Cockpit exposure.

[Bjoern 1,176]

21 pages about nothing at all. Don't you people have something better to do with your time?

[efis007 912]

16 hours ago, mSparks said:

 

Oh my God, but what is this stuff? 
A watercolor painting??? 😳
That representation is awful,.... levels, contrasts, curves, colors... it's all completely wrong, all exaggerated, all overexposed.
I don't know what your job is, but I assure you that if you were a photographer, and Boeing asked you to take photos of cockpits for their catalog, and you brought them those shots, they would fire you after 1 second.
If you increased the camera exposure just a little bit, that poor panel would have turned into a cartoon. 
Might as well then that Boeing turns directly to Walt Disney to create his catalog.

But is this the "realism" you want from XP12?
Do you want to transform Xplane into a cartoon simulator ??? 🤦‍♂️

[mSparks 2,113]

4 minutes ago, efis007 said:

Do you want to transform Xplane into a cartoon simulator ??? 🤦‍♂️

like I said several times, I'm happy just as it is:

 

[GoranM 3,811]

@Bob Scott

I think you'll agree this one has gone way too long, complete with veiled insults from efis007, and into such irrelevant territory, that it may be time to slap a lock on it.

 

Edited March 19, 2023 by GoranM

[MrBitstFlyer 3,909]

4 hours ago, Bjoern said:

21 pages about nothing at all

I would say discussing such an important subject as lighting in a flight simulator is rather more than nothing.

4 hours ago, Bjoern said:

Don't you people have something better to do with your time?

Well, 'you people' is referring to flight simulation hobbyists discussing flight simulation on a flight simulation forum - strange then you should 'waste your time' posting in a thread you find so frivolous.

I am very passionate about XP12.  What such a small team have done is quite remarkable in my eyes.  Top of my list that makes XP12 so good is the lighting engine.  There are those who want to maintain detail levels in the whole scene, regardless how that affects the lighting.  there are those, like myself, who have nothing against getting more detail, but would hate to see the lighting take a backward step to achieve it.

I would say this subject, so fundamental to XP12, is worthy of such a long thread and respectful discussion.  I respect @efis007 for his passion on the subject of detail, but would hope he could at least show some understanding in how some of use feel about the lighting.  @Biology eased my mind slightly about tonemapping being done in such a way not to affect the lighting engine, but I am still nervous this huge component of XP12 could be degraded.

Yesterday I did my monthly load up of MSFS to get it updated and do a flight I just finished in XP12.  MSFS clouds are good - you bet!  MSFS autogen looks great - you bet!  MSFS lighting great - er absolutely not!  I flew it for over 2000 hours and was always happy with it, but the lighting after XP12 makes me feel I flying in a movie generated HDR 'flat' world.  Each time I load up MSFS for a test, I close it within five minutes because the lighting in XP12 is just so phenominal.

If you like and prefer the lighting in MSFS then I respect your choice - I am not interested in those who want to score points between the two sims. Rather I want to get across my passion for what LR have achieved with XP12, in the hope those who put detail levels top of their list will at least understand the point I am making about the light.

I can not think of a subject that is so crucial to XP12.

[rjack1282 317]

Yes, let’s close a thread on a very important topic regarding a very important simulator because I don’t like the counter arguments. What is this Twitter?

[brinx 276]

15 minutes ago, rjack1282 said:

Yes, let’s close a thread on a very important topic regarding a very important simulator because I don’t like the counter arguments. What is this Twitter?

He wanted to close this topic a long time ago.  I think for the fact that it is critical of one aspect of the sim. Lots of passion on both sides of the argument.  I can say I actually learned some points from this thread though, especially from @Biology. It would have likely been closed on page 1 elsewhere.

Edited March 19, 2023 by brinx

[efis007 912]

This topic essentially concerns the language of photography.
When dealing with topics such as dark shadows, blinding lights, images with correct exposure or wrong exposure, and a thousand other topics related to graphics, you enter right into the fantastic world of photography, and this topic gives the possibility to inexperienced photography users to understand what is photography and what is an image.
But above all, understanding when an image is photographically wrong, and how it can be improved using the science of photography.
Starting from knowing what a histogram is, what a histogram is for, and why it is important to know how to use it.

 

[MrBitstFlyer 3,909]

8 minutes ago, efis007 said:

This topic essentially concerns the language of photography.

I get it, you want maximum detail in the whole scene all of the time.  The image below shows what I don't want to lose in XP12. A beautiful scene (flying from Barra EGPR to Tiree EGPU in the Scottish Islands in the Bell 412 Helicopter by X-Trident), showing just the top half of the display in XP12.  I am fully looking outside, so I don't need to lose any dynamic range in this view so the cockpit is bright and all the intruments are readable.

When I look down in the cockpit I don't need all the outside detail visible, so all the available dynamic range can be given to the cockpit. Every switch and dial is perfectly visible and useable.  To get from one view to the other, I just move my head a few degrees up/down and that movement is magnified in the cockpit by TrackIR.

@efis007 IF the brightness and contrast I show in the above two images can be maintained, I am very open to the idea that tonemapping may be able to satisfy all of us.  I have my doubts though because to get full detail everywhere, when in general we have a bright top part of the display and a dimmer lower part, surely we have to lose some of the contrast?  I hope LR do find a solution to this to please everyone.

I respect your wishes, but I feel my voice has to come in just as hard for the other side of this conundrum.  in the end, LR will do their best 🙂

[efis007 912]

33 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

 

MrBitstFlyer please don't be offended, but in the images of the panels you are showing me I see huge graphic defects.
I do not know how you do not see them, because they are very evident. 😕

The panel is all black and flat, there is no detail on the sheet metal, the instruments have their frames illuminated by a clear light, without shades, and seem "stuck" against the black background.
The overall appearance of that panel resembles a black and white ink drawing.

