Glare on canopy

[Bashibazouk]

I've had a look but I can't see anyone else reporting this. That gives me a little bit of a concern that it may be my system, but I'll report anyway.

 

By the way, this only happens in the F-1 (currently I'm in the EE, I don't recall if it was all of the versions) which is why I'm reporting it here rather than elsewhere. All other aircraft don't have this problem that I've seen.  I've attached a screengrab showing the problem below.

Glare from the sun (I assume) completely 'whites out' the canopy. This has happened on multiple maps (South Atlantic and now Afghanistan I know for sure). I do have the sun low on the horizon to provide some nice golden hour shading when I'm just having a tour, but this glare makes it hard to see anything at all, so not that great for a tour of a new map . It does come on and off depending on the angle, but I was flying a mission on South Atlantic with the sun behind me (roughly) and I had to quit as I couldn't see a thing on a very long commute from the Falklands to Argentina, the whole canopy apart from a little bit in one corner was just full white.

Just thought I'd let people know, in case it's one of those problems everyone assumes someone else has reported. I've switched cockpit GI on and off, no change. 

 

null

[gonano4]

Do you have Mods installed? 

[TKhaos]

I've got this myself, especially in the F-15C and normally it whites out on loading and clears after maybe 20 seconds, sometimes quicker. Yesterday as I was flying the F-15C it went completely to the point I could only see out a tiny bit of window level with the side of my seat.

Only started after the latest patch and my graphics drivers just updated so not that and my dcs log is clear. At first I thought it was just a glitch while everything was loading but then only seems to happen with me to FC aircraft and not all of them. My F/A-18C is fine and the A-10C II. It's also the same with or without mods.

[Bashibazouk]

Yes, I do, a ton of mods installed. And very messily installed as well, I'm afraid. I'm trying some other stuff (modification of the XX:\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\Bazar\shaders\model\functions\glass.hlsl file) , I'll come back and report my findings.

OK, commenting out the lines (88 and 89 in the current build) - 

 

    if(!(Flags & F_DISABLE_SHADOWMAP))   //two lines - 88 and 89 commented out to remove F1 canopy whiteout
         shadow = min(shadow, applyShadow(float4(mp.pos, input.projPos.z/input.projPos.w), mp.normal, true, true, Flags & F_IN_COCKPIT));

 

Fixes the whiteout problem. It removes any reflections, from what I can see, but the F-1 is currently my favourite plane so I'll live with that. No doubt the next update will reinstate those two lines, so hopefully whatever interaction is causing this will be gone by then, otherwise it's back to Brackets (or whatever the replacement for Brackets is called, I can't remember off the top of my head!)/

 

Correction, it doesn' t kill all reflections. Just the bad ones! I'm not gonna investigate further, I do that sort of stuff at work, I'm on smoko  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j58V2vC9EPc

Nope. Still no good.

Edited October 2, 2024 by Bashibazouk
Not fixed. I still can't fly the F-1 with the sun low without half the cockpit being white. Please ignore 'solution' tag.

[Bashibazouk]

Right. An update. I haven't checked with all maps, but this glare problem appears to be on the Afghanistan map only. Weird. It does make the plane unflyable on that map, but I just made a mission on the Sinai map and... no white out!

I don't know if that helps, or if anyone who has power to do anything reads this, but at least it's documented. 

I'm chuffed actually. I've been very patient about this problem, and to keep my frustration low I've only been doing testing on the Afghanistan map. Which is a mistake, obviously.

 

I love the F-1, it's definitely one of my favourites. I thought the F-4 might dethrone the F-1 in my heart, but that hasn't happened . I guess not having Jester is why I prefer the F-1. Don't get me wrong, I find Jester an incredible achievement and the way it's been implemented in the F-4 is stunning. But it makes me feel like I'm a bit of a passenger sometimes whereas in the single seat planes, I gotta do everything myself. I also love flying the F-1. 

In car terms, the F-4 is like one of those American 70s cars with a massive V-8. It feels like a brute, but it also feels like it's on the edge all the time. Yeah, yeah. Probably skill issue. Whereas the F-1 feels like an E-type Jaguar. Still bestial and potentially out of control but a lot more refined than a pure muscle car.

I'll probably change my opinion at some stage.

[303_Kermit]

Did you ever tried simply to reduce canopy reflections?

[Vibora]

We are unable to reproduce the bug. Please reinstall DCS completely without any mods and report us back if the problem persists. Thank you very much.

[MAXsenna]

We are unable to reproduce the bug. Please reinstall DCS completely without any mods and report us back if the problem persists. Thank you very much.

NO! Never re-install. It's a waste of time. Do a full slow repair. It's quicker and does the same thing. The Updater is actually what installs DCS in the first place.
Most of the time the error lies in settings in Saved Games that are not touch by a full re-installation nor a repair. To tackle that one should rename, as a backup, the DCS folder in Saved Games.
Cheers!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[303_Kermit]

On 10/9/2024 at 7:06 PM, Vibora said:

We are unable to reproduce the bug. Please reinstall DCS completely without any mods and report us back if the problem persists. Thank you very much.

Can you please also answer to my bug report?
 

 

[Bashibazouk]

Thanks for getting back to me. BTW, I really love the F-1. It hits all the right spots for me - single pilot, pre FBW, most things are done heads up rather than looking at a computer screen. And it's implemented so well. Before this problem the F-1 was my goto for fun, speed, A2A and A2G iron bombing and rockets. The perfect mix for me. 

