Nocturnal lighting

Has anyone noticed how light it is during nighttime hours in DCS WH?

I'll use Flaming Cliffs 2 as an example here of how dark it is:

and here is the exact same time of day/season, but this time in DCS WH, notice how much lighter it is:

I guess the patch included a pair of cat eyes

Does the moon match between the two?

Does the moon match between the two?

There is no moon in either of those screenshots.

I noticed this last night flying a mission. The land was super bright and unrealistic, the water was absolutely pitch black with no sense of ambient light on it. No moon, clear sky, starlight only. Funny thing about those two pictures, the top one looks to be the more advanced and prettier looking game.

I suggest that something gets tweaked if possible sometime in the future.

I think I need a new monitor, they are both Pitch Black to me.

Nate

I noticed this last night flying a mission. The land was super bright and unrealistic, the water was absolutely pitch black with no sense of ambient light on it. No moon, clear sky, starlight only. Funny thing about those two pictures, the top one looks to be the more advanced and prettier looking game.

 

I suggest that something gets tweaked if possible sometime in the future.

I'm glad you noticed it :D

It also looks quite bad when theres a thunderstorm at night too, the terrain looks bright and the overcast looks a bit odd.....with lightning bolts that are black! (see here http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=1125539&postcount=35)

I think I need a new monitor, they are both Pitch Black to me.

 

Nate

i think you need a new screen (or adjust your gamma settings :P)

Nate, you have to be able to see the high contrast difference between the dark sky and the light ground in the second pic. We really shouldn't be able to see the color of green grass on a moonless night.

Nate, you have to be able to see the high contrast difference between the dark sky and the light ground in the second pic. We really shouldn't be able to see the color of green grass on a moonless night.

I'm not denying there's a problem. I just can't see it.

Nate

I'm not denying there's a problem. I just can't see it.

 

Nate

Adjust brightnes and gamma >.>

Believe it or not, it is very clear on the screen of my phone :) I see it now. It does look like moonlight, perhaps if you take a pic or two showing different phases of the moon?

Edit- I also note the different weather conditions in the example pics

Nate

It doesn't matter if there is a moon or no moon at all, if it's winter or summer, or even overcast in a middle of a thunderstorm, it's always this bright at night.

It doesn't matter if there is a moon or no moon at all, if it's winter or summer, or even overcast in a middle of a thunderstorm, it's always this bright at night.

Just found this in the GUI manual on Page 66

In the START field, you may edit the start time of the mission in hour : minutes : seconds / day format. Note that the mission start time will be used as the default starting time for all groups placed on the map. You can change a group's starting time using the group properties panels (described in detail further). Also note, the calendar starts with June 1st as day 0. For example, to set the mission date to July 1, set the day value to 30. To set the mission date to November 1, set the day value to 153. The default starting time for all missions is 12:00:00/0 (12:00 pm, June 1st). Changing the starting time and date will affect the position and motion of the sun, moon and stars to correspond to the time of day and year set.

 

Note: If you wish to adjust the darkness of night missions, you can adjust the mission start date to a date when the moon is less visible.

That might explain everythings

I dont understand less visible than no moon? Alaska type moon paterns? Well not quite Alaska.

I also have this problem, with full moon the ground is so bright I don't need NVGs and it looks like a day. In FC2 the night is much darker. Even without fullmoon I can spot some ground units. My monitor contrast is set to 40 and brightness to 50, but still doesn't solve. Night in the current DCS version (1.2.3) is too bright :(

I found a couple of threads on this but no real info/solution. :/ i too have a really REALLY bright nigh in dcs a10. i mean so bright i dont need cockpit lightning to see dials and switches and you can se the ground and roads and trees.. ive set the date to 15 of jan around 2 oclock so it should really be pitch black outside.

some ppl suggest to adjust gamma/brightness on the monitor but that cant be the right way to go (still i tried it. i set brightness to 0% and gamma to 2,6 and everything was dark and dull in menues and stuff but still bright at night)?

the game looks great in every other aspect. menus, cockpit during daylight..the environment, explosions. and things that are supposed to be black are black. the MFDs in menu modes etc are perfect deep black. if i would have a faulty monitor setting this would look blended and grayis. and every other game i play on the same system looks good..dark is really dark and colors vivid. its only in dcs that night wont get dark.

i remember flying ka50 "courier" mission a couple of years back and that was as dark as a night should be.. i will try to run that mission tonight just to check if a10 differs from ka50 (but i suspect its dsc world thats the problem).

the thing that i find most strange is that some ppl seem to have pitch black nights and some (like me) has really bright nights.. is it a graphic card issue or just random luck with settings? (i also tried to let nvidia dictate the colors/brightness but dcs was still bright at night with little or no difference)

dcs world should really implement some kind of brightness adjustement settings within the game and have some calibration mode.

this is still a problem for me. i recently added Nevada and started using 2.0 for the first time and the night is pitch dark there but still very bright in 1.5 (as in you can see stuff without NVG in the middle of winter with no moon etc.. even inside a closed unlit hangar you see details). so apparently this is NOT a monitor issue. it might very well be hardware related since 1.5 and 2.0 uses different graphic engines but its only in dcs 1.5 i have this problem. not in any other game, including low budget indie games...

its still playable but its "not fun nor realistic" :/

Now in DCS World 2.5 beta, in DCS A-10C cockpit there aren't flood light nor console lights.

I suppuse ED knows this bug.