I feel the dynamic brightness effect of the cockpit is way too strong. If I am looking straight forward,
the surrounding looks nice, but instruments are hard to read due to a low contrast.
Technically this may be correct: Take a picture out of your car, half instruments, half outside
world. On the photo you’ll find your speed indicator is quite dark, due to the bright outside world.
The outside world is much more luminant in absolute brightness, but our eyes adapt very fast and
differences in brightness are less noticeable to the human eye, since the measurement of brightness in
the eye is less linear that a camera can measure it.
So if you use your eyeballs Mk.1, you’ll see the instruments in real life with a higher contrast -
as the dynamic range of our eyes is higher than the cameras one.
In a normal 50/50 view of outside world and instrument panel, the gauges should be clearly
visible and readable. What we are having is the technical adaption of the eye due to the effect
in the sim plus the natural adaption using our eyes.
It would help a lot, if the dynamic brightness level would be adapted, or even better - if the
user would have the ability to adjust this.
I love the ga planes with steam gauges but most of them are afflicted by the same problem, really dark cockpits even on sunny days. I have to turn the panel lights on most of the time which is a nuisance when some of the planes don’t seem to have any.
Before anyone jumps in and says adjust you monitor settings, of course I’ve tried that, every possible combination. Unfortunately turning brightness or gamma up to the point where I can clearly see the gauges also results in washing out the scenery/sky. There must be a way of adjusting things to a happy medium, so hoping this will be addressed at some point.
I believe Alt+L switches on what some might call a head torch (!). While it’s not really the solution to your problem, I have found it useful in tricky lighting. The focus of the light will move as your mouse does.
Good on you. I think they will, eventually, because they way it is, is a pain. I think I will make a bug report also, and hopefully others will do the same because they use the number of formal Zendesk reports on any one issue to help prioritise that issue. Cheers.
Fly with the DR400 in bright daylight, view straight ahead and you will be unable to reckognize the top switches on the instrument panel with all the lights turned off.
As soon as you tilt the head down the scenery will become extremely bright but the cockpit will be brighter.
Works like a camera instead of the human eye…same goes for lens flare…
I think you are correct. Especially on a bright sunny day the difference between the outside and looking down at the panel is extreme. It is designed that way. Nice feature I think.
This is most probably related to the auto-exposure function that cannot be switched off. When moving view between horizon and the instrument panel (or interior of the plane), the panel quickly changes either darker or brighter. If you first look outside of the cockpit window, the horizon looks mostly ok, but panels are dark. Then, when you turn your head down towards the instrument panel, the panel becomes better illuminated (actually unnaturally bright) and the horizon gets unnaturally over-exposed (bright). This is how a video camera works, and the programmed fx is in that sense ok, but human eyes do not work like this (changing exposure within a second from moving vision between bright and dark). In real life, eye adaptation to brightness changes takes several seconds up to minutes. I have submitted a request to the dev team to change this in the sim, leaving this camera auto-exposure fx in the graphics menu with lens flare, bloom etc., because that is where it should be. It is a game fx, and should not be part of a flight simulator. This happens without bloom as well.
I think you should share some screenshots to show what you consider dark. Not saying the problem doesn’t exist (that would be rude and messed up) but, many times, this type of issue can be considered subjective without that type of evidence.
It’s quite simple. IRL you don’t need any lights to be able to distinguish switches and knobs in bright daylight.
There’s a reason why e.g. on the DR400 some cockpit lights are turned on by default in the sim.
It seems simple to you but this is part of the reason that bugs don’t get fixed many times: providing actual screenshot evidence assists in showing the devs what the complaint is actually. I’m not trying to be pedantic but it would be good to see how the panel looks like for you compared to what other people are seeing.
Plus, I will fly in the DR400 myself tonight just to get the same screenshot and report the bug in Zendesk.