Ok, if the whiteout screen is not repeatable it's probably a mod or install problem. In other words, a me problem.  I don't have the spare time at the moment to reinstall. My SSD just fits all the terrains but it doesn't have enough spare space to install everything so I have to create directory junctions to temporarily store the largest terrains on my spinning data HDD whenever I do an update and then copy the relevant files back to my SSD so it's an enormous faff that takes about 4 hours as my antivirus seems to mistrust DCS stuff and insists on scanning everything when I move it from drive to drive.

I'll update you when I do an update/reinstall. Maybe next month's update. 

As for answer to the bug report - I don't think that one in the post is mine. I'll have a look to see if I have something under my name apart from this and respond if I find it.

 

EDIT - I will try a full repair first, though. As suggested above, great info - I hope it works for me!

Edited October 15, 2024 by Bashibazouk
ADD INFO

[MAXsenna]

Thanks for getting back to me. BTW, I really love the F-1. It hits all the right spots for me - single pilot, pre FBW, most things are done heads up rather than looking at a computer screen. And it's implemented so well. Before this problem the F-1 was my goto for fun, speed, A2A and A2G iron bombing and rockets. The perfect mix for me. 
Ok, if the whiteout screen is not repeatable it's probably a mod or install problem. In other words, a me problem.  I don't have the spare time at the moment to reinstall. My SSD just fits all the terrains but it doesn't have enough spare space to install everything so I have to create directory junctions to temporarily store the largest terrains on my spinning data HDD whenever I do an update and then copy the relevant files back to my SSD so it's an enormous faff that takes about 4 hours as my antivirus seems to mistrust DCS stuff and insists on scanning everything when I move it from drive to drive.
I'll update you when I do an update/reinstall. Maybe next month's update. 
As for answer to the bug report - I don't think that one in the post is mine. I'll have a look to see if I have something under my name apart from this and respond if I find it.
 
EDIT - I will try a full repair first, though. As suggested above, great info - I hope it works for me!

Don't forget to rename the DCS folder in Saved Games if a repair doesn't do anything. You could, (SHOULD), make exclusions for the DCS folders, Saved Games and the temp folder you move stuff back and forth from in your Anti-Virus solution. Your AV doesn't get to break your DCS. DCS will load faster, and your song and dance procedure will also go quicker. Wouldn't it be better to swap out that HDD for an SSD?
Cheers!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Brandennis]

I am experiencing this issue as well. I was hoping the recent update would’ve addressed it. 
 

I completely reinstalled dcs without any mods and am still experiencing this issue. Same as the picture above but with any map and only in the F1. 
 

Just some further triage details, it seems to maybe have something to do with the brightness of the clouds? It seems the more clouds in the picture, the brighter the cockpit glass becomes. It’s only in the f1 camera view as well. I primarily fly the BE and experience this over saturation from both seats. It helps to apply the helmet shade but it also isn’t option from the back seat of the BE. I would consider it immersion if the helmet shade worked for the backseat too. 

As some have stated above, this is my favorite module and it would be damn near perfect if this could be resolved  keep up the good work! I hope a resolution can be found soon!

 

[UN9249]

I also have strange reflections.

 

https://ibb.co/BVSfwnG
https://ibb.co/8xTCJbt

[Bashibazouk]

Ok, I have resolved the problem. At least I can stop it happening, I'm not 100% sure what it is but I know it's related to a mod.  I had the time to remove all my mods and did a small bit of fault finding (still not complete) to work out which one. I've narrowed it down to something in a list of 58 items (!) but they are in the 'tech' branch of the mod tree. As I get the time I'll go through these remaining mods (I said I had far too many!) to work out which one is causing the problem but for now, I'm back in my beloved F-1! Huzzah!

It will be some time until I get around to working out exactly which mod caused the problem but if you are having the same problem, perhaps remove all the mods in the /mods/tech branch then check to see if the problem has gone away. My game takes about 2 minutes to boot into an active simulation, which is why I'm taking so long. I've been trying to get to the bottom of why it takes so long to start a mission but at least they always start! But because it takes so long, it's not a quick process to eliminate mods 50% at a time to find out which is causing the problem. For a start, I have so many that I need to make a list of the mods I have in and out of active loading. Yes, yes. It's a me problem but I do spend a lot of my time playing around in the ME with various mods so I like having them for the most part.

On 12/22/2024 at 4:53 PM, UN9249 said:

I also have strange reflections.

 

https://ibb.co/BVSfwnG
https://ibb.co/8xTCJbt

Wow! Those are strange. All I can suggest is the removal of all mods, see if the problem goes away. If so, move 50% back into their usual place, see if the problem reappears ad nauseam. And, of course, make sure you have the latest video drivers.

[MAXsenna]

@Bashibazouk You DO USE a mod manager to handle all those mods, right? And like I suggested. Add exclusions in the Anti-Virus solution, if you haven't already, to make everything load faster. The whole Saved Games and the Eagle Dynamics installation folder.
Cheers!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Bashibazouk]

Thanks, Max. No, I don't use a mod manager. I was setting one up years ago and screwed everything up by having two at once. But I do use batch files to move them in and out, so although my idiocy has landed me in this mess, that side of it's not too bad from where I sit now.

But never mind! The problem has gone away. I believe it was related to a mod of some kind, when I consolidated the ridiculous list I had, the problem vanished. So, kids. Don't be greedy, don't be messy. 

Thanks for the help, BB.

BTW, I have my DCS directories excluded from anti-virus. For speed, apart from anything else.