Night lighting - Terrain emits light?

You don’t even need to get very high. Only look a little bit further in the distance, it already starts to look like that.

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Microsoft actually linked this thread in it’s update today so they are definitely aware of the issue. I filed a bug report because I saw this issue flying over Barstow, CA, which is also a desert area. Those areas seem to be effected mostly.

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This is totally ugly and looks like you’re about to land on the surface of the moon. I really hope they address this because as of now, high altitude IFR flying at night is just terrible looking.

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Even the night sky is quite bright. I’ve flown IRL in full moon and it is never this bright.

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Yep, glad to see that MS linked this thread and is aware of it. Hoping it gets addressed soon.

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Here it show clearly sepia mask is major issue, and at winter is even worst.

  • Render scaling should not affect the night lamp quality, this only degrade quality, should be excluded from render scaling setting. Add night lamp quality low to ultra option if performance is issue

  • Sepia Mask just add blur and bad illumination over night lamp, higher altitude worst

  • Overall, all night lamp should be a bit larger in size like 25%

  • At winter, night lamp illumination get decreased should not happens

  • Real World look more close without sepia mask, but you need to exclude night lamp from render scaling and increase them like 25%_30% more in size.

  • Test part II Night lighting - Terrain emits light?

Do not use this globe night light for sepia mask, it doesn’t works or reduce it to 75% on visibility









I still believe the best option is to add xml files, users could edit to their own taste, this is the only solution to meet all users taste. Editing is know for popular mod.

NightLight XML file.
Street (house\condo)
R,G,B; 0.0,0
Lamp size; 0.0
Brightness; 0.0
Contrast;0.0
Ground reflection; 0.0

Street (Manufacture\store)
R,G,B; 0.0,0
Lamp size; 0.0
Brightness; 0.0
Contrast;0.0
Ground reflection; 0.0

Boulevard
R,G,B; 0.0,0
Lamp size; 0.0
Brightness; 0.0
Contrast; 0.0
Ground reflection; 0.0

Highways
R,G,B; 0.0,0
Lamp size; 0.0
Brightness; 0.0
Contrast;0.0
Ground reflection;0.0

Others etc…
R,G,B; 0.0,0
Lamp size; 0.0
Brightness; 0.0
Contrast;0.0
Ground reflection;0.0

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This is great work! How did you remove the sepia mask? I find that way more realistic without the mask.

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Agreed, it looks really bad at high altitude/flight levels. Take off from KPHX or KTUS in the A320 or whatever and climb as you leave toward the west - after a while it starts to look exactly like that “spotlight” on the terrain effect in your first shot.

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https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/dev-night-light/130529/27

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Oh cool. I mean, you’d have to turn that on every time for a night flight, and switch it off in day flights, but it sure looks better than a muddy, glowing mass of textures.

but it affect ground on light create issue, also it does not fix the render scaling 100 vs 200, light lamp should be excluded.

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Yeah. Anyways, Microsoft linked this thread in their update today, so I hope they look over this issue and disable the sepia mask properly.

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I fly around UAE and must say the night looks very unrealistic for reference they should check Chris bells Dubai night environment for FSX/P3D

Some issues:

-Terrain too bright!
-All main roads have that red color marks that looks very ugly and needs to be removed
-suburbs are mainly lit with cold lights IRL not warm

  • main roads and roundabout have a mix of warm and cold light but IRL it’s mainly warm lights
  • add neon lights to buildings like green, orange as UAE buildings have neon signs and decorated with lights of different colors
    -add hazard lights on top of tall buildings
  • autogen buildings look very ugly at night and burn Khalid a looks like a Christmas tree

One thing I enjoyed in xplane is some roads or parts of it are not lit and as you fly above it you can see the car headlights light it up and it look so real really added to immersion so I am
Hoping this can also be implemented

Thank you

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At first, an XML file allowing us to tweak few night rendering parameters would be an excellent idea as @ExpressTomato52 suggested. Would not require a lot of developing effort to do so. :slightly_smiling_face:

Here is an IRL photo of paris by night, observed from high altitude.

Zoom:

IRL : roads are orange, the other places are black
MSFS : building roofs and fields are sepia, roads are black

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Really can’t wait for night lighting to be fixed. Flying over Dubai last night and the light on ground overspill was awful. Once night lighting is fixed night flying will become so much more immersive.

This is one update fix i’m most looking forward to.

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Here is fs 2020 and xplane 11 night lighting

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i like the night blackness in that video. The night lighting in xplane seems alot more realistic.

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I think fs’ night lighting at close to mid range is much better, however at far distances it is waaay worse.

Just by removing the light emitting textures and bringing back the old far night lighting would make fs the best looking default night lighting EVER!, at least imo.

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Where is the source?

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Weird bug but I’m glad it’s being addressed. The other day went to get my night currency around my airport and tried in MSFS first. Didn’t get any clear pictures, but the difference was astounding. In the sim you can see everything within a 3-4 mi radius, even though most of it is just farmland. IRL everything was pitch black and it took some looking just to see the runway lights

Also I think it would be a great addition to realism to have airport runway lights turn off like most smaller airports do IRL. Then keying the radios (could be done through the ATC menu) you can turn them on/adjust the brightness, but it adds an extra realism sense of trying to figure out where the airport is, and then more load one the 15 min timer expires and the lights turn off in the middle of your pattern :joy:

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