adjusted per customer requests Canopy reflections almost totally removed after last patch

[Conroy]

Immersion is totally gone now, there is not almost any difference while you are closing-opening the canopy. Plexiglass effect totally missed.

Sorry about this insane decision, and sincerly i don't see any fix in the slider 0-1.

Aircraft like Viper and 2000 have been totally killed for my opinion in the immersion. Plexiglass should have to be a concrete material at least.

[Papamiraculi]

Is there maybe a Lua mod which brings back the old reflections? I'm sure there are still in the game files somewhere...

[average_pilot]

On 8/27/2024 at 5:10 PM, Papamiraculi said:

Is there maybe a Lua mod which brings back the old reflections? I'm sure there are still in the game files somewhere...

At your own risk. Edit the file .\Bazar\shaders\deferred\environmentCube.hlsl and comment lines 116 and 118 like so:

        //c *= c;
        
        //c *= gCanopyReflections;

After that it will take an awful long time to compile the shaders. Really, a lot of time. It will make you think you have broken your DCS.

[Papamiraculi]

vor 18 Stunden schrieb average_pilot:

At your own risk. Edit the file .\Bazar\shaders\deferred\environmentCube.hlsl and comment lines 116 and 118 like so:

        //c *= c;
        
        //c *= gCanopyReflections;

After that it will take an awful long time to compile the shaders. Really, a lot of time. It will make you think you have broken your DCS.

Sadly, it doesn't work. It did take an awful long time to compile the shaders, but I'm still stuck with the new dynamic reflections.
I tried adjusting the slider and the canopy reflections settings in the f-16 special settings tab but no dice (actually, these settings don't seem to do anything at all. The most I managed was to switch reflections off entirely, also the dynamic ones).

Edited September 1, 2024 by Papamiraculi

[Lixma 06]

Bump for this.

Baked-on reflections are terrible, we can all agree - but currently it's like having no canopy at all.

 

[JEFX]

Anybody can point us to that above mentioned mod that could give us more reflexions in the f-16 canopy? Thx!

[venomtrk]

Any news for this topic? Addressing this problem would greatly enhance the user experience, especially for those aiming for a more realistic cockpit view.

[Conroy]

 

[checkyoursix44]

Any feedback from ED regarding this problem since several months ? 

I belong to a french community flying on the F-16 module, and we lost immersion on this module since reflections on the canopy are not working.

 

We tried :

- the reflections options available on the 'special options' for the F-16

- and the slider on the main menu of DCS

But we didn't see any change on the canopy.

It seems that these options are not working 

Some of us are very very disappointed, and are considering stopping using this module.

[JayGee]

It looks as if the F-16 has no windshield at all. No scratches, no dirt, no reflections. Sad for such a high-quality module. Armed Assault had a better visual representation of the glass many years ago.  Please, dear developers! 

[NineLine]

I have requested this be adjusted some so that when using the slider in options, setting it to 1 has a much stronger reflection, I do see some, but it has to be at the right angle and in perfect conditions. 

[db349]

Funny that one of the selling points for the recent visual upgrade DLC for the F5E was "new immersive cockpit/canopy reflections", so ED clearly acknowledges the importance of these reflections. 

So why were they intentionally removed from flagship modules like the F16 and F18, instead of at least keeping them as an option (I understand there may be perf reasons in VR) ? I hope it's not to reintroduce them later on in a similar paid visual upgrade, that would be pretty lame. The current implementation in the graphics settings is seriously lacking and a far cry from what we had originally.

There is a (unfortunately rather cumbersome) way to reintroduce some static reflections on the canopy by replacing the cockpit glass reflections dds file in the cockpit texture zip file by the same file that was used before they made the changes to reflections, you can extract this original file from older texture zip files for custom texture cockpit mods in the DCS user files section. Do this at your own risk and make backups of everything !

First unzip the current cockpit texture zip file, then replace the correct dds file with the same file from an older version, then compress all files again into a new zip file. If you want to reintroduce some sun glare and shadows on the canopy you can make the alpha layer of that same dds file a bit less transparent (this alpha layer should become less dark, becoming light greyish). You will need a texture editing software to do this. 
This will make the canopy glass a little darker, but you should definitely see some improvements under the right circumstances, ie low sun when flying level etc. 

I use OVGME to swap the texture zip file with the original before each DCS update, then reapply after the update. I'm very happy with the results, but it took me quite some time to figure out how to tackle this and I wish ED just made an option to go back to the original reflections without any hassle. I'm still a noob wrt texturing so pls don't ask me to explain anything in details, it was a lot of trial and error, don't really understand exactly how it all works, but quite happy with the results. 

Same story by the way for the F18, only thing I can't get back are the glare/shadow effects, don't really understand what's going on there.

Hope this helps a few people...

[Papamiraculi]

Am 7.4.2025 um 19:00 schrieb NineLine:

I have requested this be adjusted some so that when using the slider in options, setting it to 1 has a much stronger reflection, I do see some, but it has to be at the right angle and in perfect conditions. 

This is good news. The reflections are there, but even at the highest setting barely visible. 

The only exception is the nasty knee board reflections in the F-16. It often shows as an orange or opaque white blob in the fwd right part of the canopy. This isn't dynamic either, as switching knee board pages does not change it.

The slider is actually a great idea, but the range should be higher. Right now it is basically a on off switch between off and the slightest of reflections at max level. We need full blown reflections at max level, so everyone can adjust to their liking.