25 minutes ago, Honnli said:

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/night-lighting-terrain-emits-light/178647/52

This is the post from the official forums that I was referring to that compared the much darker night lighting in the release version to the alpha build. As can be seen from that analysis, the TAA in the release build added a "dark halo" to the light orbs which made them a lot less pronounced, especially into the distance where they appear to not be there at all even though they are actually still there. The alpha build screenshots there look closer to the patch #5 look, though patch #5 might've overdone the intensity of the light orbs just a tad bit too much.

Excellent analysis in that thread. Genuinely impressed with the technical comparison.

Well, reading this whole thread got me curious as to whether the night lighting would be an improvement for me after installing the patch.

I know it's impossible to please everyone but I much prefer the way the lights looked before the patch. 

Seems like cities now look like an illuminated circuit board

1 hour ago, AirlinePilot83 said:

Well, reading this whole thread got me curious as to whether the night lighting would be an improvement for me after installing the patch.

I know it's impossible to please everyone but I much prefer the way the lights looked before the patch. 

Seems like cities now look like an illuminated circuit board

Wow, that looks a lot like X-Plane now. 

2 hours ago, AirlinePilot83 said:

Well, reading this whole thread got me curious as to whether the night lighting would be an improvement for me after installing the patch.

I know it's impossible to please everyone but I much prefer the way the lights looked before the patch. 

Seems like cities now look like an illuminated circuit board

To avoid problem shown on a image above, MS/Asobo must use an old and simple solution!

Instead of using as light source FULL SPHERE which are spreading lights in all directions, they have to use a HALF SPHERE with light directed to the down.

 

When you fly above Light Poles you don't see light source you see only light reflected from the ground. Look at this video:

 

Edited October 31, 20205 yr by OSM

 

This sim is absolutely amazing stock.  I liked the way the cities illuminated at night before the patch.  And I like the way it is now.. Wonder if they could some how implement both ways and just turn it down a bit.

 

Just try to get it real.   Google city lights at altitude. And look at different city lights at different altitudes and just emulate that.  Or borrow a tbm go flying at night up to FL300 and take a butt load of photo's and program off of that. Who cares about opinions just make it absolute to real.

 

                                                                              Happy Landings,

 

DEL

 

Edited October 31, 20205 yr by OSM

Well they did ask for feedback on the new night lighting on the twitch developer Q&A, so lets give them some!

I am not exactly sure about the new lighting at the moment; the jury is out but I can't quite place my finger on what is missing (other than the brighter building lights of course). 
It does seem a bit too uniform now though and has lost some of its original charm.

Like others have said though, they are on a hiding to nothing here, with a million different opinions.

If I had to put in my views, I would say dial the intensity back just a touch, get rid of some of the uniformity/grid of the lights, and make building lights brighter.  

Edited October 31, 20205 yr by bobcat999

So this dramaqueen thread about FATAL night lighting has gotten 13 pages of replies, while my thread about fundamental flaws in the navigation system in the sim had to be pulled by its nose to get anywhere. I see. 

Please either make a topic about this on the official forum and have ppl who are truly concerned about improving this night light issue to upvote this so that it can be on the next developer feedback snapshot. Or submit a ticket via zendesk so that Asobo is aware of the problem.

The night lighting now looks almost identical to X-Plane 11 now which is extremely ugly. It's too "digital" and less analog. At least before it had some sort of variation, and the lights look more natural and subtle. All they really had to do was address the sepia-tone texture while leaving the actual lights alone.

The lights are way too pronounced and overly bright now. I really hope they can also improve on making the airport lights look more realistic, because when flying at high altitudes you can clearly see airports all around you which totally ruins the immersion.

Light reflects off surfaces, but now all you see are just the overexposed light orbs all over the place with no reflection from the ground. 

Edited October 31, 20205 yr by captain420

Things seem way, way too bright now to me.  Before, things were ok but maybe a little too bright still.  Now it is just way too bright.  At 10,000 feet I can still see grass and farms clearly nowhere near a light source.  If I had a vote I would say revert whatever this is, because the previous was better. 

6 minutes ago, kerosene31 said:

Things seem way, way too bright now to me.  Before, things were ok but maybe a little too bright still.  Now it is just way too bright.  At 10,000 feet I can still see grass and farms clearly nowhere near a light source.  If I had a vote I would say revert whatever this is, because the previous was better. 

Reverting back would be the easy way. If they were to go back to what they had then those ugly sepia-textures would come back and we definitely don't want that and I'm sure a majority of us would agree as well. What they should do is tone down the actual light orbs, add more variation so that it doesn't look so uniform. It should look natural and realistic. Now you can hardly even see the lighting of the city buildings due to the fact that the overall lights themselves are way too overpowering. Asobo just needs more tweaking and more feedback from the community in order to dial the lights in just right.

45 minutes ago, captain420 said:

Please either make a topic about this on the official forum 

Done... Multiple threads have been started by people who have issue with the new night lighting.

I think the new lighting is the way to go. They just need to tune it a bit, lower white intensity and size, lower a bit the density and if they remove lights from minor roads it will be great. 

Obviously to go back to the previous lights as some are shouting is not the solution. Before the patch it was bad in other ways.

19 minutes ago, captain420 said:

Reverting back would be the easy way. If they were to go back to what they had then those ugly sepia-textures would come back and we definitely don't want that and I'm sure a majority of us would agree as well. What they should do is tone down the actual light orbs, add more variation so that it doesn't look so uniform. It should look natural and realistic. Now you can hardly even see the lighting of the city buildings due to the fact that the overall lights themselves are way too overpowering. Asobo just needs more tweaking and more feedback from the community in order to dial the lights in just right.

Exactly!

10 hours ago, Honnli said:

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/night-lighting-terrain-emits-light/178647/52

This is the post from the official forums that I was referring to that compared the much darker night lighting in the release version to the alpha build. As can be seen from that analysis, the TAA in the release build added a "dark halo" to the light orbs which made them a lot less pronounced, especially into the distance where they appear to not be there at all even though they are actually still there. The alpha build screenshots there look closer to the patch #5 look, though patch #5 might've overdone the intensity of the light orbs just a tad bit too much.

Alpha build lighting was sooo sooo much better, that's what I bought. Not xplane nights!