Marketplace package name: RW Profiles KSGF / All other 2020 packages
Context: When 2020 package is in 2024 community folder
Bug description: Lights, especially lightrows and or default airport lighting) is still too bright for 2020 packages. (They can be seen from miles away which is totally unrealistic.) But this is not the main problem. THe main problem is that the intensity is vastly different from sim to sim. We cannot turn them down even further in the 2020 SDK because if we did they would disappear and not be visible at all in 2020.
Repro steps: Create realistic looking airport lighting in 2020 (edge lights, centre lights etc.) and look at their difference in brightness between the 2 sims. PLease find attached some comparisons.
Hmm, what’s your definition of “miles” (that’ll help them understand what you’re describing as a problem)?
When I’m flying, on a clear night I can see runway lights from many miles away, 5? 10? Maybe even further depending. They’re how I find the airport when flying night VFR. You certainly need to be able to see them from 2 - 3 miles away (typical final distance). And even from an airliner when I’m a passenger, it’s one of my favorite things to do is find the airports below from 30K ft. They’re certainly visible for my full circle of ground visibility.
Okay, let’s not get into this discussion here because it is actually totally irrelevant for the bug.
Fact of the matter is that, as illustrated with the pictures, the lights (all custom light rows with custom intensities) have a vastly different intensity and bloom effect in the 2 sims. So yes, if we compare the same package in 2020 and 2024 then the light row lights are still too bright. This is not what I call backwards compatible.
Just look at the first two pics. In 2020 you cannot see the edge lights (and I did this on purpose because I find this realistic). In 2024, however, the blue blobs are massive. So it’s pretty obvious that their intensity drastically varies between the platforms.
Furthermore, as mentioned in the bug report, I cannot turn them down even further in 2020 to improve them in 2024 because then they would be invisible in 2020.
I am not a coder, but I am sure there is a way to come up with some sort of code that tells the sim to reduce the light row intensity for 2020 packages by X%. And that percentage should be a value so that the lights have roughly the same brightness in 24 as they do in 2020.
My proposed solution would therefore be: Implement some sort of code that tells the sim to reduce the light row intensity for 2020 packages in 2024 by X% to make the light rows as low in intensity as they are in 2020.
a personal note: I really don’t know if I and all the others who think this is too bright in general are blind, or if you and the folks that also say this is fine and just like it is IRL have night vision. I know it is a hot topic so I won’t get into what’s more realistic and what’s not anymore. I just want them to have the same so it is predictable for us devs and so that we can achieve the look we want in both sims.
and just saying, ( I know I said I wouldn’t go into this but I just have to, sorry) look at the left of the picture. This is the same airport IRL btw.
I still have a hard time to believe that you would see those small edge lights like you do in the sim…
Yes, everything is custom. Edgelights, all runway lights (even approach lights), taxi centrelights etc.
I tweaked them to get the look we think is most realistic in 2020, but as you can see in the screenshots, the lights vary dramatically in brightness between the two sims.
I don’t really see a difference.
My custom pink lights have almost the same intensity in both games.
I said almost because the conditions / shaders are not exactly the same between the games.
Let me know your settings and send us a MSFS2020 repro project if you still encounter this behavior.
@Boris , please take a close look at your screenshots again. They are not “almost the same intensity”. Maybe close up but definitely not at a distance! And this is the underlying issue 24 has. The lights don’t get smaller at greater distance. If anything, they get even bigger which makes them brighter than they should be at a distance. And this is even something you can see in your screenshot.
2020
The pink lights further away are way more prominent in 24 and this should not be the case as it causes them to be seen from miles away.
I made a native project to try it out and like I said the main issue is that the lights don’t lose intensity at a distance. And also the ugly looking PNG-style-bloom effect - which I am used to from FSX - that 24 uses to create the light doesn’t get smaller either, making them appear even brighter.
No matter how far I move away, they always stay at the same brightness. And this is the core problem. And your screenshot of the pink lights perfectly illustrate this
because you asked for it, here is the light setting for the edge lights
But again, the problem are not 2020 settings or 2020 lights, the problem is how lights work in 24, and I think the original screenshot illustrates that pretty impressively…
So the thing is yes it is definitely better than before and closer to what it should look like. Thank you for that. I am happy with the change.
However, and this is a core sim problem, the lighting of MSFS just is not good full stop. And with lighting in this case I am refering to the airport lights (runway, taxiway, etc.). In fact, it looks even worse than 2020 did and it is very unfortunate to see that we went a step backwards in a new generation of the game and its engine. How the light effect is depicted in 2024, with the png-style bloom effect, which I already mentioned we are used to from what? 10 years ago? is just something that shouldn’t be in any game or engine developed in this day and age.
Competing plattforms like X-Plane are so far ahead in this regard which is really unfortunate.
This leads me to the “No” point of why I think it is still not completely “fixed”, albeit better. The problem 2024 night lighting has is that the bloom effect is not reducing with distance. The lights will always stay at the same brightness no matter how far away you are. And this is also something I understand you probably cannot fix easily, or at all, since I assume it would require core changes to the engine. Having said that, once the sim is in a stable state and other core bugs are fixed, I, and many others, would really appreciate if you could take a look at this again and improve it to meet standards we are used to from other modern engine games.
So, TLDR; Yes, the way too bright lights are somewhat fixed and now look better and are closer compared to the 2020 counterpart, but they are still not what I would consider as good lighting for a modern game and the most successful simulator on the market.
As for the rest of the issue, I’m afraid this is beyond the scope of DevSupport.
I would recommend that you create a new topic on the forums regarding the improvement of lights, including technical details explaining why you believe the current behavior is incorrect and how it could be improved.
