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The landing strip lights are barely visible ...

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Re: The landing strip lights are barely visible ...

Postby WoodSTokk » Sun Sep 08, 2019 9:28 am

@V12:
The scenery of EDDF you are using has the multiple light problem. You can clearly see that the green and specially the blue lights on the west side (up) are much more brighter then on the eas side (bottom).
The tool chain for generating airfields has a problem with that lights. It place it multiple times. I found that problem also on LOWW (up to 17 light points on one location) and KSFO (with more then 20 light points on one location).
If you want test on an airfield with fixed lights, download Goose Bay (CYYR) from here:

http://lepanto.at/download/flightgear/CYYR/CYYR.btg.gz
http://lepanto.at/download/flightgear/CYYR/1958866.btg.gz

This files are the output of my btgchk tool. As far as i remember my tool delete multiple lights.
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Re: The landing strip lights are barely visible ...

Postby V12 » Sun Sep 08, 2019 10:59 am

Thank You for explanation, will test this new light scheme.
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Re: The landing strip lights are barely visible ...

Postby statto » Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:52 pm

Based on my recent real life night flights, I don't see anything inherently wrong with any of the screenshots here.
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Re: The landing strip lights are barely visible ...

Postby abassign » Wed Sep 11, 2019 11:53 pm

statto wrote in Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:52 pm:Based on my recent real life night flights, I don't see anything inherently wrong with any of the screenshots here.


Interesting, but in my experience it is not. I would like to see examples, or images, this would help to understand better.
However, as already analyzed in the previous posts, the problem is not the point lights, which seem to me to follow a rule according to the angle of view, but the problem seems to me to be the lack of halos and reflections on the track that are always present and they allow to distinguish the lights at high angles (40-90 deg) even if with a reduced intensity
As you can see, in FGFS, if the lights disappear completely over the airport, which I never checked on night flights. Furthermore the PAPI are simple spirits and give an effect of "rising sun" with a halo that is absolutely false, I do not think that it takes much work to make a 3D model of the PAPI (if you want I do it willingly!).
If you look at the video the lights disappear as if a knife cut off the sliced track, in reality, there is a gradual attenuation, but not a disappearance.
When landing, the downhill path in front of the landing strip is hardly visible, while in reality you can always see these lights very well, even during the day, as those lights are much more intense and directed.

I think that not all airports have the same level of lighting, but no airport seems to me so "dark" as those that FGFS has been reproducing in recent years.

The problem may be due to various reasons ...

A different perception of myself (and others) in the brightness of a scene, as in the type of video used by the observer of the simulation. This was the reason why in the G91R1B I introduced the possibility of varying the brightness and reflectivity parameters of the livery. My surprise was great when I discovered that many pilots send me pictures of the G91R1B liveries with strong variations in these parameters. A clear sign that everyone sees reality differently.

I think it would be a good thing to allow everyone to vary some basic parameters, such as those for airport runway lighting, so that they can be adapted to their explicit feeling and display system.

I always remember with pleasure the old lights used in the LOWI scenario, lights that unfortunately are no longer usable. They were well-made lights and very close to the ones I had actually observed in reality.
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Re: The landing strip lights are barely visible ...

Postby abassign » Thu Sep 26, 2019 7:32 am

Landing on LSZA ... at 3 nm 3.5 - 4° slope

But where is the airport located? Did they turn off the lights? Or does someone not want to admit that as they were done in ALS they do not come close to reality? It would be right to start modifying them based on reality and not on an obscure fantasy.

Image
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Re: The landing strip lights are barely visible ...

Postby Thorsten » Thu Sep 26, 2019 8:20 am

I think you'll find several screenshots by other people in which they're seen okay, so you need to find out what is different in your setup.
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Re: The landing strip lights are barely visible ...

Postby GinGin » Thu Sep 26, 2019 8:20 am

Could you give the exact settings on your last screen .
Tilm and environment settings, weather , visual settings ( screenshot would be nice )

Indeed we see almost nothing , but comparing the screens you made before with some I made at the same locations with different settings where I saw nicely , there might be something wrong with your settings

In real , it is tricky.
Some situations you are just above the runway and you see nothing due to the lights orientation.

