I'm a weekend airline fellow based near EGPF (Glasgow - Scotland) and I shadow real world flights from FlightAware with LiveATC coverage. Usually Saturday & Sunday evenings which means short hops in Europe or North America in our Summer and South America or Australasia during our Winter.  My favourites are early morning local time flights from KBOS to KJFK or KLAX to KSFO when the sun is coming up.

6 hours ago, Simicro said:

Hi everyone,

either early morning or late afternoon/early evening.

The reasons are:

1. The landscape is beautiful at dawn/dusk, the light is sweet and easy on the eyes, except if you look at the sun of course. By the way, I noticed that many promo screenshots are done at dawn/dusk.

2. At other times of the day, the light is 'blinding' and the scenery is kind of 'washed'. But perhaps that's the way it is in real life.

 

3. Early morning when the unrealistically powerful thermals are not out in force. The constant cpu power needed to measure the many physical factors at a given time and space is reducing performance too. I mean the complicated measuring that's needed to run the thermal engine.

You people mainly flying large planes probably don't realize how overdone these air currents are. It's nice but there needs to be a slider: compute the thermals and then divide their power by maybe 4 and use that. So that the effect better matches real life. 

The screens say my preference without words. 🙂

Literally dozens more...but don't want to turn this into a "slideshow". 🙂

 

Dawn/Dusk....just magical in this sim. 

 

 

 

9AM to 3PM day lighting is just too washed out looking in MSFS.

I prefer evenings, that's where the true beauty of this sim shines!

 

I have 224 day hours and 47 night hours according to the logbook.  I prefer to fly around noon to afternoon that way the photogrammetry and photo tiles match the sun.  It just looks better.  The photo tiles look weird at sunset or dawn over mountainous areas because of the contrast of strong sunlight and strong shadow baked into the photo tile.

Totally agree with the washed out look during the day flights. I actually brought this up in another thread and some people were saying that's how it is in real life, shrugs.

I've always thought the exposure and that eye adaptation setting in MSFS is nonsense. I really wish they would fix the exposure problem in this sim. Flying during the day looks bad. So I try to fly during dawn/dusk only.

Here's my other thread showing off the problem - Fenix cockpit too dark during the day - Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) - The AVSIM Community

Edited June 5, 20224 yr by captain420

13:00 gets nice light reflection on window frames and off panel the panel; can be bright though!

19 hours ago, Simicro said:

Hi everyone,

I'm not a night flyer (except for transcontinental flights) and my preferred time for (VFR) flying in the sim is either early morning or late afternoon/early evening.

The reasons are:

1. The landscape is beautiful at dawn/dusk, the light is sweet and easy on the eyes, except if you look at the sun of course. By the way, I noticed that many promo screenshots are done at dawn/dusk.

2. At other times of the day, the light is 'blinding' and the scenery is kind of 'washed'. But perhaps that's the way it is in real life.

How about you guys? I'm curious.

Ah yes, the magic of the Golden Hour - https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/discover/golden-hour.html.

I fly at all times of day, but agree with you that the Golden Hour is often exceptional with a very special mood. Like in the real world 🤩 From one of my own recent outings to prove your point:

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/619938-the-chancellor-arrives-in-london-city/

The fact that we have a sim where this is even a topic is actually quite amazing and speaks to what Asobo have achieved!

If you haven’t flown too much night VFR, I would recommend that you give it a shot. Navigating in big urban or city areas at night can also be very rewarding I find.

I prefer the evening hours. Because there are more VATSIM controllers online at those hours. And the scenery looks better also because of the over exposed lighting.

I prefer early morning & dusk times, but the Horizon Line Bug (that Asobo claims is "too deep in the code to fix" when in reality they couldn't be bothered) is a real killer and totally ruins the immersion when it's right there in the eye line.

Thankfully the midday bleached out look for VR users has been mostly fixed with the OpenXR Toolkit, I don't do enough night time flying but really should get into that some more.

I find early morning flights very atmospheric. I like setting up the plane and taxiing in the twilight and then climbing to cruising altitude as the sun rises on the horizon. I often choose that time of day when I fly down to the Mediterranean, perhaps because it reminds me of holidays. 

One thing that I have had a problem with is that on takeoff, from the cockpit view, the runway is so washed out I can't see it.  Sometimes I go to the external view just so I can see.

Also, I have had the sun shine so bright through the cockpit side window, that I can't see the left side of the panel.  So I have to change the time of day, to see it.

These fixes work but are not very realistic.

Roy

• early morning or late afternoon for most of my flights; better colors, more pronounced shadows on topography
• noon when flying near watermasks. You don't see them well otherwise
• night occasionally for the calm ambiance, as well as the extra challenge when doing no GPS runs

For all of you mentioning the washed out, bright look with midday lighting, you are so right! And honestly, I’ve only seen it so prominently in the new Hjet. The other planes I use (Arrows, Kodiak, C414) there is no problem at all. In the Hjet, midday and sunny, as mentioned, the runways and taxiways are so bright and washed out the second you spawn in. If using external view looking forward, all looks as it should. Nice. The second I go to cockpit view, the view through the windshield is ok for a split second then brightens up over a second or two and looks ridiculously bright and washed out. I’ve only used the Hjet a few times with real time at around 11am. Going to try an early morning flight today to see if if improves the overly bright washed out look. Again, this never happens so predominantly with the other planes just the Hjet. 

If you all notice, certain aircaft like the default Longitude has cockpit window tint that darkens the bright day exposure and makes outside lighting look better. I feel every aircraft in MSFS should have this tint by default. @captain420 Have your tried the sunglasses presets in OpenXR Toolkit?

Edited June 5, 20224 yr by blueshark747