Not sure what you think, but I have the feeling it is slightly too dark outside when it is cloudy. Sure, the contrast with sun-illuminated patches is dramatic and beautiful, but I am wondering if it is not slightly overdone. On the other hand, I find the lighting with full sunlight very natural (and not overly bright as some suggest). 

Of course, the lighting engine is otherwise superb. 

What is your experience?

Yep I agree. On my monitor in cloudy weather the scenery is really dark that it's hard to make out detail on the ground when it's overcast. However, I get the reverse in sunlight where the bloom effect can be too strong and drain out everything else. I've not seen the same on Youtube videos though, so presumably it's something I can tweak in the settings and just never bothered to look to further.

I've been thinking the same, actually. Playing with HDR on (it looks absolutely fabulous, excellent work Asobo), my impression is there are two issues: 1) the cockpit often feels too dark as a result of the sun being somewhere in view (whether through clouds or not) whereas I'd expect it to be more bleached than dark, 2) when cloudy, whatever the coverage, the cockpit is darker still, often making it feel as though the dashboard should be illuminated.

The lighting is generally incredible, mind.

2 minutes ago, spacedyemeerkat said:

I've been thinking the same, actually. Playing with HDR on (it looks absolutely fabulous, excellent work Asobo), my impression is there are two issues: 1) the cockpit often feels too dark as a result of the sun being somewhere in view (whether through clouds or not) whereas I'd expect it to be more bleached than dark, 2) when cloudy, whatever the coverage, the cockpit is darker still, often making it feel as though the dashboard should be illuminated.

The lighting is generally incredible, mind.

Limitations of the lighting being rasterised I think. Even faking global illumination things look too dark in games. Need bounce lighting from ray/path traced sources to get it accurate. 

1 minute ago, Anthracite said:

Limitations of the lighting being rasterised I think. Even faking global illumination things look too dark in games. Need bounce lighting from ray/path traced sources to get it accurate. 

Oh, now just imagine RTX in FS2020! (Conveniently ignoring the horsepower required to run it although a generous application of DLSS 2.0 would help!)

I agree with the OP's assessment. Flew around the Innsbruck area yesterday around noon in OVC conditions and it felt like evening and even the Cessna landinglight illuminated the tarmac. 

so small tweaks here and there and we'll be fine I think.

9 minutes ago, spacedyemeerkat said:

Oh, now just imagine RTX in FS2020! (Conveniently ignoring the horsepower required to run it although a generous application of DLSS 2.0 would help!)

I asked not too long back if it was in their plans but I couldn’t find any information. DLSS seems like a no brainer. You could pretty easily scale the majority of 10k+ altitude flights using dlss with dramatic performance improvements where gpu is a limiting factor because of the large swaths of repeated colours on scenery. Probably with ray tracing too, particularly with the new cards coming this year.

Sadly that won’t address the cpu limitations of the engine,  but if you could lessen the impact of the increased resolution you’re going to be sitting pretty in terms of performance.
 

I really hope they consider dlss - especially considering they’re using taa which seems to be the same or similar temporal data dlss uses for up scaling.

 

Yep, I agree too.

I flew in overcast conditions yesterday and the ground below was unrealistically dark and dull. The HDR does make a difference but the overall lighting needs to come up a few stops.

Agreed, too dark.

If you change the camera to look directly down at the ground then it will become very much brighter, ie the lighting is adaptive in some way to simulate your eyes adjusting.

It is perhaps lacking a sunglasses toggle...

You can turn off light bloom. It may help

41 minutes ago, SteveFx said:

If you change the camera to look directly down at the ground then it will become very much brighter, ie the lighting is adaptive in some way to simulate your eyes adjusting.

Exactly. Mostly, HDR is one of those 'buzz phrases' picked up on by hardware manufacturers to sell stuff to people who then go: 'ooh, it's got HDR' because they heard the V/O person say on an advert that HDR is the latest thing you must have. It's the technical equivalent of shampoo adverts saying 'now with jojoba oil', and everyone goes: 'ooh it's got jojoba oil in it' when they don't even know what the hell that is, or what it does, or even if what it might do is something they'd actually like.

HDR is nothing new. The first ever HDR image was made by Gustave Le Gray in the early 1850s (Well over Fifty Shades of Le Gray, if you like). HDR simulates what the eye does with its adjustable pupil, by taking in various elements of a scene at different 'exposures' as it scans around, then combining them through the brain's perception, into one image. Each individual 'snapshot' the human eye takes when doing that, is only suited to a certain light level.  So the reality is that in a combined HDR image, some bits will be darker than ideal and some bits will be considerably brighter than ideal, because they are basically a combination of multiple exposure passes.

 

Edited August 24, 20205 yr by Chock

When I am flying below the clouds, it is so dark that I find myself very much 'longing' for bright patches of sunlight. Indeed, it feels like dusk sometimes, so dark, in the middle of the day. 

I hope they will address this, as I find it a bit frustrating that I have to remove those beautifully rendered clouds, just to see some detail on the ground. 

Middle of day flying 152 in clear weather - can easily see and read instruments.  Switch to broken clouds and I can barely see instruments (no change in view or distance from panel).  Switch to heavy clouds and I cannot see any instrument nor can I see anything else in the cockpit that is more than a foot away.  Switch back to clear skies and the cockpit is bright and easy to see.

I've played with every setting that might affect light and none resolve or diminish the darkness.

At least to my old eyes, the 152 is not controllable mid-summer day in heavy clouds.

7 hours ago, Chock said:

Exactly. Mostly, HDR is one of those 'buzz phrases' picked up on by hardware manufacturers to sell stuff to people who then go: 'ooh, it's got HDR'

 

Actually Chock I think that you are slightly mistaken on this one, which is I admit unusual.

What you describe in photography is similar to the sort of HDR that e.g FlightSimWorld (and even FSX to a limited degree) had where the lighting calculations were all made in a wider range and were then squeezed  in  post processing in a non linear manner to fit the range of a standard monitor.

MSFS uses HDR10 so it outputs 10 bits per colour channel not 8, and HDR10 monitors and TVs can generate brighter images (more nits) so as someone called Nigel might say “my monitor goes up to 11”.