First impressions and criticisms.

[dudeman17]

Well, after finally getting some time in 2.7. I'm very impressed with where it is currently. The lighting has improved so much! though now it makes me feel like I'm playing Arma with the way the shadowed lighting makes stuff look. not worse though that's for sure!
 

Definitely needs some polishing but nothing is critically broken. the sun shines pretty brightly through even thick clouds. making there be a bright spot in the clouds even when that cloud is effectively casting deep shadows on the ground (which are awesome). The weather system is still missing thunderstorms which isn't big but I do enjoy being able to set those. fog is very broken which im aware is known but makes it difficult to fully make poor weather conditions at low altitude. However, rain and snow does now obstruct your view while flying much better. And finally with the weather I'm hopeful that when the dynamic system comes in it is able to interpret existing missions with dynamic weather that people spent time trying to get right. otherwise ill have several missions where the weather will need to be completely redone and ill have to google foo myself another meteorology degree.

The last small complaint is it appears that the aircraft all need some touch ups for their lighting. Both internal and external. many of the US aircraft with the grey cockpits seem to be too well lit. areas that should have shadows like under the canopy rails are still well lit and results in a bit of a plastic looking panel. F-15 is the worst for this from what I've seen. but I've noticed it on the viper and a couple others. including some Russian stuff like the Ka-50. On the flip side the externals of most US aircraft look pretty good with their darker grey schemes. many of the Russian aircraft with the colorful paints seem to be too bright. su-25 and mig-29 seem to fit this bill. but its also very prevalent on the A-10 and mirage 2000 with their lighter color schemes. While they look great up in and above the clouds. while sitting in their shadows they seem to be too bright.

Overall great work and I'm excited to watch it develop and expand. there's so much exciting stuff in the not too distant future for DCS!

[Nozzle]

While I agree the footwells may be a bit too well lit in some aircraft now, overall I think the DCS cockpits finally show a realistic degree of ambient sunlight found in tactical cockpits essentially flooded by natural light from all directions.  Remember almost everything surrounding an aircraft is reflecting light into the cockpit, not just the sun.  Clouds, aircraft surfaces and blue sky are all providing bright light into almost every corner of the cockpit.  Even flying under an overcast, I never needed to turn-up cockpits lights to operate a jet during the day yet in DCS you saw folks doing this in bright sunshine as a matter of routine.  I suspect that won't be necessary anymore which I think is a very good thing both from a practical and realistic standpoints.

 

 

[Fri13]

I can get the foot well being too well lit as they are deep and shaded well. But the other way around the hard contrast between sunlight and shadow is gone and you can actually start having that huge canopy act as a diffuser to soften the light and scatter it all other places than just direct light. And in those clouds and so on there are lot of other reflections from them to as well add new directions. 

 

It isaybe too soft at the moment but better than previously IMHO.

 

 

[Ala12Rv-watermanpc]

The key here is that SSAO must be enable for better cockpit (and the rest of the world) light representation. However, the new SSAO is way too weak in darkness and has also a too small radius of effect. It should be much stronger, that would make everything looks so much more realistic and nicer...