Sunrise/Sunset brightness

[EGLD 436]

Not sure if I'm missing something here, but when using live weather and times, the sunrise/sunset brightness seem miles off in the UK? haven't checked anywhere else

Below is a screenshot of the UK right now in MSFS (I checked time and date is correct) and a live shot of Manchester airport, which is actually the level of light in the UK at 07.50 today

[AUA425 130]

I have observed something similar myself, not only in the UK, and it has already been reported - in such a case, send exactly the 2 screenshots to ZenDesk and report them as a bug - otherwise nothing will happen.

BR

[gboz 157]

So the first shot is sunrise, about 8am, and the second is at 7:50am?

[bobcat999 8,444]

Yes, it's another one of those things that is a bit off.  It goes dark quickly but then stays in twilight for too long as well.

[EGLD 436]

3 minutes ago, gboz said:

So the first shot is sunrise, about 8am, and the second is at 7:50am?

both taken at the same time

[Kassu62 30]

Same problem here in Finland. And the snow makes the difference even bigger.

[RaptyrOne 1,398]

Yup, same in S. Africa. Far from accurate day/night transitions using real time settings. We are talking hours, not minutes. Twilight/orange glow on horizons and a light sky that last several hours after it should be pitch black. Does not bother me too much but it can be mildly annoying if you fire up the sim for an early morning flight and end up doing the entire flight in the dark. Means you have to advance the time about 2+ hours to match reality. Then what's the point of the real time option though?

[Carts85 1,203]

I personally find the sunset to be too orange in colour like an Instagram sunset where in the U.K. that doesn’t feel accurate 9 times out of 10 although, I still think it looks fantastic and I imagine it would be very difficult to simulate the accuracy we want it is worth mentioning.

[Axis3600 50]

But with me the twilight stays all night!

Do you have that too? there is no night in MFS!

We can see the ground it's never dark it's permanently in twilight with too much light at midnight 2am 3am ...

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

1 hour ago, Carts85 said:

I personally find the sunset to be too orange in colour like an Instagram sunset where in the U.K. that doesn’t feel accurate 9 times out of 10 although, I still think it looks fantastic and I imagine it would be very difficult to simulate the accuracy we want it is worth mentioning.

 

I find the default game is over saturated and over sharp and sometimes looks like something out of Jumanji rather than the real world 😄

There is a setting to turn the saturation on and off in UserCfg.opt called Colorgrading which defaults to 1 (ON). I have set mine to zero (OFF) but many people find that a bit too washed out.

{PostProcess
        Enabled 1
        EyeAdaptation 1
        ColorGrading 0
        Sharpen 1
        Fringe 1
        LensDistortion 0

 

Note that if you make any in game setting changes the game will probably revert it back to 1 (turned on) the next time you play .  You can make the file read only but then the game never remembers any changes you made in game.

 

The short Budapest clip below is done with Colorgrading OFF ...  you will notice it is far less saturated than the normal game. I personally prefer it like this as I find it more realistic and less "cartoony" but not everyone likes it.

 

 

 

Edited January 27, 2021 by Glenn Fitzpatrick

[EGLD 436]

56 minutes ago, Carts85 said:

I imagine it would be very difficult to simulate the accuracy we want it is worth mentioning.

I've always thought that daylight, much like the stars in the sky, is either right or not - it's based on well understood physics and so I assumed, I guess wrongly, that it's a straightforward thing to get right

Colours, I agree - can be subjective, but the earth is a certain size, it's round, we know where we are in relation to our sun, and so daylight phases should be straightforward to fix hopefully!

[fppilot 4,339]

Is this perhaps a time zone issue?  I seem to note that the light level is the same throughout a time zone.  Here in the USA, looking at a map, that is a wide area from say Boston, Ma. to Terre Haute, Indiana.  Or from Gary, Indiana (central time) to Garden City, Kansas.  Gary could be late dusk and Garden City still pretty bright.

[devgrp 1,233]

2 hours ago, Axis3600 said:

But with me the twilight stays all night!

Do you have that too? there is no night in MFS!

We can see the ground it's never dark it's permanently in twilight with too much light at midnight 2am 3am ...

Your screen might be too bright. 

[Flic1 969]

The thickness of the cloud layers can cause that issue and it has been around for a while although I do think they improved it a bit from the Alphas. My big issue is the never-ending 'twilight'.  It just never gets dark and it is more obvious the higher you fly.  It's almost like you have reached into outer space instead of FL 390.....

[Carts85 1,203]

2 hours ago, EGLD said:

 

Colours, I agree - can be subjective

I think that’s the issue there, plus the complexity of what happens when a beam of sunlight hits the atmosphere and how our eyes process that colour, not to mention the various different monitors we use to display that colour. I’m no meteorologist but I’m sure it’s very complex and simulating that on a home PC must be a challenge am sure.