set the lowest cloud layer altitude at a higher value than the altitude you're flying at; this works even if the cloud layer is set to "clear" (no clouds);

 

.) atmo/atmo_scale_raleigh (default value 13) : at low altitude, you can use values in the range 20-40; at high altitude, use values in the lower range (e.g. around 20) otherwise the sky gets too dark;

 

.) atmo/inscatter_gain_mie (default value 1) : this controls the distant white-ish atmospheric haze; use values around 3-5 or even lower; if the distant landscape gets too washed out, decrease this value;

 

.) atmo/inscatter_gain_raleigh (default value 1) : this controls the blue-ish atmospheric haze; use values similar to, or a little lower than, the atmo_scale_raleigh value you're currently using;

 

.) atmo/scatter_raileigh_b (default value 19.6) : this controls the intensity of the blue tint in the haze; this value is very subjective and usually can be varied in a wide range, from 50 to 200;

 

.) clouds/clouds_shadow_lighten_ratio (default value 0.5) : this controls the darkness of cloud shadows; use values between 0.8 and 1.0 max; on my PC, cloud shadows heavily flicker when changing the point of view, so they're mainly good for screenshots.

[jspahn 268]

Here is a rule of thumb guide for the various tweaks, with some baseline values:

 

.) first of all, if you want to minimize the distant blur issue at medium and hi altitudes, set your max visibility to 40-60 miles (the exact value depends on the latitude, just experiment); the visiblity reverts back to the max (100 miles) above the lowest cloud layer, so if you want to retain the limited visibility at altiude, be sure to set the lowest cloud layer altitude at a higher value than the altitude you're flying at; this works even if the cloud layer is set to "clear" (no clouds);

 

.) atmo/atmo_scale_raleigh (default value 13) : at low altitude, you can use values in the range 20-40; at high altitude, use values in the lower range (e.g. around 20) otherwise the sky gets too dark;

 

.) atmo/inscatter_gain_mie (default value 1) : this controls the distant white-ish atmospheric haze; use values around 3-5 or even lower; if the distant landscape gets too washed out, decrease this value;

 

.) atmo/inscatter_gain_raleigh (default value 1) : this controls the blue-ish atmospheric haze; use values similar to, or a little lower than, the atmo_scale_raleigh value you're currently using;

 

.) atmo/scatter_raileigh_b (default value 19.6) : this controls the intensity of the blue tint in the haze; this value is very subjective and usually can be varied in a wide range, from 50 to 200;

 

.) clouds/clouds_shadow_lighten_ratio (default value 0.5) : this controls the darkness of cloud shadows; use values between 0.8 and 1.0 max; on my PC, cloud shadows heavily flicker when changing the point of view, so they're mainly good for screenshots.

 

 

I gave this a try today, very cool looking.  Adjusting the RGB values can give some more realistic/ different takes on the approach......

 

A good example would be to tone blue and green down and add a tad more red for a warmer effect.....  What would be nice is a UI with sliders to adjust these settings......

 

Maybe LR will implement this in the future since playing with art controls is considered taboo..........

[scotchegg 4,164]

Anyone wanting to add their values to the avionics.lua files of the Carenado's so they automatically appear every time you load a Carenado plane (as described in the post linked by Pascal at the top of this thread) can use this as a template:

 

defineProperty("CloudShadowLightenRatio", globalPropertyf("sim/private/controls/clouds/cloud_shadow_lighten_ratio")) set(CloudShadowLightenRatio, 0.8)
defineProperty("AtmoScaleRaleigh", globalPropertyf("sim/private/controls/atmo/atmo_scale_raleigh")) set(AtmoScaleRaleigh, 25.0)
defineProperty("AtmoInscatterGainMie", globalPropertyf("sim/private/controls/atmo/atmo/inscatter_gain_mie")) set(AtmoInscatterGainMie, 3.0)
defineProperty("AtmoInscatterGainRaleigh", globalPropertyf("sim/private/controls/atmo/inscatter_gain_raleigh")) set(AtmoInscatterGainRaleigh, 3.0)
defineProperty("AtmoScatterRaleighb", globalPropertyf("sim/private/controls/atmo/atmo/scatter_raleigh_b")) set(AtmoScatterRaleighb, 30.64)

 

Can just be pasted at the top of the lua file when opened in notepad.

[Humpty 751]

Does this only work with HDR ON ? 

[Murmur 3,941]

Does this only work with HDR ON ? 

 

Yes, except the cloud shadows that work even when HDR is off.

[jcomm 5,890]

We can write a simple SASL plugin to set those values at sim start, without having to load a Carenado :-)