13 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

But that's just unnecessary eye candy? All that matters is the flight model. And not committing heresy.

Maybe so...depending upon who you ask...

and that argument happens even in the race sim world that splits Iracing (physics) fans from the Assetto Corsa (more eye candy) fans.

1 hour ago, jarmstro said:

But that's just unnecessary eye candy? All that matters is the flight model.

what do you recall on the etymology of that one?

It was a significant point of contention back when LR were making a song and dance about their highly detailed oil drums while the sim was already struggling to deliver essential eye candy at more than 15fps.

Now it can smoke 400fps with all essential eye candy, I dont think anyone would begrudge them spending some time on the non essential items.

1 hour ago, jarmstro said:

And not committing heresy.

Hehe.

Kinda, lets put it this way, most of LR would be banned in about 15 minutes from all the major Xplane discussion sites.

14 minutes ago, mSparks said:

what do you recall on the etymology of that one?

It was a significant point of contention back when LR were making a song and dance about their highly detailed oil drums while the sim was already struggling to deliver essential eye candy at more than 15fps.

Now it can smoke 400fps with all essential eye candy, I dont think anyone would begrudge them spending some time on the non essential items.

Hehe.

Kinda, lets put it this way, most of LR would be banned in about 15 minutes from all the major Xplane discussion sites.

Ha ha. But whatever is coming I'll be paying my money for it. Mind you, I will be leaving the Austin worship to others. He strikes me as a bit weird,

3 hours ago, FlyBaby said:

In looking at just water and clouds

Both seem mostly OK to me (Save the horriffic transitions on default clouds and known bugs in the latest release notes)

Do you have a reference video or something demoing what we should desire? I like to point at things when I say "I want that".

Oh lord, this thread is still going.  [Closes tab]

At least, I hope they'll revisit the X-Plane Tone Mapper*

I mean just take your screenshot in a paint program and look at the histogram. Tone mapping the HDR render into LDR is not using the full range and this shows. I've tried interposing the tone mapper in previous versions, when the shader code was all in text, and this was really helping a lot (although there are other bugs in the tone mapper Ben is aware of and not easily "patchable" just with shader code changes).

This is my "essay" about this, with pictures and code a few posts below this one:

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/149559-enhanced-rendering-for-free-and-post-processsing/&do=findComment&comment=1422161

 

* XP11 shader code used to use the famous Uncharted 2 transfer function. You can see some examples of tone mapping on this blog post: http://filmicworlds.com/blog/filmic-tonemapping-operators/

Edited March 19, 20215 yr by RXP

20 minutes ago, RXP said:

mean just take your screenshot in a paint program and look at the histogram

What am I looking for?

 

Edited March 19, 20215 yr by mSparks

20 minutes ago, mSparks said:

What am I looking for?

This doesn't look like what I'm talking about at all. Also, I'm not writing the above to provoking you proving me I'm wrong so please, don't try arguing with me with these screenshots, you could prove anything with such material. And even comparing your screenshots, the compressed RGB render signal is showing the tone mapper is not fully exploiting the LDR range vs the compressed RGB video signal already compressed in LDR by the camera sensor and the camera post-processing...    Should you felt compelled to argue, I would have thought you'd elevate the discussion with math and physics instead of this 😕

Here are the screenshots I'm referring to (this will spare people from having to click and read the material I've linked to in my prior post):

default:

enhanced tone mapper (shader code):

 

Here is the theory:

http://filmicworlds.com/blog/filmic-tonemapping-operators/

http://filmicworlds.com/blog/filmic-tonemapping-with-piecewise-power-curves/

 

Edited March 19, 20215 yr by RXP

1 hour ago, Bjoern said:

Oh lord, this thread is still going.  [Closes tab]

You know what happens when you put stinky meat out, the flies keep coming. close this one another will start up, its called pride.

12 minutes ago, RXP said:

I'm not writing the above to provoking you proving me I'm wrong so please

Wouldn't dream of it, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing when it comes to art.

I just put two shots of the same location, one real life, one from the sim, and asked what I am looking for.

12 minutes ago, RXP said:

enhanced tone mapper (shader code):

OK, but this is pretty much what it looked like to be in one

I understand you can do all sorts of arty stuff to make the graphics look nicer. Are we talking making it look nicer or making it look realistic? What am I even looking for and how are you determining what is "right"?

Edited March 19, 20215 yr by mSparks

2 minutes ago, mjrhealth said:

You know what happens when you put stinky meat out, the flies keep coming. close this one another will start up, its called pride.

For me it has become short reading, because most of the protagonists are on my ignore list! 😂

@mSparks I'll let you choose whatever qualifier you want (realistic, nicer, etc...) because it is subjective.

There are different methods to converting a high dynamic range source signal (XP11 render) into a low dynamic range output (monitor) and the one actually implemented in XP11 is not optimal because it is only using a fraction of the LDR output, and it is barely weighting the entire image to change exposure.

Edited March 19, 20215 yr by RXP

16 minutes ago, RXP said:

because it is subjective.

its not subjective.

cover of a magazine, looks nicer than my wife - fake and doesnt look like anything that ever existed.

photo of my wife, looks like my wife.

There are absolute objective measures as to how close one thing is to another, photos are not perfect, but it should still look similar?

btw, on my ipad (not true of my desktop), the only discernible difference between the two shots you posted is the upper one has slightly browner soil.

On my desktop they all look completely different on each of the three monitors.

So - if you cant measure it, and you have no frame of reference, and it changes from hardware to hardware - how are you determining better?

you said "not using full range" - I have no idea what that means tbh.

The videos i took those shots from are on the first page

they are about 6 nm west of the 744 shot on identical settings (although my weather is live, so vis and scattering will be different)

Edited March 19, 20215 yr by mSparks

16 minutes ago, mSparks said:

you said "not using full range" - I have no idea what that means tbh.

ok!

2 hours ago, mSparks said:

Both seem mostly OK to me (Save the horriffic transitions on default clouds and known bugs in the latest release notes)

 

We all have a different tolerance levels for what looks "OK". To me nothing about XPs clouds and water are acceptable, including any addons to make it look better.

2 hours ago, mSparks said:

Do you have a reference video or something demoing what we should desire? I like to point at things when I say "I want that".

Can't speak for we..., but for me...anything "near" what MSFS / DCS / IL2 offers in terms of visuals will do.