There is A SOLUTION !!!!!!!

No add-on, No plug-in .. and the most beautiful night experience that you could have seen in a sim.

This was posted in a X-Plane facebook page by a very clever person , and I am only sharing with you.

I sent a message to Austin to inform him about the idea.

The point is that, as too often, the default values set for each parameters in X-Plane are far to be the most beautiful. They are perhaps optimised for better performances but certainly not for the aesthetic aspect or the most realistic.. and as a consequence, there is a real «hidden beauty» in this simulator, a «wasted potential».

How is the night represented in X-Plane ? Basically with cars and lampposts lights .

From the virtual air, we can see the small and yellow or white dots/points representing the lights of the streets (exactly the picture when X-Plane is loading). But those «night lighting» look like lanternas.

But X-Plane forgets to show us the most important, and what we basically REALLY SEE from the air: not the bulb lights/ lanternas but the PROJECTION and the REFLECTION of the LIGHT ON THE DIFFERENT SURFACES: GROUND AND BUILDING !!!

This issue can be solved simply by tweaking some of the default values of the light.txt  (Ressources/bitmaps/world/lites/light.txt)

Here, we are focusing especially on the parameters : » SPILL_HW_DIR bldg_uplight_sp»    

bldg for «building» (you can find those 12 lines in the .txt file)

If you change the values of the 4th and 5th column (respectively 1.0 and 60) by 2.0 and 80-100 (what is good according to your taste), you will see such a difference !!

The 4th column affects the BRIGHTNESS and the 5th modifies  the LIGHT RANGE.

Be careful, those modifications are visible in HDR mode (NOT BELOW !!!)

I am attaching here the file and few pictures from Tel Aviv coast (LLSD) and the french Riviera (LFMD) with those modified parameters (2.0 and 85).

I let you judging.

Enjoy!!!

David

lights.txt

Rq: In order to increase the light realism, I am also changing with the DataRef editor the values «light/exponent/far» and «close» to around 0.52 — 0.54. (cf previous message that I sent).

SPILL_HW_DIR        bldg_uplight_sp1            1.0    0.6    0.2    2.0      85          -0.15      0.889      0.434      0.5                0
SPILL_HW_DIR        bldg_uplight_sp2            1.0      0.6      0.2      2.0       85          0.15      0.889      0.434      0.5                0
SPILL_HW_DIR        bldg_uplight_sp3            1.0     0.6       0.2      2.0       85         -0.15      0.889      -0.434  0.5                0
SPILL_HW_DIR        bldg_uplight_sp4            1.0     0.6       0.2      2.0       85          0.15      0.889      -0.434  0.5                0
SPILL_HW_DIR        bldg_uplight_sp5            1.0     0.6       0.2     2.0       85          -0.605  0.781      -0.165  0.5                0
SPILL_HW_DIR        bldg_uplight_sp6            1.0     0.6       0.2     2.0       85          -0.605  0.781      0.165      0.5                0
SPILL_HW_DIR        bldg_uplight_sp7            1.0     0.6       0.2      2.0       85          0.605  0.781      0.165      0.5                0
SPILL_HW_DIR        bldg_uplight_sp8            1.0      0.6       0.2      2.0       85          0.605      0.781      -0.165  0.5                0
SPILL_HW_DIR        bldg_uplight_sp9            1.0     0.6       0.2      2.0       85          -0.085  0.973      0.223      0.5                0
SPILL_HW_DIR        bldg_uplight_sp10            1.0     0.6       0.2      2.0       85          0.085      0.973      0.223      0.5                0
SPILL_HW_DIR        bldg_uplight_sp11            1.0     0.6       0.2      2.0       85          0.085      0.973      -0.223  0.5                0
SPILL_HW_DIR        bldg_uplight_sp12            1.0     0.6       0.2      2.0       85          -0.085  0.973      -0.223  0.5                0

# This chart shows the values for each light type.  * means the light can be parameterized via a text parameter.  
#            Name                    R    G    B    A    Size    Cell    Dx    Dy    Dz    Width    Frq    Phase    Amp    Day    Dataref
# BILLBOARD_HW        .                    *    *    *    .    *    .    *    *    *    *    *    *    .    .
# BILLBOARD_SW        .                    *    *    *    *    *    .    *    *    *    *                    .
# CONE_HW        .                    *    *    *    *    *    .    *    *    *    *                    .
# CONE_SW        .                    *    *    *    *    *    .    *    *    *    *                    .
# SPILL_GND        .                                    *    .
# SPILL_GND_REV        .                                    *    .
# SPILL_HW_DIR        .                    *    *    *    *    *        *    *    *    *                    .
# SPILL_HW_FLA        .                    *    *    *    *    *                        *    *    .    .
# SPILL_SW        .                    *    *    *    *    *        *    *    *    *                    .
#
# BILLBOARD_HW — hardware accelerated billboard.  This is the same as the old LIGHT_DIRECTIONAL and LIGHT_FLASHING except now we can have both.
# BILLBOARD_SW — dataref-driven billboard.  Same as the old LIGHT_ANIMATION and LIGHT_PARAM.
# SPILL_GND, SPILL_GND_REV — old v8-style quads-on-the-ground light spill for runway lights.
# SPILL_HW_DIR, SPILL_HW_FLA — hardware spill, directional or flashing.  We can’t have both due to a lack of light params.
# SPILL_SW — dataref driven spill.

# NOTE: hardware billboards must have an alpha of 1.0 if any of the RGB values are parameterized!

# RGBA:            This is the color tint that is applied to the light spill or the billboard.  Since light is additive, alpha is really just a master dimmer.
# Size:            Light size.  This is the total size in meters for spill, or a ‘size constant’ for billboards.
# Cell:            A triplet of ints (size, row, column, 0,0 is lower left) for billboards. Size is a power-of-two multiplier for cell size.
#             Thus a double-size cell in the top right corner is 2 7 3  (because the 1024 x 512 texture can be divided into a 8 x 4 grid of 128×128 pixel cells)
# Dx, Dy, Dz:        Direction vector for billboards and spill.
# Width:        For billboards: a constant term that makes the billboard more omni.  For spill: cosine of half viewing angle.
# Frq,Phase,Amp,Day:    Frequency, phase offset, amplitude and day/night flag for flashing lights.
# Dataref:        For software lights, the dataref that «processes» the light.