Anyone catch the leak posted on Reddit earlier?

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

1 hour ago, Claviateur said:

I would be very very surprised if MSFS has baked lights in the ground textures.

I think this is spot on. In the 747 video, at some point the building lights were being drawn in as the aircraft was getting close (which suggests the effect has a limited draw distance as well).

[Claviateur 789]

2 hours ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

I think this is spot on. In the 747 video, at some point the building lights were being drawn in as the aircraft was getting close (which suggests the effect has a limited draw distance as well).

I believe all this is customized in the graphic settings. But I was referring to the ground textures being dynamic not the building lights 🙂 or maybe they are too. I need to watch again maybe 😉

 

 

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

29 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

I believe all this is customized in the graphic settings. But I was referring to the ground textures being dynamic not the building lights 🙂 or maybe they are too. I need to watch again maybe 😉

If the building lights are dynamic then I guess they would be using a similar technique for the ground textures. I can't imagine them storing two types of textures in their servers.

On that note I'm still wondering how they created the winter mode. It's been rather unrepresented in the tester screenshots...

[Claviateur 789]

56 minutes ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

If the building lights are dynamic then I guess they would be using a similar technique for the ground textures. I can't imagine them storing two types of textures in their servers.

On that note I'm still wondering how they created the winter mode. It's been rather unrepresented in the tester screenshots...

I am not sure I understand what you mean by two types of textures. In the other simulator, the street lights, parking lights, airport lights etc are dynamic. A light source from a light pole produces the light based on parameters. For the buildings, however, there is a night texture with only the windows painted as if they are lit... The light source(s) near the buildings will project the light on the infrastructure walls..

The snow is dynamic too. A plugin for the other simulator does it so Asobo's engine will certainly handle it. The snow video I saw seems to me dynamic snow coverage.

Here is an example of a tweaked (dynamic) light configuration in the other sim showing the spill, intensity, tones and bloom from the street light poles. As for the buildings they have a night texture with the windows painted as if they are lit (à la FSX)...

Edited May 25, 2020 by Claviateur

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

5 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

I am not sure I understand what you mean by two types of textures.

One set of day and one set of night textures, which would be too much for non-generic scenery textures.

7 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

As for the buildings they have a night texture with the windows painted as if they are lit (à la FSX)...

The way the lights faded in it looked like dynamic lights to me, or perhaps some sort of overlay texture. The building looks totally dark at first, then the lights start appearing as the aircraft closes in.

[Claviateur 789]

1 minute ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

One set of day and one set of night textures, which would be too much for non-generic scenery textures.

The way the lights faded in it looked like dynamic lights to me, or perhaps some sort of overlay texture. The building looks totally dark at first, then the lights start appearing as the aircraft closes in.

Yes I think dynamic light appears and becomes functional at a specific (draw) distance like any other element based on the graphic settings. I suppose dynamic street lights as well.

Again, I could be wrong of course, but I would be very surprised if MSFS engine uses by default night textures for the ground no matter how many types we will have (generic, aerial or Photogrammetry).

However, there are possibilities the engine supports multiple texture types based on time or date or other factors. We could ourself create these duplicates with baked light (as we can do in the other sim) but with modern engines it's obsolete. The SDK will tell us for sure.

In fact, dynamic lights could somehow affect performance on one side, yet loading the VRAM with a huge set of night textures could be a bigger performance issue.   

[WestAir 2,522]

That draw distance most certainly has a setting attached to it; I for one would probably have it set at the horizon just to avoid buildings popping in with contrasting lighting. (Bright ground becoming a dark building)

[Christopher Low 5,353]

4 hours ago, WestAir said:

That draw distance most certainly has a setting attached to it; I for one would probably have it set at the horizon just to avoid buildings popping in with contrasting lighting. (Bright ground becoming a dark building)

Keep that 16GB graphics card handy 😉

[Shack95 2,658]

11 hours ago, Claviateur said:

I would be very very surprised if MSFS has baked lights in the ground textures.

I watched it again in higher quality and I think you‘re right about the ground textures. I think it was the brightness that confused me. almost as if it were winter. Or is it winter?

[Claviateur 789]

4 hours ago, Shack95 said:

I watched it again in higher quality and I think you‘re right about the ground textures. I think it was the brightness that confused me. almost as if it were winter. Or is it winter?

Yes the parameters in this city at least are set on the bright side, the clouds can tell 🙂

Also it could be some settings related to the global brightness/contrast/saturation in the simulator. There is a variety of saturation and vividness in the screenshots we've seen so perhaps, not sure, users can tweak the look and feel of the sim as they wish.

[Richard Jacks 23]

Has the video been taken down? Hoping to find it.

[WestAir 2,522]

5 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

Keep that 16GB graphics card handy 😉

We can't talk hardware here but the PC I just bought was over $3k. I'm ready. 🤣

To the poster above me, the videos are there. Search mfs2020. 

[AerOdyssey 240]

2 hours ago, Richard Jacks said:

Has the video been taken down? Hoping to find it.

747-8 flying over shanghai by night

越来越像地球Online了 微软模拟飞行上海夜景展示

Edited May 25, 2020 by topatov

[Richard Jacks 23]

2 hours ago, topatov said:

747-8 flying over shanghai by night

越来越像地球Online了 微软模拟飞行上海夜景展示

found it thanks!

[Richard Jacks 23]

and why couldn't we have seen a landing with a nice flare???