Night flying in 2.5.6 is a big downgrade!

Prior to the update, I always thought that night flying wasn't too far off from the real thing. My favorite missions are those in the middle of the night with no moon out, where you have to rely on the aircraft instruments and sensors. I'm really disappointed with how it looks after the update.

To start, the APU light in the F-18 is blinding when it comes on. Some of the other lights are similar. Everything is much brighter than before. Ok, so maybe it just means that I need to turn the brightness down with everything and adjust the gamma setting. But it's still very bright. The stars look terrible in VR. They used to be small, dim points of light, maybe a little too dim when the moon isn't out. Now they're extremely bright, blue, and their size is too large. It looks like a game from the 1990's played at 320x240. It looks very artificial.

The cities in the Persian Gulf map look like something out of TRON. They just glow way too bright.

On top of that, I tried a mission with a tanker, and the tanker wasn't visible at all, even with night vision goggles.

In general, everything looks too much like a cartoon or a video game, and less like a simulator. I hope they can tweak the settings to get it more realistic. Right now, it's just ruined for me.

From the newsletter:

Improved Environment Lighting

We have worked hard to increase the range and visibility of lights to enhance the night flying experience. We know that it is far from perfect and will continue to improve the look and feel at night.

I assume you're aware that ED keeps continuing to update their releases, right? :)

rdibley - Maybe you love in a city where you never get to see a night without light pollution - do you fly often at night IRL ?

On a clear night under a full moon, it is light - you cast a sharp shadow, you can (just) see colours, but the shadows are deep.

Cities do glow at night - they can be seen form space :-)

There is more difference now at night between what is light and what is dark

That's a good thing.

Edit - Here - my photo of Guangzhou at night - looks like Tron to me...

Have you just took the most amazing thing from 2.5.6 and put it in bad light? ;) Apart from any bugs the night lighting looks great and much more realistic now. Yes, it needs improvement but it's still WIP.

Was this tanker KC-130? It's invisible. Known bug. But they respond to radio calls and have tacan working :thumbup:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=222881

Open Beta is an option and may not be for everyone.

I have to ask if the OP has played with the gamma setting.

When I’d calmed mine down, I thought that the night shots were awesome

My other hobby is astronomy so I hang around outside at night quite a bit... Your eyes adapt quite markedly to darkness but it takes time. If you’re outside on a dark night, even without moonlight, after 10 minutes you can see pretty well. City lighting makes it easy to see, even if you’re not in an area of direct illumination. A full moon casts sharp shadows and can feel uncomfortably bright after a few minutes. Red lighting preserves dark adaptation, astronomers use red flashlights for illumination. A few seconds of white light sets back your dark adaptation so you have to start it again.

Once you are dark adapted even what are usually normally illuminated lights and leds will appear blindingly bright. I assume that’s why the DCS A10C has variable illumination levels for the console lighting, the pilot can continuously adjust it to a comfortable level.

All of this must make night lighting very difficult to simulate in a realistic manner...

I spent 3 years sailing the Atlantic on HMCS Provider and Preserver. Light discipline after dark is maintained by extreme measures. The tiniest light source can be seen at unimaginable distances.

Also, when you are away from light pollution even the darkest night is actually not all that dark.

On a clear night under a full moon, it is light - you cast a sharp shadow, you can (just) see colours, but the shadows are deep.

I sat on the aft missile launcher before midwatch and read a book by the light of a full moon once or twice in the IO. Usually when midrats was something toxic, which wasn't unusual.

Yes, I know, you're not supposed to read books on the missile launcher, but that's how bright the moon is. Starlight (cloudless, no moon) is ALMOST bright enough, but not quite. You haven't seen the stars until you've been in the middle of an ocean on a blacked-out ship. More than enough light to navigate topside.

rdibley - Maybe you love in a city where you never get to see a night without light pollution - do you fly often at night IRL ?

 

On a clear night under a full moon, it is light - you cast a sharp shadow, you can (just) see colours, but the shadows are deep.

 

Cities do glow at night - they can be seen form space :-)

 

There is more difference now at night between what is light and what is dark

 

That's a good thing.

 

Edit - Here - my photo of Guangzhou at night - looks like Tron to me...

