This I posted in another forum
One thing that has always puzzled me is why do the planes look so dark at night, given the advanced technology of shockwave and other tweaks. I know airplanes are bright at night not by their own lights, but by the airport tarmac illumination.

Anyway the fuselage lights spread clarity a bit more to the fuselage also, than what most shockwave configs do. It should be just a setup, since the shockwave throws the light forward and usually on a small percentage around the fuselage where its located. I ask, should it be a case of making the spread wider?

With Captainsim products its no different, unfortunately.

Its dissapointing to press spot view and, even with all lights on, .."where is my airplane?"...oh there it is, right in front of me. Depending on the model, some are better than others, but still lost in the dark, even paywares. Some have a bit of windows lit, a tail logo, strobes, navs, the taxi lights work fine puting clarity in the pavement ahead...so why couldnt some light put a bit of clarity in the fuselage?

You can browse night pictures in the web, there are no dark planes. They are shiny, colorfully illuminated. Is it a technology limitation? I dont think so. I think its a lack of sensibility of the light and 3d developpers on how a plane should look at night. If anyone makes the tweak to give some brightness to the fuselage it will make a big success.

Look what I did.
I renamed all the "L" textures of an aircraft to "old". Then I copied all the day textures, double, renaming one as "L". So I have the same textures in day and night. The result is wonderful, check for yourselves. And when turning on lights, landing, taxi, tail, redux, etc it enhances even more.

I think I will do this with all my aircraft, or at least in the ones night lightning is poor. Who needs the night textures ?????? I mean, what are they for ????? If you open a night texture with an image editor like DXTbmp , you will find out that most night textures are....simply BLACK TEXTURES, empty...nothing!

They sell you the idea of night by replacing the carefully done aircraft textures with a black void emptyness black sqaure!

Who needs that?!
Im surprised that Im the first to have this idea. Opinions?

I wanted to do the same with the 737 and the 707, but Captainsim puts too many lights out of sequence in the night subfolder. If I knew which ones to delete and replace by the day textures it would be a hit.

Appreciate any suggestion from repaint masters. This is how my Caravelle looks at night. eautiful!

Alternatively placing 3D lights like redux in the wings, for example, throws plenty of light over the fuselage giving a much better look at night, as you can see in this HS748...

Markoz wrote on Feb 15^th, 2013 at 12:39am:


Mark
Im not trying to blame fsx or cs, its how the sim is. But trying to suggest easy ideas to improve. I know the airport lightning doesnt illuminate planes. But shockwave redux does.

As you see in the HS748 above, placing the 3D lights in the wings can give a much better night light. The second cheap alternative is to apply daylight textures to the plane, which is better than a complete dark plane.

Personally I think the 707 is very dark at night. No windows lit, no fuselage, its hard to spot, and that is a let down. Im trying to find a way to improve the appearance of the 707 at night, using one of the above.
K