In final also sometimes if you are a bit offset or in a very moist atmosphere etc

It’s not black or white, not reality or Obscur fantasy , but a shade of grey ;)
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Re: The landing strip lights are barely visible ...

Postby Thorsten » Thu Sep 26, 2019 8:22 am

@GinGin He's actually been tinkering with rendering in the past, so it's probably some local breakage which we can't diagnose by looking at startup settings.

In fact, there's a forum history of him setting some config, forgetting about it and then complaining that FG 'somehow' did something wrong.
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Re: The landing strip lights are barely visible ...

Postby GinGin » Thu Sep 26, 2019 8:41 am

Mmm ok.
So maybe try on a fresh install with no tweaks parallel to the current one to see if there are differences ?
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Re: The landing strip lights are barely visible ...

Postby WoodSTokk » Thu Sep 26, 2019 4:38 pm

abassign wrote in Thu Sep 26, 2019 7:32 am:Landing on LSZA ... at 3 nm 3.5 - 4° slope

But where is the airport located? Did they turn off the lights? Or does someone not want to admit that as they were done in ALS they do not come close to reality? It would be right to start modifying them based on reality and not on an obscure fantasy.


Here is a screenshot from today with 2019.2.0 with the UFO.
As you can see, the lights of the airfield are visible at 4.5sm out.
Image

The view angle doesn't matter, because there is a bug in FG since 2 years.
All lights on an airfield (expect PAPI/VASI) are visible from every view angle (the light direction doesn't matter).
Last edited by WoodSTokk on Thu Sep 26, 2019 4:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The landing strip lights are barely visible ...

Postby legoboyvdlp » Thu Sep 26, 2019 4:43 pm

I must say that in abbasign's screenshot the houses are still brightly lit - surely that screenshot is certainly before twilight starts - at which point, well, the sun is an awful lot brighter than those lights.


Edit - in fact it appears that the reason is fog presently at Lugano...

Image

Yet, even with the fog its still lit up and visible:

Image

At the same place as Abbasign, they are clearly visible even earlier in the day!

Image
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Re: The landing strip lights are barely visible ...

Postby GinGin » Thu Sep 26, 2019 7:26 pm

I got that, fair weather and no moisture/fog affecting horizontal visi

Image


Image
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Re: The landing strip lights are barely visible ...

Postby abassign » Fri Sep 27, 2019 9:41 am

GinGin wrote in Thu Sep 26, 2019 7:26 pm:I got that, fair weather and no moisture/fog affecting horizontal visi

Thanks for the tests, at this point I'm reading the regulations for the management of landing lights. They are very interesting and define many different scenarios. Unfortunately for the various lights used on the landing strips the types of lights in lumens and viewing angles are defined with relative intensity, but I do not find, at least for now, recommendations on the actual viewing distance. Meanwhile, however, one fact is certain that every spotlight present along the track has two different intensities, a central one of high luminous value, but not a relatively narrow angle (about 7-8 °) and another more widespread around 15 ° but lower. intensity. This could explain the fact that the lights change in intensity according to the viewing angle. However, as I already pointed out, the lights are not laser beams, and therefore the intensity variation must be gradual and not instantaneous. I found an interesting article explaining some things about the landing strip lighting problem: http://www.faraim.org/aim/aim-4-03-14-79.html

It would be interesting to know where the code that manages the lights on the landing strip is located so that we can do some tests.

However the subject is very interesting and could lead to a substantial improvement of the lighting system for the landing path in order to make it more similar to reality

The possibility of "turning on the lights" via the radio system is also very interesting, a feature widely used for USA tracks in the rural area.

https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/FINAL%20FAA%20Order%206850.2B.pdf
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Re: The landing strip lights are barely visible ...

Postby Thorsten » Fri Sep 27, 2019 10:14 am

I think you'll find several screenshots by other people in which they're seen okay, so you need to find out what is different in your setup.
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Re: The landing strip lights are barely visible ...

Postby GinGin » Fri Sep 27, 2019 11:03 am

Hey Abbasign.
Yes, interesting matter.

We can always improve the code, but once again, to start with, check your setup, because the differences between your screens and the others one are quite significant ;)
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