 

 

I live out in the desert, where most of the time you can see the constellations pretty easily. Drive 20 miles out of town on a dark night and you can see the Milky Way. I know what you're saying, but the stars just don't look right in the game. They are way too bright (and big).

As I was playing the updated version, I turned down the gamma and it looked better, but still it was too much. What is the recommended gamma setting, by the way?

About the cities, I've flown over cities and the picture you show looks like real life. I don't know how to describe it, but the game looks less like the light is coming from light sources and reflecting off buildings and the ground, and more like everything is glowing? Not sure if that makes sense. Also, there are too many colors in the game. If you look at your picture, it's mostly orange, red, and yellow. No bright greens or blues, but I recall very vivid colors in the game.

I can say that certain things, like the blue lights of a distant airport, are way too bright. Our eyes don't pick up on blue at night very well, and something like that would be difficult to see and would look faint and fuzzy. In the game, they're crystal clear.

I'm not saying I have the answers, and I'm not even saying that I'm correct, there's just something off about it and it doesn't look right.

I am sure the lighting will get sorted at some point.

For me the main issue with the cityscapes at night is how geometric they are. perfect squares and polygons are really jarring.

I notice this especially on the PG Map at night

SD.

This new lighting in 2.5.6 update has really been appreciated using VR...simply beautiful flying the PG at sunset!

I wonder if the negative lighting issue I read about is more related to monitor users?

Maybe you love in a city ...

This new lighting in 2.5.6 update has really been appreciated using VR...simply beautiful flying the PG at sunset!

I wonder if the negative lighting issue I read about is more related to monitor users?

I fly VR only.

I gave it another try, and set my gamma to 1.0 initially but was way too dark, a gamma of 1.5 seemed more reasonable so I went with that and things looked much better than before. I think I had the gamma turned up too high from the earlier version and that was part of the problem. What is the recommended gamma for VR with a HTC Vive?

The stars look better now, but there's still something a little off with them. Maybe it's that they only render the highest magnitude (brightness) stars, so there are a bunch of bright points in the sky with nothing else? In real life, you see the dimmer stars as well. This is done reasonably well with the Vive load screen with the stars in the background, but even that's not perfect.

With the gamma turned down, the taxi lights at the airports look better, but are still too visible/bright from a distance. As for other colors being too bright, Dubai is a good example. Many of the buildings are illuminated with a blue-white color, and the city just looks artificial (blue) from altitude. Some of the shipping areas have red lighting, and it is just too intense.

Anyway, the intent of this post isn't to just throw stones, but to give feedback that will hopefully improve things. Understood that it's a work in progress, and hoping they'll be able to dial things in.

customer : we want the lights more realistic

ed: here they are

customer : we want darkness more realistic

I have to ask if the OP has played with the gamma setting.

When I’d calmed mine down, I thought that the night shots were awesome

Mr_sukebe - May I ask what you found your gamma setting sweet spot to be after the 2.5.6 lighting update?

...I wonder if the negative lighting issue I read about is more related to monitor users?

Not this one, anyway. Haven’t touched the gamma (2.2) and both day and night are an improvement over my 2.5.5 experience. There is now a brilliance to the sky, especially around sunrise and sunset that was lacking and I no longer feel like I’m looking at landscapes through polarized sunglasses.

Easily 80% of my TT irl were at night and 1/2 of that was wearing various NVGs. I can tell you that in the mid 90s up around 5-8 thousand agl we could see the moonlight being reflected off of diy stills. If you were in the middle of a huge forrest and lit a cigarette, from up there it would look like a brilliant flash. B back OT... I wish that cockpit reflections were optional. The Harrier is way overdone and at night looks like it was cleaned with a oily rag.

The "tron" lights just need some additional yellow/brows and it is doable.

Is this post a Joke??

Seriously (I could risk a ban for that) you gotta be kiding me.

This night lighting is the best thing we received in dcs 2.5 since it's initial release.

I cant believe theere is someone complaining about a thing which never worked before and which is now AWESOME.

@OP : your claims are completely ridisculous and nonsense.

Is this post a Joke??

 

 

Seriously (I could risk a ban for that) you gotta be kiding me.

