Farther city/runway lighting render distance

[Nealius]

I love night flying in VR, but the short render distance of the city lights and runway lights (~4nm and ~7nm when 2,000' MSL, respectively) leave a bit to be desired.

 

In the new Marianas map there's a small cluster of city lights around PGUM that are visible in excess of 20nm, so it's certainly possible for them to be rendered further out. It would be nice for the rest of the lights, in all maps, to be seen from around 20nm or so, if not farther.

[Svsmokey]

Seems a reasonable request to me...

[Northstar98]

Doesn't the PG/SoH map have new lighting technology? I've seen lights very far away and in general all of the lights look much better - including at a distance.

 

Spoiler

Not really relevant for this thread but here's the things it does better:

• Lights are less like opaque orbs - they're much more diffuse and scale properly with distance.
• Most can only be viewed when you have LOS to them (unlike say, the Hornet).
• Are visible (at least in 2D) quite far away (when testing I was able to see the anti-collision lights of the Burj Khalifa out to the distance most powerful lighthouses reach).

 

[Nealius]

11 hours ago, Northstar98 said:

Doesn't the PG/SoH map have new lighting technology? I've seen lights very far away and in general all of the lights look much better - including at a distance.

 

  Hide contents

Not really relevant for this thread but here's the things it does better:

• Lights are less like opaque orbs - they're much more diffuse and scale properly with distance.
• Most can only be viewed when you have LOS to them (unlike say, the Hornet).
• Are visible (at least in 2D) quite far away (when testing I was able to see the anti-collision lights of the Burj Khalifa out to the distance most powerful lighthouses reach).

 

 

I haven't flown it recently but I recall hearing something similar. I'm surprised that same tech/feature wasn't included in Marianas, or retroactively added to Caucasus and NTTR. 

[Camble]

I have the same problem on all maps. It seems that point lights are affected by draw distance, but this shouldn't be. You should be able to see lights at a much greater distance at night than you can see terrain.

[Northstar98]

13 minutes ago, Camble said:

I have the same problem on all maps. It seems that point lights are affected by draw distance, but this shouldn't be. You should be able to see lights at a much greater distance at night than you can see terrain.

 

On the SoH/PG map there's an improved lighting system that's been there since 2.5.6, it is drastically superior to basically every other map (including the Marianas, at least as far as airfield lighting goes).

 

I was able to make out aircraft warning lights at the ranges of some of fairly powerful lighthouses.

 

I just wish they'd port the technology over to every other map, because the lighting there (especially airfield lighting) is a lot better compared to the other maps.

Edited August 1, 2021 by Northstar98

[Camble]

Strange that it should be map independent and not a feature of the engine.

[Northstar98]

6 minutes ago, Camble said:

Strange that it should be map independent and not a feature of the engine.

 

The PG/SoH map was used as a test bed for the vastly improved lighting, it's just that it's stayed that way since it was introduced.

 

I haven't noticed any issues with it - it's fantastic, I just hope it gets ported over to other maps.

 

I wonder if @BIGNEWY or @NineLine can comment on it?

[riojax]

@BIGNEWY @NineLine Any news?

I fly in VR and to have a decent perfermance the visual range must to be on Low, and with this, the lights are almost no rendering.

[BIGNEWY]

5 minutes ago, riojax said:

@BIGNEWY @NineLine Any news?

I fly in VR and to have a decent perfermance the visual range must to be on Low, and with this, the lights are almost no rendering.

Lights distance rendering improvements are in progress. With that said if you are using a low visibility range setting you will always get a shorter rendering, that is the purpose of the setting. 

[riojax]

37 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

Lights distance rendering improvements are in progress. With that said if you are using a low visibility range setting you will always get a shorter rendering, that is the purpose of the setting. 

Thank you for the feedback. The core engine improvements are really needed.

Anyway is better to have more options regarding distance rendering, for example, maybe I prefer to sacrifice objects or buildings render distance and terrain LOD but render static lights a lot distance to have nice performance and a useful night flying.

[Camble]

Agreed that point lights should render much more distant than meshes. Our eyes are sensitive to small distant lights in the dark, it doesn't feel natural for runway lights to appear out of nowhere. Maybe a separate setting for lights?

[b0bl00i]

2 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Lights distance rendering improvements are in progress. With that said if you are using a low visibility range setting you will always get a shorter rendering, that is the purpose of the setting. 

That's very important news. Can you share some details in this area of work?

[BIGNEWY]

10 minutes ago, b0bl00i said:

That's very important news. Can you share some details in this area of work?

It has been reported for some time now the city draw distance light needs some work especially on the NTTR terrain, on other terrains it is better, its some thing the team are aware of and want to improve, we are always looking to improve visuals. 

We have also mentioned before about dynamic lighting at airfields which is something we have planned. 

[Northstar98]

3 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

It has been reported for some time now the city draw distance light needs some work especially on the NTTR terrain, on other terrains it is better, its some thing the team are aware of and want to improve, we are always looking to improve visuals. 

We have also mentioned before about dynamic lighting at airfields which is something we have planned. 

The SoH/PG map has had drastically improved lighting compared to all other maps since 2.5.6 (about 2 and a half years ago). It not only features improved night illumination but also the sprites used for various lights are much higher quality and more natural looking, while offering significantly greater range with very little noticeable performance impact.

I noticed in the 2.8 update preview by Growling Sidewinder that the SoH/PG map will get further updates to the night lighting in 2.8.

Are there any plans to port the current lighting system that already exists on the SoH map (even if just the sprites) onto other maps, while the SoH/PG map continues to be a testbed for further lighting improvements?

[a1133620002]

it‘s 2024 now and this issue is still appearing, especially for Supercarrier, which is a serious problem for case 3 recovery.

[Camble]

15 hours ago, a1133620002 said:

it‘s 2024 now and this issue is still appearing

A common theme

[GWdope]

2025 now and the two new maps have point light distances for city assets of about 2 nm. Why ED? the lighting on the PG map looks amazing, do that on Afghanistan and Iraq!

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

12 minutes ago, GWdope said:

the lighting on the PG map looks amazing

And even that has less than half of the rendering distance required to be truly immersive.

[draconus]

14 hours ago, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

And even that has less than half of the rendering distance required to be truly immersive.

It's connected to "visib. range" setting, at least on PG.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

53 minutes ago, draconus said:

It's connected to "visib. range" setting, at least on PG.

Indeed, I just wish it was an independent setting. I have mine set to "extreme" I believe.
It would just be nice to see lights (including afterburners) at night further out without the massive performance hit from increasing everything else that is tied to the visibility range setting.

[Czar66]

Iraq

Regardless of visibility range setting. It has been like this since Lock on.