If you've seen the histogram youtube video, you've learned how to make photographs that are pleasing to the human eye.
The photographer explained it and showed this histogram.

I saved the photo and checked if the histogram is actually right to that of the video.
Yes it is.

At this point I applied the XP12 methodology which consists in "crippling" the histograms and generating exaggerated contrasts.
The photo got burned (unsurprisingly).

The previous histogram curve is practically similar to this image (also burnt by XP12) posted by mSpark.

What you call "high contrast" in photography is called "burnt photo", I had already explained and re-explained, but some users don't want to understand, or refuse to understand, I don't know.

Now... I know I will never be able to convince you that XP12 misrepresents the panels.
But if not even in the face of these tests you convince yourself that XP12 is buggy, then there's no more hope, it's clear that you like black panels with busted histograms.
It's your choice.
I don't agree with it, but I respect it.
I will continue to argue that XP12 has a lot to learn from the older XP11.41 OpenGL, especially it needs to learn how to light aircraft panels.
Just this: the panels.
XP12 needs to learn from XP11.41 OpenGL how to represent photographically perfect aircraft panels in curves and histograms.

You probably won't like these photos because you have embraced the faith of the dark panel and overexposure. 😎
But I think 90% of users would be delighted to have panels so well represented on XP12.

[MrBitstFlyer 3,909]

As you can see from the outside view - it is bright and sunny, why wouldn't the top of the instrument bezels / knobs be bright?  The sides of the bezels do have shades, getting progressivly darker near the bottom!  For some reason you have clipped the panel - there is plenty of detail on the panel itself, especially the center pedestal.  Your clipped image is going to be surrounded by bright white background on the forum which will darken the clip - post it on a dark background.

I think its time to give up on this thread.  I have acknowledged your desire as far as detail is concerned, yet you have not acknowledged at all anybodies worries of maintain the brightness / contrast that we have now.  Most of the images of cockpits look way too bright to me and do not look like they belong in the scene outside the window.  Your histogram example above concerns a model in a perfectly lit studio.  You constantly refer to 'eyes' when we are viewing on a low dynamic range monitor.

I hope @Biology is right that you can be made happy by LR using 'local contrast', and I won't be disappointed with it!

 

4 minutes ago, efis007 said:

MrBitstFlyer please don't be offended, but in the images of the panels you are showing me I see huge graphic defects.
I do not know how you do not see them, because they are very evident. 😕

The panel is all black and flat, there is no detail on the sheet metal, the instruments have their frames illuminated by a clear light, without shades, and seem "stuck" against the black background.
The overall appearance of that panel resembles a black and white ink drawing.

 

 

[Baber20 1,496]

LR needs to implement diffused illumination to make everyone happy. I was actually surprised that such rendering tech was completely missing from v12.

Now what is diffused illumination?

The object may be illuminated by light which does not come from any particular source but which comes from all directions. When such illumination is uniform from all directions, the illumination is called diffuse illumination.

I do believe that once the SIM is stable enough, they may introduce this to completely fix the lighting inside the cockpit.

[C2615 322]

I heard this a lot but only when recently upgraded into XP12 and I find this actually acceptable, I use a TrackIR so I do move my view, and the exposure change accordingly, which feels natural and kinda realistic.

But I can image if someone use a fixed view with both outside and inside, it could be a problem.

[mSparks 2,113]

6 hours ago, Baber20 said:

diffused illumination to make everyone happy

the fundamental "physics" problem is that a monitor cannot realistically simultaniously display a bright outside scene and a dark inside scene, and a camera definitely cant take a picture of it.

Biology skipped over the question of whether it should adapt what is displayed based on if it is mostly dark or mostly bright because he seemingly doesnt want it to adapt. see above.

efis keeps talking about cameras in studio lighting, just completely irrelevant to the problem at hand.

2reds2whites kindly pointed out that working eyes are insensitive to darkly lit cockpits anyway.

I just love how the dark cockpit" in the Austin/Micheal video blended perfectly into the desk the monitor was sat on... I may get round to reinstalling 12.01 and take a comparison shot of what was already done, I am reasonably sure they went exposure fusion, and dropped exposure fusion because it sucked since then.

5 hours ago, C2615 said:

if someone use a fixed view with both outside and inside, it could be a problem.

pretty much agree, but I think the best solution there is a plugin for people with less than ideal set ups, rather than LR putting more dev time into it.

8 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

I hope @Biology is right

I don't think he is, because aiui most of the tone mapper he is referring to is set such that blender and xplane produce the same results, any changes will change that which will harm aircraft devs producing their desired results - aiui. RXP has demo'd several half decent improvements in dev slack, but it remains to be seen how they play out, given the nature of the problem, it is much much easier to make things worse than better.

My personal opinion is the very dark blacks should probably have more shades of grey in them to stimulate our eyes rods in the right way. But there are so many more important things I want to see come out from the guys responsible for that - openXR, even better perf, less real bugs rather than easy to work around small problems like this, that I wouldnt care less if that had to wait until XP14 if they are the cost of trying harder to make those unhappy with the adaptation now happy, not least because I dont believe they ever will be based on the comments in here.

[Murmur 3,973]

8 hours ago, Baber20 said:

LR needs to implement diffused illumination to make everyone happy. I was actually surprised that such rendering tech was completely missing from v12.

The issue is not the lack of diffuse illumination (it's already there), nor the limited range of monitors.

It's just the lack of a local tonemapper, which makes it seem like diffuse illumination is not there.

Hopefully it's a relatively high priority item for LR.