Comments on: Better Long-Range Visiblity in X-Plane 10.30

By: fopix3d

fopix3d — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 15:59:00 +0000

In reply to Ben Supnik. maybe turning back to opengl 4.3 I had some big issues with the open gl driver 4.4 with my 780 gtx. now I turn back no problems anymore and no crazy fps slow downs anymore

By: Willzah

Willzah — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 08:17:17 +0000

You just made me the happiest darn X-Planer… words, cant, describe

By: James Good

James Good — Sun, 30 Mar 2014 15:47:44 +0000

Looks like a great improvement. I wonder if it will let me see the Sutter Buttes from KGOO? FSX clearly shows these 50 mile away mountains, but they only appear on the very edge of the XP screen then disappear into mist.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesgood/8545423907/

Thanks for all these great new features, Ben. When do we pay you again?!

-James.

By: Tom Knudsen

Tom Knudsen — Sun, 30 Mar 2014 05:28:14 +0000

In reply to Ben Supnik. If so possible, i hope for sure you fix the cyan issue at high altitude (FL250+)

By: Ben Supnik

Ben Supnik — Sat, 29 Mar 2014 16:52:25 +0000

In reply to Tom Knudsen.

The short answer is: I don’t know why the effect turns cyan, but there is no guarantee that it won’t. The shader is a mathematical formula, with some of the constant valuables controlled by art controls – there is no guarantee that you won’t get nutty colors by putting random art values in. 🙂

The longer answer is: the actual optical physics of atmospheric scattering are insanely complicated and beyond what can be simulated in real-time; X-Plane’s atmospheric scattering is one of many approximations, the first of which I am aware is O’Neil’s work: http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGems2/gpugems2_chapter16.html

Since the equations are vast simplifications of the real-world math, some of the possible constants for atmospheric scattering produce unrealistic results. I may be able to come up with a better approximation to handle these cases, but the true scattering equations are beyond real-time by a huge amount (since the actual atmosphere can have millions of scattering events per photon you see).

By: Ben Supnik

Ben Supnik — Sat, 29 Mar 2014 16:48:32 +0000

In reply to John.

Yes – that’s why I contacted Pascal. 🙂 I coded atmospheric scattering -specifically- so this kind of thing would be possible, so it’s great to see people using the shaders to their full potential.

By: John

John — Sat, 29 Mar 2014 16:27:52 +0000

In reply to Tom Knudsen.

I know the post directly above is slightly off topic, but I wanted to indicate Ben, if you haven’t already checked it out, those atmospheric scattering tweaks produce some pretty stunning results.

I’d seriously considering incorporating something like it as a default (once tweaked for realism) as an (relatively, i know any feature always causes a cascade of other bugs) easy win – this sounds like of lame, but I gasped when I saw those screen shots

By: Ben Supnik

Ben Supnik — Sat, 29 Mar 2014 15:22:20 +0000

In reply to Andy. I think there is a good chance - I contacted Pascal about this; I owe him a special build with some of the fog shader bugs fixed. I'm hoping to get him that build real soon.

By: Andy

Andy — Sat, 29 Mar 2014 14:20:42 +0000

Ben,
Just to echo Tom Knudsen’s earlier comment about the Rayleigh Scattering effects; I know you, like many of us, have been following with interest the very positive effects of these “art tweaks” on the long range and high altitude views – even to the extent of making an offer to some of those authoring those tweaks to contribute to the XP code. Is there a chance that any of that has developed into something that might be incorporated into a future build?
In all this is now looking very good. Many thanks, Andy

By: Steve R W

Steve R W — Sat, 29 Mar 2014 13:43:12 +0000

G’day Ben.

Now that you’ve done brilliant work in extending visibility, can i ask you to consider the following.

Global DSF, and global 2D night textures could be a winner?

Images for The world at night satellite view
http://www.google.com.au/images?hl=en-AU&biw=&bih=&q=The+world+at+night+satellite+view&gbv=1&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ei=Lsg2U6ezH4XskgXzjoHoDQ&ved=0CB4QsAQ