How to create night lighting?

[burner12]

I'm wondering is there another way to simulate a night carrier landing with the right lighting, such as not seeing the ship until aboput 1 mil, without having to make the visibility look like fog?

[SpazSinbad]

burner12, I have been puzzling all day about what you are requesting. Do you refer to your simulator setup (and what is it for night time please - including date/time/season etc and what are expected weather conditions).

As a quick generalisation perhaps you can control the ship light brightness through FSX settings? OR as you seem to suggest (without having fog) setup the cloud base so that at one mile the aircraft emerges from the overcast to see the ship (NOT TOO BRIGHTLY LIT) ahead (close to being on glideslope - that is easy to set up with the graphs for the glideslope v distance on other threads here)? The mirror is likely going to be always brighter than carrier/ship lights.

I could say more about the reality sight picture but perhaps this is not what you want to know? However I will say that likely as seen in FSX at one mile it is difficult as it is in daytime to see enough detail via the mirror (depending on a lot of variables though). At night in real iife it can be like this. This is the beauty of the NEW MODIFIED HUD! What a brilliant thing it is with the 'needles' and TACAN distance. The aircraft can be setup as best as possible from a long way out so that the transition to visible mirror etc. is a good one.

[burner12]

I was talking with the guy who made the new video about that new glass hud on how he created this night lighting effect seen here

and he said turn the vis down to 1mil. But whenever I do that if I start off on the runway looking for 1 of thecarriers its impossible because the world in envoloped in fog. So is there a way to make objects dimmer but still keep clear visibility so you don't see th ship til about 1 mil?

[Orion]

But doing that would have the same effect as fog except you'd be able to see your way around - you still wouldn't be able to see the carrier, though.

[burner12]

So i guess the only way to replicate a true NIGHt carrier landing is by creating a fog effect, you agree?

[SpazSinbad]

How to create a night landing? Do one. :-)  In the video at the link I don't see the ball until 'at the ramp'. WT? Perhaps I can mess with the movie by editing it to lighten it to see the carrier at a distance but then it would not be a night landing? My guess is that the movie has been 'darkened' in post production to give the night effect. Yes it may have been made at night but then darkened IMHO. Whatever. It is only an FSX movie after all. Already we know post production effects have been added. There are tricksters out there (no offence to movie maker). After all movie making is in and of itself mere trickery.

Similarly in the day approach in second part of movie I cannot see the AoA indexer at all because once again the lighting is too dark. So I'll go away now and mess with the .MP4 (high quality version) of this movie to see what I can see. Try messing with your monitor controls to darken up what you see so that you don't have to use fog at night.

[SpazSinbad]

Screenshot from the movie above has been 'lightened' in MS Movie Maker 5 times so it is going to look odd. The screengrab shows the near instant that any other item appears in the approach - which in this case are the lights on top of the island. Otherwise nothing is seen until a millisecond later the mirror appears 'at the ramp'. I don't believe anyone can fly a visual approach seeing the mirror only 'at the ramp'. Whatever.

Also I note that once the AoA Indexer can be seen during the day approach later (which is far too short a straightaway to be practical) the indexer is fast with once again 'at the ramp' getting to on speed being below the glideslope. My guess is that this chap did a visual 'spot the deck' approach. Whatever.

I'm not really criticising anything but trying to see how the movie was made. It is effective - especially the night approach. WOW!    Heart Thumping stuff indeed.