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Night Lighting problem (No Lightflood)

Graphics issues like: bad framerates, weird colors, OpenGL errors etc. Bad graphics ar usually the result of bad graphics cards or drivers.
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Night Lighting problem (No Lightflood)

Postby Zilesio » Wed Oct 30, 2019 6:28 am

Hi All,

I can't see anything at night...

"Duh", you may think, but really: I turn Taxi Lights and Landing Lights on, I can see the lamp is on from the external view, but there is no light flooding down to the runway...
Hence, it's all dark, and just as good as with lights off.

I have seen screenshots online where clearly the light from Landing Lights does illuminate the runway tarmac, so I know that must be possible; what am I missing here?
Even the splash screen for the Citation II shows night lighting correctly functioning...

Tried my 3 main airplanes: Cessna 172, Cessna 337 "Skymaster", Velocity XL-RG
Tried different Airports in Hawaii and San Francisco area (also Chofu Airport in Tokyo...)

I have Windows 10, Flightgear 2019.1.1, Not sure about my graphics card, but I got it on purpose for mid-heavy gaming so... that should not be the point.

It's not an error/crashing, so, I assume no specific console output (the lamps do turn on, in the end...)

I have advanced atmospheric modeling stuff like Antialiasing x4, tried with x2, no change...

I assume it should be something easy I overlooked, but I have no idea where to start searching.

I may upload a screenshot when I get home later; if you guys deem necessary/appropriate;

Really hoping to hear from you guys :*
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Re: Night Lighting problem (No Lightflood)

Postby Thorsten » Wed Oct 30, 2019 8:08 am

I turn Taxi Lights and Landing Lights on, I can see the lamp is on from the external view, but there is no light flooding down to the runway...
Hence, it's all dark, and just as good as with lights off.


That's a pretty normal state of affairs - rendering doesn't work like physics where you put a light into the scene and it illuminates everything. Rendering is basically all faked - whether a surface illuminates or not is more often than not a property of the surface.

So you have to go to some length to actually illuminate stuff.

The screenshots may be with the Rembrandt renderer (which uses deferred rendering to simulate lights), or with a plane that has landing lights implemented in the ALS renderer - and you need quality settings of the shaders high enough to see the effect.

At least the C-172 should be working though...
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Re: Night Lighting problem (No Lightflood)

Postby wkitty42 » Wed Oct 30, 2019 1:55 pm

Zilesio wrote in Wed Oct 30, 2019 6:28 am:I have advanced atmospheric modeling stuff like Antialiasing x4, tried with x2, no change...

anti-aliasing certainly won't help with this... it is mainly(?) for removing the stair stepping from angled lines and blending the edges of the line into the surrounding scene...

sorry i don't have anything further to offer...
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"Why not?" said Gurder.
"Dunno. It's frightened of heights, I guess."
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Re: Night Lighting problem (No Lightflood)

Postby Necolatis » Wed Oct 30, 2019 4:07 pm

To see the landing light these conditions must be met:

1: ALS must be enabled.
2: Landing light must be turned on in aircraft. (And the aircraft must support ALS landing lights)
3: Shader quality must be 4 or higher. OR go into custom shader settings and set them minimum to the image below:

Image
"Airplane travel is nature's way of making you look like your passport photo."
— Al Gore
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Re: Night Lighting problem (No Lightflood)

Postby V12 » Wed Oct 30, 2019 7:29 pm

Zilesio :
Check Cessna 172p, it should look like this :

Image
You can see red and green light on the ground

Image
You can see landing light on the taxiway
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Re: Night Lighting problem (No Lightflood)

Postby legoboyvdlp » Wed Oct 30, 2019 7:32 pm

If you notice he said he already tried the C172; sounds like he also has ALS on, so I would guess all that needs to happen is turn the shaders up.
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Re: Night Lighting problem (No Lightflood)

Postby Zilesio » Sat Nov 02, 2019 10:46 am

Thank you all for answering my question and, yes, you guys were all right.

I had to turn the shaders up.
In particular "Landmass" seems to be the critical part.

So, it now works alrght with the 172 but...

Let me talk a moment about the Cessna 337 "Skymaster":

Cockpit view - it DOESN'T WORK!
Copilot view - it works
Utility view - it works
Passenger view - it works

...can anybody make a wild guess why the main/pilot seat view is the only one that I can't see this illumination?
Literally, it works in every other internal view.
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