AFS2 Vs Reality

  • I also don't see any pictures in the opening post...? But anyway, these pictures make it very clear that AFS2 really needs a good weather engine... ;)

  • For me the absolute priority is fully functional taxi and landing light, before the weather engine. But when the dev will start to work on it, I suggest to take a look at the DCS one , it is very good and easy to set exactly as we wan't, however for a civil flight sim a real time weather would be a good adding.

  • night landings are really tough without a working landing light

    Just like the real thing:D

    Landing lights burn out, that's why my instructor made me practice landing with the light off, lol.

    But yes, I agree, a good landing light is like gold. I like the lights in DCS World, especially on the helos!

    Redtail

    KFRG, KTEB, KEWR, KLGA

    ~Straighten up and fly right~

    DESKTOP: i7-7700k @5GHz (water cooled), Nvidia GTX 1080Ti FTW3, 32GB DDR4, 500GB SSD, Oculus Rift CV1, Windows 10 Home 64 bit,

    TM HOTAS Warthog (large spring removed), Saitek PRO Flight Combat Rudder Pedals, YOKO yoke!

    Laptop (gaming): Acer Predator Helios 500- Intel Core i7-8750H @4.1GHz, Nvidia GTX 1070, 32GB DDR4, 256GB SSD/1TB HDD.

    Gametrix JetSeat FSE (Flight Sim Edition)-USB Vibrating pad. Nextlevel V3 Motion Platform / Sim cockpit.

  • I'm a little surprised that they are not yet integrated. I thought it would not be so difficult to add them, but apparently they are, or it is simply a matter of many things to do and there is no time to do it yet.

    Its not as easy as it sounds and it means a bigger change in the rendering engine. Right now the world around you doesn't know the position of the aircraft and when we add landing lights suddenly everything needs to know where the lights of the aircraft are and their current brightness, which of course, dynamically changes and requires that this information is passed along from the physics engine thread on the CPU, to the graphics thread on the CPU, then to the graphics card (GPU).

    Just imagine checking millions of houses weather the aircraft is near it or weather one of the 20 lights on the aircraft is actually pointing at the house and then calculating for every pixel on every house wall how bright it should be. And same for all terminals, light posts, static aircraft and the ground obviously.


    The IPACS' way of doing things is usually to do things right the first time. That means not just add in landing lights but thinking about other lights as well. It doesn't stop at the landing/navigation/strobe lights of the aircraft itself, if we do dynamic lighting of the world then we might as well go all the way and think about apron lights, vehicle lights, etc. And it is this long term thinking that sometimes causes us to wait, instead of just hacking it in right now. After some time that hack will break or the performance will decrease and then we have to redo it which takes as much time as doing it correctly, right from the beginning. So if we are patient and don't add everything in right now, just cause we can, we can create a more efficient rendering engine and we can develop faster in the long term.

    Regards,

    Jan

  • I had figured this was already part of the engine since the sun and moon emit light and cause shadows on things as time progresses. I also also figured the plane was another item that was tracked since it too casts a shadow on the ground in relation to the sun and though it would have been as simple as creating a "mini sun" on the plane casting light down. And since the sun isnt up and causing a million shadows being cast by ground objects, it wouldnt slow down the sim much since the she shadows cast would be on like 20 objects during approach.

  • The IPACS' way of doing things is usually to do things right the first time. That means not just add in landing lights but thinking about other lights as well. It doesn't stop at the landing/navigation/strobe lights of the aircraft itself, if we do dynamic lighting of the world then we might as well go all the way and think about apron lights, vehicle lights, etc. And it is this long term thinking that sometimes causes us to wait, instead of just hacking it in right now. After some time that hack will break or the performance will decrease and then we have to redo it which takes as much time as doing it correctly, right from the beginning. So if we are patient and don't add everything in right now, just cause we can, we can create a more efficient rendering engine and we can develop faster in the long term.

    I'm hoping you might be looking at something sexy like clustered forward rendering.

    Devons rig

    Intel Core i5-13600K - Core i5 13th Gen 14-Core (6P+8E) @ 5.5Ghz / G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 32GB RAM DDR5 6000 / GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070Ti GAMING OC 12G / Sound Blaster Z / Oculus Quest 2 VR Headset / Klipsch® Promedia 2.1 Computer Speakers / ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q ‑ 27" IPS LED Monitor ‑ QHD / 6x Samsung SSD/NVME's various sizes / Windows 11 Pro 64-bit / GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS ELITE AX LGA 1700 ATX Motherboard DDR5


  • The IPACS' way of doing things is usually to do things right the first time. That means not just add in landing lights but thinking about other lights as well. It doesn't stop at the landing/navigation/strobe lights of the aircraft itself, if we do dynamic lighting of the world then we might as well go all the way and think about apron lights, vehicle lights, etc. And it is this long term thinking that sometimes causes us to wait, instead of just hacking it in right now. After some time that hack will break or the performance will decrease and then we have to redo it which takes as much time as doing it correctly, right from the beginning. So if we are patient and don't add everything in right now, just cause we can, we can create a more efficient rendering engine and we can develop faster in the long term.

    Excellent point.

    Speaking of which, that is exactly what happened in DCS World. Several updates ago, the strobe anti-collision lights (and in some cases the landing light) was broken. The anti-collision lights flash inside of the cockpit now.

    A bright red flashing light which is very unrealistic (unless the fuselage is transparent:D).

    ...we are still waiting for a fix/patch several months later!

    Redtail

    KFRG, KTEB, KEWR, KLGA

    ~Straighten up and fly right~

    DESKTOP: i7-7700k @5GHz (water cooled), Nvidia GTX 1080Ti FTW3, 32GB DDR4, 500GB SSD, Oculus Rift CV1, Windows 10 Home 64 bit,

    TM HOTAS Warthog (large spring removed), Saitek PRO Flight Combat Rudder Pedals, YOKO yoke!

    Laptop (gaming): Acer Predator Helios 500- Intel Core i7-8750H @4.1GHz, Nvidia GTX 1070, 32GB DDR4, 256GB SSD/1TB HDD.

    Gametrix JetSeat FSE (Flight Sim Edition)-USB Vibrating pad. Nextlevel V3 Motion Platform / Sim cockpit.

    Edited once, last by Redtail (August 6, 2018 at 4:28 AM).

  • Excellent point.

    Speaking of which, that is exactly what happened in DCS World. Several updates ago, the strobe anti-collision lights (and in some cases the landing light) was broken. The anti-collision lights flash inside of the cockpit now.

    A bright red flashing light which is very unrealistic (unless the fuselage is transparent:D).

    ...we are still waiting for a fix/patch several months later!

    Yes indeed, and that's very annoying, but at least we can do night landing 😂

  • Yes indeed, and that's very annoying, but at least we can do night landing 😂

    Well....... It's kind of unfortunate about the lights. I miss them too! But night landings can be done, even if some of the fun is reduced.

    External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

    Devons rig

    Intel Core i5-13600K - Core i5 13th Gen 14-Core (6P+8E) @ 5.5Ghz / G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 32GB RAM DDR5 6000 / GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070Ti GAMING OC 12G / Sound Blaster Z / Oculus Quest 2 VR Headset / Klipsch® Promedia 2.1 Computer Speakers / ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q ‑ 27" IPS LED Monitor ‑ QHD / 6x Samsung SSD/NVME's various sizes / Windows 11 Pro 64-bit / GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS ELITE AX LGA 1700 ATX Motherboard DDR5

  • Oh, I still enjoy the night flying and landing, it is just a little bit different than in real life. I was hoping it was just a bug with a simple fix, not a known issue requiring an overhaul of the lighting system