Cockpit lighting and colors are always weird when first loading a mission

[Skuva]

The problem I'm referring to is the drastic difference in lighting and colors when you load your first mission after launching the game, and then upon reloading (Shift+R) is goes back to how it should be, and it remains fixed until you restart the entire game. It is like if some shaders just refuse to load properly first, and then when called again (during second loading screen) it loads.

This is something I noticed ages ago but never bothered because it is easy to solve. But recently I started messing with the MiG-21's cockpit textures and noticed this problem is much worse on some aircraft.

Here is an example with the Default (English-Metric) cockpit for the MiG-21bis in the Free Flight instant action.

I don't believe it to be a problem specific on my system, given I have observed it, for years now, in multiple OS and hardware (with and without mods) with graphics settings ranging from low to high (with cleared fxo/metashaders). And I believe it is easy for anyone to reproduce it.

 

I haven't managed to find a thread talking specifically about this, so I'm asking out of curiosity if anyone has seen a discussion about this, and if is there's a better solution.

Edited September 25, 2024 by Skuva

[silverdevil]

On 9/25/2024 at 7:17 AM, Skuva said:

so I'm asking out of curiosity if anyone has seen a discussion about this, and if is there's a better solution.

i have noticed the "brightness" of the environment change. it is brief and only at the initial load of a mission. it has corrected itself while still in the mission. honestly i haven't noticed in a while. there have been discussions about this. i cannot find any specific topic though.

is this happening on every plane and every map?

have you made exclusions in your AV?

[Skuva]

8 hours ago, silverdevil said:

i have noticed the "brightness" of the environment change. it is brief and only at the initial load of a mission. it has corrected itself while still in the mission. honestly i haven't noticed in a while. there have been discussions about this. i cannot find any specific topic though.

is this happening on every plane and every map?

have you made exclusions in your AV?

This happens on every plane and every map, and there are some situations where the lighting fix itself after a few seconds, but in most instances I can go entire missions with it bugged. If by AV you mean antivirus, I use none.

Edited September 29, 2024 by Skuva

[silverdevil]

15 hours ago, Skuva said:

If by AV you mean antivirus, I use none.

If you have Windows you likely have Windows Defender. That also needs to be configured for DCS.

[durp]

park somewhere and go to the F10 map and back to the cockpit (F1)
that issue is present since day 1 they added MT the first time to DCS back then.

 

 

 

 

there's probably more threads about that.

 

 

[Skuva]

On 9/30/2024 at 6:24 PM, durp said:

park somewhere and go to the F10 map and back to the cockpit (F1)
that issue is present since day 1 they added MT the first time to DCS back then.

 

 

 

 

there's probably more threads about that.

 

 

Changing to F10 and back does not affect anything in this case.

The problem mentioned on those threads look similar but it is no the same, I have also observed the problem in those threads during VR and the brightness always fix itself after a few seconds.

The problem I'm talking about here is global (2D and VR), it is not about brightness (which affect both the cockpit and external scenery), it is about shaders not loading properly specifically for the cockpit.

Another weird behaviour I noticed is that when you enter the plane through a Client slot, you always see the cockpit properly lit behind the Briefing window, but as soon as you hit Fly it gets messed up and Shift+R does not solve it for some reason. Here is a demonstration taking the same Free Flight mission and just changing it from Player to Client:

You can clearly see it is not just an increase in brightness, many portions of the cockpit just lose shading (or contact shadows).

And the fact the problem behave differently from simply changing the spawn method, indicates it is not just a problem with the game being unable to fetch some file from my computer, because that should happen during loading screens, and in the Client case we see it manages to do it properly momentarily, meaning whatever needed to be loaded has been loaded, the game just decides to throw it away right after.

Edited October 3, 2024 by Skuva

[MAXsenna]

@Skuva

Just to be clear. You are talking about something else than the "auto exposure" they introduced a while back?

[Bucic]

16 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

@Skuva

Just to be clear. You are talking about something else than the "auto exposure" they introduced a while back?

For sure. He's talking about the thing in DCS where correct and intended lighting is "loaded" with a big delay. In my case I always see it correct itself (loaded) after no more than 3 seconds. A quick video recording should catch that so I suggest the OP adds such a recording to a track file required to officially register this as a tracked issue.

@Skuva

[Skuva]

4 hours ago, Bucic said:

For sure. He's talking about the thing in DCS where correct and intended lighting is "loaded" with a big delay. In my case I always see it correct itself (loaded) after no more than 3 seconds. A quick video recording should catch that so I suggest the OP adds such a recording to a track file required to officially register this as a tracked issue.

@Skuva

My brother in Christ, I have already posted a video showing it, and a track would do the same as anyone going into Instant Action or creating a new mission with a client slot, I have specified the steps to replicate. And that is definitely not "correct and intended lighting" because: 1) It behave differently from Player slot to Client slot; 2) the one that loads after a few seconds loses a lot of shading and doesn't match the rest of the scene.

 

EDIT: Also a track not only is useless in this case, it is straight up counterproductive, because what is seen in the track can be different from the gameplay. In the case of the mission from the video I showed, if you save the track and watch it, the lighting is actually fixed, like in the Right-side image on my first post.

test mig-21 textures.miz

Here, try it if you have the mig-21. When you play the mission you see the lighting changing to the "bad one", then exit and save the track, then watch the track and see how the lighting is very different (because the track behave like the Player slot case). You can printscreen it all and compare it. You can try it with other aircraft, but it can be very subtle, the 21 is the only one I have seen such a big difference.

EDIT 2: Here is a comparison for the Mi-24p

And thus you can see why players normally don't notice it, because it makes little difference on most aircraft, and even then which one you consider "correct" can be very subjective. If we take the MiG-21 to go by, here the left Mi-24p would have the "wrong" lighting (although I find it nicier).

Another reason why I believe I'm right about which one is "incorrect" and which is "correct", is because ModelViewer agrees with me.

Edited October 4, 2024 by Skuva

[Bucic]

@Skuva

Ah, sorry for not noticing the video! I was going to 50 tabs of "to read" dcs forums posts. I chimed in specifically to confirm I witnessed a similar behavior of lighting. DCS forums are full of people seeing only what slaps them on the face at the same time having a high drive to post "I don't see the problem" so I know first hand that any fellow confirming an issue is valuable.

The Track (with all mods disabled) requirement is as I stated - an internal set-in-stone requirement by ED. In any graphics-related issue a DxDiag report is also required. Those are not up for debate. Since I wouldn't want this issue to be dismissed I'm sharing what I know on issue reporting here.