Good set of screenshots there.
I like to have at least contact shadows on low as I find things like trees look so flat and lifeless without it. Ambient occlusion again seems to just add that much more “depth” to the scene but doesn’t, in my personal opinion, have as much impact as contact shadows.
Both have fairly significant performance impacts in VR so I believe unless memory fails me I tend to use just low contact shadows and leave AO on the cutting room floor.
For me its all about contact shadows, shadows and light shafts.
Ambient Occlusion just makes things look even more extra bright and washed.
Nice post, unfortunately I literally can’t see a single difference in those pics lol
Same! At least on those screenshots
Did you enlarge the photos? For me the cluster of trees in the centre just above the cockpit window sill change drastically.
I see no difference either
I guess it’s like whether you can tell the difference between Gallo wine and Chateau Lafite Rothschild. Some folks just can’t.
The differences between the pictures show up most clearly in the window strut and in the instrument panel, particular the air vent shadowing, near where the windows strut meets the frame body.
Ambient occlusion shows up most strongly on overcast days where reflected light has more of a chance relative to strong direct sunlight and AO also shows up more strongly in night scenes with many light sources and reflections. I have something to do in the next couple of days but perhaps when I have a chance, I’ll redo the same sort of scenery comparison on a heavily overcast day (100% clouds) or pick a night scene at an airport or flying over downtown Manhattan at night.
In the meantime some folks might want to get their prescriptions checked or see if presbyopia is setting in with advancing age and it’s time to get reading glasses. I have super duper expensive LensCrafters glasses with graduated bifocals, anti-everything <<<joke>>>, and according to my optometrist, better than 20/15 vision when using both eyes together.
It is fascinating how people perceive things differently. For me the difference between the ULTRA ULTRA and the OFF OFF images copied below from the post above is like night and day, they are not even close to the same, one is washed out and the other super contrasted. I am sure the people reporting they see no difference genuinely cannot see a difference, it is just interesting how subjective our vision is.
And here, ULTRA/ULTRA vs. OFF/OFF
The first two red circles on the left show increased shading in the ULTRA/ULTRA view whereas the third red circle, the most on the right and just under the cockpit front window, shows the opposite effect, less shadowing on the underside of the metallic trim in the ULTRA/ULTRA view as compared to OFF/OFF, ostensibly due to light reflected off the top of the instrument console and elsewhere inside the cockpit as opposed to favoring direct lighting in the OFF/OFF view.
It would be interesting to see how the ULTRA ULTRA looks with colorgrading set to zero in the config files as that turns off the excess saturation Asobo seem to think is a good look in the sim.
The overall look they seem to be after is " supersaturated and sharpened social media photo " as opposed to realistic (probably because people prefer that social media/calendar photo look to the hazy washed out view you often actually get in real life) 
They even default to “fake lens flare enabled” to make the sim look more like a movie.
Yeah! It’s like going out on a heavy date! Asobo wants to stoke up those endorphin levels (or is it oxytocin?! 
) and hook you into a lasting relationship! 
Ok, I see the differences on the panel… I thought we’re talking about the scenery!
Both, you can’t see a difference between the two pictures EdamllamaB posted here?
With contact shadows and AO off everything looks so flat… there are more subtle differences in terrain shadowing but with both off the trees just look like a flat 2d texture with no depth. I think it’s potentially a bit overdone in terms of contrast on ultra but as with all things there is a happy medium.
Thanks for linking back to that, I see a HUGE difference there! But going back and forth between the original posted pics, no.
Not sure the quote with the picture will enlarge but if you look at the original posted pictures and follow the advice in parentheses “click to enlarge,” you’ll find the pictures just as large as EdamllamaB’s reposted screen capture - it’s just a direct capture a small section of the enlarged view you get if you click the original posted picture - that’s why he asked in his first post in reply to you if you’d enlarged the picture - so then he just posted part of the enlarged view available in the original directly.
When you mouse over a picture that can be enlarged, it gives you a hint at the bottom of the picture:
Turns out the quoted picture cannot be enlarged - but trying going back to the original to check it out.
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