Night lighting - pitch dark clouds / overcast ?

[jcomm 6,093]

One aspect of night lighting in XP12 is the total absence of reflection of city or aircaft lights in the clouds over populated areas.

Actually if I fly towards the clouds with my aircraft lights turned ON they will not illuminate the clouds when approaching or going through them. It's all pitch dark 😕

Or is there a Graphics options slider I have to push further into the right in order to get those effects?

I presently have:

- Texture Quality = High

- Ambient Occlusion Quality (SSAO) = High

- Rendering Resolution (FSR Supersampling) = Off (Full resolution)

- Antialiasing = 2x MSAA

- Cloud Quality = Maximum

- Shadow Quality = High

- Rendering Distance = High

- Word Objects Density = Maximum

Thx for any hints...

Edited November 20, 2022 by jcomm

[SilverStateAviator 1]

1 hour ago, jcomm said:

One aspect of night lighting in XP12 is the total absence of reflection of city or aircaft lights in the clouds over populated areas.

Actually if I fly towards the clouds with my aircraft lights turned ON they will not illuminate the clouds when approaching or going through them. It's all pitch dark 😕

Or is there a Graphics options slider I have to push further into the right in order to get those effects?

I presently have:

- Texture Quality = High

- Ambient Occlusion Quality (SSAO) = High

- Rendering Resolution (FSR Supersampling) = Off (Full resolution)

- Antialiasing = 2x MSAA

- Cloud Quality = Maximum

- Shadow Quality = High

- Rendering Distance = High

- Word Objects Density = Maximum

Thx for any hints...

Currently volumetric lighting is turned off in XP12 beta due to bugginess. For more info see

 🙂

Edited November 20, 2022 by SilverStateAviator
content

[BobFS88 700]

1 hour ago, jcomm said:

One aspect of night lighting in XP12 is the total absence of reflection of city or aircaft lights in the clouds over populated areas.

Actually if I fly towards the clouds with my aircraft lights turned ON they will not illuminate the clouds when approaching or going through them. It's all pitch dark 😕

Or is there a Graphics options slider I have to push further into the right in order to get those effects?

I presently have:

- Texture Quality = High

- Ambient Occlusion Quality (SSAO) = High

- Rendering Resolution (FSR Supersampling) = Off (Full resolution)

- Antialiasing = 2x MSAA

- Cloud Quality = Maximum

- Shadow Quality = High

- Rendering Distance = High

- Word Objects Density = Maximum

Thx for any hints...

See this thread below.
 

 

[Murmur 3,978]

Clouds do not react to lighting, this is also the case with the (still experimental) volumetric lighting. So landing lights do not illuminate them.

Indeed, I don't know if there's any flight sim in which landing lights illuminate clouds. Not that I know of, but I might be wrong.

[Bjoern 1,184]

1 hour ago, Murmur said:

Indeed, I don't know if there's any flight sim in which landing lights illuminate clouds. Not that I know of, but I might be wrong.

X-Enviro for XP11 has volumetric landing lights that apparently work on clouds.

 

Plus, IIRC, the fake volumetric landing lights that Milviz came up with and had to be hard coded into some FSX add-on aircraft. These had properties that simply brightened everything inside the cones and thus would also work on clouds. But man, they were one giant PITA to set up, with skinned meshes and very specific material settings. Overall a pretty clever approach though.

 

 

Edited November 21, 2022 by Bjoern

[Murmur 3,978]

2 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

X-Enviro for XP11 has volumetric landing lights that apparently work on clouds.

Plus, IIRC, the fake volumetric landing lights that Milviz came up with and had to be hard coded into some FSX add-on aircraft

It's about time we get illuminated clouds as default in mainstream sims! 😁

[UKflyer 630]

they'll get around to it i'm sure, looking at the XP12 night lighting improvements so far

rome wasn't built in a day 😄

Edited November 21, 2022 by UKflyer

[Murmur 3,978]

Volumetric lighting sure has potential, getting it to also illuminate clouds would be the icing on the cake:

[UKflyer 630]

3 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Volumetric lighting sure has potential, getting it to also illuminate clouds would be the icing on the cake:

gorgeous hope they get both in the december release

[OlliePen 88]

20 hours ago, Murmur said:

Indeed, I don't know if there's any flight sim in which landing lights illuminate clouds. Not that I know of, but I might be wrong.

In this particular case, you are wrong.

Landing lights and even recognition lights do illuminate clouds and fog in the simulator which shall not be named. God forbid you turn your strobes on in a gnarly IMC approach; you'll turn 'em off right quick! 🙂

[jcomm 6,093]

1 hour ago, OlliePen said:

In this particular case, you are wrong.

Landing lights and even recognition lights do illuminate clouds and fog in the simulator which shall not be named. God forbid you turn your strobes on in a gnarly IMC approach; you'll turn 'em off right quick! 🙂

Indeed !

I was about to post the same reference to that no-name sim 🙂

It's one of the items I miss when comming for a night flight in XP12...

 

[Murmur 3,978]

1 hour ago, OlliePen said:

In this particular case, you are wrong.

Landing lights and even recognition lights do illuminate clouds and fog in the simulator which shall not be named. God forbid you turn your strobes on in a gnarly IMC approach; you'll turn 'em off right quick! 🙂

Yes, I already knew that. But I was referring to illuminating clouds from above. It doesn't seem to be modeled in any sim?

Anyway, something similar to what you're referring to was also modeled in past X-Plane versions, with strobe lights causing dazzle in fog/clouds. I don't know if current XP versions is still modeling it though.

[Murmur 3,978]

1 hour ago, OlliePen said:

God forbid you turn your strobes on in a gnarly IMC approach; you'll turn 'em off right quick! 🙂

Hmmm... I just tried and I don't see any effect of strobes on either small or large aircraft, either in clouds or with very low visibility. The only diffuse light is the one from landing/taxi lights. What am I missing?

[OlliePen 88]

46 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Hmmm... I just tried and I don't see any effect of strobes on either small or large aircraft, either in clouds or with very low visibility. The only diffuse light is the one from landing/taxi lights. What am I missing?

It's been before SU11 that I've seen them, but then I haven't really been in IMC/thick clouds/fog since. I have some appointments this morning and afternoon but will try to get up later today/tonight and see if that effect is still working. When I have seen it working, the strobes are very disorienting, as they should be, I imagine.

[jcomm 6,093]

Strobe lights were seen sometime ago, but I haven't used MFS much lately.

Today I'll try to test it - Lisbon will be just right for testing given the present and forecast meteo...