Realistic night road traffic with headlights and tail lights driving on the road

[CurriedCat]

Pretty poor that I never noticed. Must do more night flying.

Really is needed.

[CptLucky8]

@Eddrik84

The cars in mfs is not static, but they are very low resolution and almost transparent and very difficult to spot from the air. And its very few car models so it is alot of repetition and the tail and headlights are very bad visible.

I don’t believe I have a solve for your question, but related to it, here is a bug about car traffic you might want to check out to see if you agree with:

[BUG/FEATURE] TAA is transforming road traffic into ghosts (self-cancelling moving pixels) - Virtual Reality (VR) / VR Wishlist - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

As for the topic about car traffic head/tail lights, and readers wondering about how X-Plane is doing it, here is a recent post of mine with links to videos showcasing this:

Night lighting issues still present - The community solutions - Bugs & Issues / Scenery - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

[FlightPlanes]

I’ve just flown at night around the UK, passing over both towns and cities and at all kinds of altitudes from FL100 down to 2000. My vehicle setting in graphics is 100%. Despite looking out the window, even down at a low altitude, and squinting my eyes, I can’t see ANY vehicles on the roads or motorways. No vehicle lights at all. It really ruins the immersion when flying at night when you expect to see busy traffic along major routes.
Is Asobo aware of this? Will it be fixed?

Steve

[Eddrik84]

I think it is part of world 2.0 planned next year.

[SubtotalGuide81]

Only first noticed them since SU5, don’t know maybe they’ve always been there?

[CptLucky8]

@FlightPlanes

I can’t see ANY vehicles on the roads or motorways. No vehicle lights at all. It really ruins the immersion when flying at night when you expect to see busy traffic along major routes.
Is Asobo aware of this? Will it be fixed?

This is part of much larger night lighting issues:

@CptLucky8

To me, what drives the difference between roads is:

timestamp 1:
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/SECiS65jKr4

timestamp 2:
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/SECiS65jKr4

timestamp 3:
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/6gnFDBi_XME

when you see smooth moving car lights, it tells right away whether this is a major road and adds a lot to realism.

FS2020 road lights are static light bulbs and when I look at them more and more I believe the idea was to recreate the look and feel of roads with traffic as seen from above (hence the red and white static light bulbs). The problem is that they are static, let alone as demonstrated in this discussion oversized and blurry.

@CptLucky8

You’re making a valid point here. For example the first time they’ve indicated this “better source” I was led to believing it would be a higher resolution “sepia mask”. However this might also just mean a better source of data so that they can remove the sepia mask and replace it with accurate point lights instead. It is quite open to interpretation indeed!

Nevertheless I can assure you they are aware of the very details we’re trying to explain and document here, I’ve passed the message to this exact information. What is important to also note is that FS2020 is managing different types of lights with different code implementation and “night lighting” is really generic. In effect night lighting is referring to the various type of lights they are simulating which are typically:

• AirportLights (runway, approach, taxiway, VASI, beacon)
• StreetLights (“orbs”)
• FlightSimLights on sceneryobjects or simobjects (mostly used to illuminate Gate areas on bespoke airports, and for airport vehicles headlights)
• Aircraft Lights (which is technically part of night lighting)
• Road Traffic lights (white & red around moving cars)
• some emissive materials on some objects (e.g. taxiway signs)
• stars and sunlight

Though some elements are common in these systems, they are mostly different, which means any feedback/request/criticism of “night lighting” should (preferably) refer to specific systems.

This discussion is mostly about “StreetLights (orbs)” explicitly*.

And “Road Traffic lights” implicitly: I think I’ve posted for example street light shouldn’t embed static red/white lights representing the cars and cars should emit their own light instead like in XP11.

[FlightPlanes]

So fingers crossed they will fix it in due course?

Steve

[HRHighness4588]

Good wishlist item. What also adds immersion are a few random emergency vehicles with strobes on (similar to xplane).

[JackFlash108]

Seems like a small issue but it really does add to the immersion. I don’t see the issue on the feedback snapshot.

[Wilster2070]

When you see them cars at night you notice there’s a light beam but their headlights are off??

MSFS night car traffic should look like this:

Black Marble Volumetric Car Traffic

[RolandoRossini]

And when we’re ready, it would be nice to see traffic jams and more traffic on the streets in the morning from 6:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and in the afternoon from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. That would be very good too.

[JackFlash108]

Are my eyes deceiving me or do the cars now have headlights/taillights? They aren’t terribly bright, but they are there.

[Wilster2070]

can you provide a close up pic of how cars appear on your end? and your graphic settings if you don’t mind?

[JackFlash108]

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[Wilster2070]

thanks for that. Yes we can see the light beams but what is lacking is the cars headlamps being lit (just like they are lit in the airport trucks and buses), it’s a small detail that makes a great difference when seeing from a distance.

[JackFlash108]

Back in December my traffic had no lights at all. I don’t know what changed. I’ll take this over no lights whatsoever.

[Ant1975uk]

I thought they had always been there? I remember flying over Miami on xbox last September and the traffic had headlights and backlights because I was really blown away with it.

Whats happening now is though, the traffic is irregular, disappears, sometimes transparent and doesn’t drive like a car would. Deffo needs work.

[RAGlNGBEARD]

One thing I miss from XP11 is being able to see road traffic at night, in particular random blue & red emergency lights moving along roads. Adds a great deal of immersion and feeling of life to the sim.

[airjuneau]

I miss this as well.

[Wilster2070]

Could any XP11 user take some pics of how the car traffic looks like at night? From afar and up close? I’m wondering if the lights are volumetric, if there are some extra sprites attached to the headlights or how they make it work?

Many thanks in advance!