Illumination of clouds by larger city lights at night.

[LGA]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Jun-27-03 AT 02:56PM (EDT)[/font][p]Just thought I'd share an idea with the community. And perhaps someone with knowledge could enlight the possibilites of this ever happening. Does anyone out there desire as much as I do the effect of city lights illuminating clouds at night? Especially at lower altitudes for future versions of Flight Simulator? Anyone who has flown at night knows how nice this actually looks. Another feature that I would love to see are the airport beacons at night. Wouldn't it be nice to know just by the flash wether it is civil of millitary?

[Jeff_DCA]

I've seen beacons at RAF bases showing the military code in FS, so it looks like they've already been done.

Cheers,

[Bigshot]

You mean something like this where the lights go all the way to the horizon:
http://www.x-plane.org/users/mgdbottled/Premier3.jpg

[LGA]

The effect that I had in mind is the one where suppose there is a thin overcast of clouds with perhaps a break here and there, over a large city. If you were flying above this cloud layer at night, one could easily see the orange-reddish glow of light that is caused by the ground light.

[Capt_Buckley]

Do you mean when during the night the clouds appear orange, due to the street lights and other lights from the city below?
I would definately like to see this, it would be a very realistic addition:D

Best rgds,
Paul:-wave

http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/Use...83251fa3a0.jpg

[Mike_Lima]

I know it's a human thing, always wanting things better and better, but I believe that sometimes, some people focus on tiny details too much.

What would this add to the sim? You would look ath this feature twice, say wow, and never notice it again. Do the airline or military sims have that? No. Why? It doesn't add a thing to the flying experience.
This wish to have every single detail is what drives the new Fs versions so CPU-GPU-hungry, not to even mention the addons that make your FS run at 0 FPS because of the so-called "realistic detail".

http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/Use...e929991b7b.gif

[Jeff_DCA]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Jun-29-03 AT 08:05AM (EDT)[/font][p]Actually, you'd notice this feature every time you flew at night, and would add a great deal of realism to the product. I't will most likely be included in a future version of FS, how many years, who knows?

btw, wouldn't 0 FPS count as a crash? I don't think MS would make a product that crashes as soon as it starts up. ;-)

Cheers,

[flyinggriffin]

You do have the beacons at night with the present FS. The real ones can be very very tough to see on typical night. You would be amazed how any flashing lights are out there around even a small city.

Go about 5 miles out at night and check out an airport in the VC. It will show up nicely.

[LGA]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Jul-01-03 AT 01:50PM (EDT)[/font][p][font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Jul-01-03 AT 01:49 PM (EDT)[/font]

I don't think this is an effect that you would see once. It is an effect than is seen all the time when flying on a cloudy at night near any medium to large city. Having flown many times in an airliner, and logged hours of flight instruction, I can say that clouds just aren't dark when they are a couple thousand feet above a city and all the lights are reflecting from the cloud or are passing through it. Unlike things like scenery that could be easily created as an add-on, I am not asking for tiny details. This is something that is obviously visible in every "cloudy night" flying and could possibly be programed by the MS team themselves. And I'd give up any day the details of rolling wheels, tire smoke and aircraft reflections for those illuminated clouds, hence in flying, we never get to see those things from the cockpit. I theorize a few reworked let's call them "clouds at night over city" textures that are called by the program at the right time would do the trick. Anyone ever land into LaGuardia in the summer with broken clouds? They are orangy bright from all that light:+)