Unrealistic Aircrafts NAV Lights

Hello gents,

Well, it's not a new issue, NAV lights are completely unrealistic, even more in daytime. There is that notorious "halo" effect on each lights, that go bigger when you dezoom your camera (cf: second screenshot). I would suggest ED team to look into the C101EB light system, those are way more realistic. You're not suposed to see bright NAV lights in daytime, those lights are almost not visible and there isn't any halo around those (cf: first picture). The C101EB designers considered this, I wish ED would do the same regarding all FC3 aircrafts, KA50, A10C, UH1H, MI8 and so on... That said, the new anti-collision lights of the F15C are nice. Those might appears as details, but I consider those as an immersion breaker.

Any hope of getting those fixed ? Please, ED...

Thank you for reading.

I actually disagree somewhat with your initial statement ; not that I think the nav lights are realistic by day, but I think by night it is much worse. You can't see nav lights beyond something like 1 km, which defeats the whole purpose of lights.

There has been some work on lights over the years, and I still hope for more in the future.

+1

We need proper lights, especially at night. Especially anti collision lights should flash more, they are a little too weak?

Good point. I would also like to see them tweaked.

I would venture to guess that the lights can be tweaked via modding?

I actually disagree somewhat with your initial statement ; not that I think the nav lights are realistic by day, but I think by night it is much worse. You can't see nav lights beyond something like 1 km, which defeats the whole purpose of lights.

 

There has been some work on lights over the years, and I still hope for more in the future.

By night, there is still that bad "halo" effect and dezoom issue, just like in most simulator. The lights size should NOT move at all, which isn't the case in DCS wether or not it's midnight or noon. ED should think about that. C101-EB owners will get the point.

This post may need to be moved into "2.0 Bugs and Problems". I wasn't sure where to post this, anyway I hope ED team took a look about that.

Yeah lighting from a distance needs (and always has) some work. Get a few miles outside of Vegas and you can't see any lights, very distracting. Aircraft lights are the same way.

Landing lights are exactly the same ... I live next to an airport and always see a strong beam even through to clouds and mist - from dozen kilometers away.

In DCS it's just useless to turn these grave candles on, I never see any effect as a pilot unless the plane is completely grounded. And I don't see them turned on on other planes if not zooming directly to the plane...

In general, the whole artificial lightning physics are still very unrealistic in DCS EDGE :( But I've hope for the final :)

Landing lights and navigation lights definitely need more work. It's an important feature of a flight sim. I've always been surprised I couldn't see my wingmen lights and the runway lights by night, unless I'm unrealistically close.

Please set the photons free! ;)

Taking the following picture as reference, in DCS, anti-collision lights should be slightly brighter and NAV lights a lot tinier. Also I noticed that taxi lights appears to be way too much wide and tend to form a sharp cone whereas landing lights tend to form a long tunnel of light that illuminates way too far. Once again, on the C101EB, those lights are well made.

+1

I have to agree that the NAV lights need a whole lot of work, but I also disagree with the gist of the thread that NAV lights are way too big. In my opinion NAV lights are way, waaaaay, to dim. They are just not bright enough.

Did a night cold start with the L39C yesterday. Zoomed out in F2 view you can barely see the NAV lights. They cast no dynamic light (like the landing lights) and they should be. You can't see em from 20 meters away, but they should make your plane visible at night for miles!

I have to agree that the NAV lights need a whole lot of work, but I also disagree with the gist of the thread that NAV lights are way too big. In my opinion NAV lights are way, waaaaay, to dim. They are just not bright enough.

 

Did a night cold start with the L39C yesterday. Zoomed out in F2 view you can barely see the NAV lights. They cast no dynamic light (like the landing lights) and they should be. You can't see em from 20 meters away, but they should make your plane visible at night for miles!

Could you attach screenshots to your post ? There's the cliff between 3rd party addons and ED modules I believe. I'm looking forward for a whole redesign of the overall lightning effects of DCS. I'm using real world picture as reference so ED could get the idea.

Talking about the dynamic landing light effect, I would love to see the reflection of the lights on the aircraft's nose (cf: attached Red Flag media) especially when to gear is getting retracted. About the NAV lights, it surely depends of the aircraft type, the environnement weather and time, but usually those don't reflect on the taxiway concrete, those light are surely bright, but really tiny and their size should remain steady (no matter camera zoom/dezoom).

Bringing some new shots as reference. Notice how powerful are the anticollision lights, it looks like those got some energy sparks around, their blink aspect should be more powerful and their illumination time significantly lower than the actual. Usually what you spot at first when looking directly to an aircraft whatever the time it is, is the intense beacon/anticollision light blinking. Also notice the reflection of those lights on the aircraft itself.

I found some clip of night Red Flags departure, please stay focus on the lights effects, how would you describe those ? There's a sweet big and strong halo effect on the landing/taxi lights, but their illumination range aren't as big as in DCS (example: SU27 landing/taxi lights by night is a joke). Those strobes/anticollision/beacon lights are powerfull and blink in a short period of time (just few milliseconds) with a bright energy, those lights have the capability of reflecting on other surfaces because of the energy they deliver. In DCS, A10C strobe lights are "flat", and suffer a lack of energy, those are more like a white circle that blinks on/off every second. NAV lights and formation lights appears to be the ones your eye see at last.

Some Red Flag departures again, but this time in day time. Everyone with proper eyes will agree on the fact that most lights are almost invisible if not visible at all, because of the environnement. However, anticollision/strobes/beacon lights are still visible even at noon, blinking faster than in DCS (strobe illumation for just a few milliseconds) but with less energy because of the time of the day. Finally, the landing lights still have a halo effect, but this one remains much tinier than by night.

I agree, I think the External lighting is far too dim and it does detract from the realism to a degree. I would love to see it improved.

Thanks

Signed ! It would be nice to see it from further away

DCS seems to have issues with rendering stuff from far away - lights not visible, aircraft not visible - things that should be visible aren't even slightly visible - the issue is not that the things need enlarging so we can see them better - they just need rendering at longer distances.