 

 

This night lighting is the best thing we received in dcs 2.5 since it's initial release.

 

 

I cant believe theere is someone complaining about a thing which never worked before and which is now AWESOME.

@OP : your claims are completely ridisculous and nonsense.

+1000

Forget, He is a big troll.

It's a big step in the right direction, it just needs tuning so the sorrounding terrain is less lit up, but if there's a strong moon that makes more sense however what I seen the reflectivity of terrain is too much even for a strong moon, it's not easy because I think but I hope not that each of the texture needs it's own reflectivity map to go along with it, possibly making this task as big as FLIR rendering in a way ... , snow reflects light and that's why snowy nights look a lot more lit up and you can see the terrain and other things close to it for quite a longer distance, ofcourse if there's city lights and other sources in the vicinity to make those reflections, but I presume that for snow it would just take those base values and adding a multiplier for snow (snow adjustment) and wouldn't be such a big chore, hopefully.

EDIT:

Well obviously it's all lit up people ... if there's a FLARE over the airfield !!!!! And nobody cared to mention that, or I didn't saw, but yeah it's my fault of not trying it myself earlier.

Well, there's your problem.

It seems you might miss an important factor here why there might be very different opinions about this.

When people are judging lighting/colors or black levels in a computer game should consider that these factors are also hugely affected by the technology they use .

LCD,LED,OLED,Plasma,CRT? TV or Monitor? What brand? What quality range? Not to mention what custom user settings are set sharpness/brightness/contrast/gamma/black levels/auto color or motion correcting features/dynamic contrast/etc.

These all can be a huge factor how a lighting and colors can look.

I am not saying those who have problems have cheap or bad quality screens I just wanna say that it can be a factor also worth to consider before judging .

(I am pretty sure that even a simple screenshots you post looks very different on different screens . Different color tone contranst brightness sharpness so on.)

Technically speaking, you're completely right. In a perfect World, we should all play with calibrated devices. But we don't, so that undoubtebly affects the way we perceive the image quality.

But when it comes to a simple comparison between 2.5.5. And 2.5.6. using the exact same rig, the device quality argument is much less relevant, which fully legitimates the point of this topic, in my honest opinion...

It seems you might miss an important factor here why there might be very different opinions about this.

 

When people are judging lighting/colors or black levels in a computer game should consider that these factors are also hugely affected by the technology they use .

 

LCD,LED,OLED,Plasma,CRT? TV or Monitor? What brand? What quality range? Not to mention what custom user settings are set sharpness/brightness/contrast/gamma/black levels/auto color or motion correcting features/dynamic contrast/etc.

 

These all can be a huge factor how a lighting and colors can look.

 

I am not saying those who have problems have cheap or bad quality screens I just wanna say that it can be a factor also worth to consider before judging .

 

 

(I am pretty sure that even a simple screenshots you post looks very different on different screens . Different color tone contranst brightness sharpness so on.)

I suspect it's even more basic than that. If I were to show a photograph (color) of a landscape to 20 people, I'd get 20 different opinions as to how accurately it mirrored that landscape.

Flying VR...

I like the newest version DCS 2.5.6.43872 Open Beta - 20.02.2020.

Flying the PG now, I believe the city and building lights have been turned down a bit from DCS 2.5.6.43453 Open Beta - 13.02.2020. I like that you can see the the runway lights from a realistic distance, earlier versions was near impossible to see them until you were on top of the runway.

From Wiki:

"The visual approach slope indicator (VASI) is a system of lights on the side of an airport runway threshold that provides visual descent guidance information during approach. These lights may be visible from up to 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) during the day and up to 32 kilometres (20 mi) or more at night."

Oh ya...don't forget to delete the fxo and metashaders2 folders after each update!

I tried a night flight in VR with complete cloud cover at about 2300 hrs. The clouds were bright white and the ground was almost completely black. It was unflyable. When I tried to turn on the NVGs, the view was so oversaturated that it almost blinded me (HP Reverb). While I admit that the ground lighting and airport lighting does look beautiful, there seems to be some serious issues with how clouds are illuminated or how they are reflecting light.

I never really had an issue in the prior versions using NVGs to fly in darkness but with the new OB, I can't see flying night missions in its current state.