Object Shadows in FSX - Aircraft

[BendyFlyer]

Something to consider:

For ages I have chased shadowing inside the VC's of various aircraft. I have spent a lot of time on shaders and boned up on DX9, DX10 etc, installed and uninstalled DX10 fixer (my PC not the product). It is one of those aspects of flight simming that I have not really stopped to think about in terms of what we actually trying to achieve here?

So I can have ground shadows and aircraft shadows via FSX without DX10 and that is ok but it was the issue of VC shadows and some screen pics of a few recent releases and some other screenshots that had brought me to a halt about this aspect - It is this - in a long career as a professional pilot I have spent a lot of time in various types of aeroplane cockpits, small and big, day and night and in all sorts of cloud conditions and then I realised that in all that time I could not recall shadowing like this in the real aeroplanes I flew. Yes, the ambient light conditions would change but generally cockpits are exposed to a lot of light in daylight conditions and because visibility is king (or the view out) the light inside is generally quite bright in other words there is little if any objects to block the light and cause massive shadows. The cockpit could be very bright or not so bright or even dark and it all depended on the aircraft's position relative to the sun but major shadows I could not recall at all. I actually find that FSX lightens and darkens the cockpit relative to the sun position quite well and anyway its the instruments you want to see when it gets dark outside or inside and putting on the instrument lights fixed that issue.

Outside cloud shadows are a different story and on a good VFR day with light cloud the ground shadows would be quite noticeable but get a lot of cloud and there is no shadowing at all. This I would like to improve but it does not seem to be possible without producing unrealistic shadows all over the place.

Anyway thought I would just share this with fellow simmers who have been chasing shadows etc in the sim, dont't waste your time, it looks flashy but it is actually unrealistic.

[Bruce66]

Good point!

I have thought about this as well. And general realism in scenery and flight models.

It occurs to me that a lot of what is available, free or payware, looks so good we (or I at least) WISH it looked that good in real life and try to get it to work.

Examples that jump to mind are areas of the mountains that are actually entirely denuded of trees by forestation but appear as forested areas in the simulator. Or marshland that is in reality a dingy grey-brown enshrouded in perpetual mist which, when I fly over it is a beautiful emerald green!

I don't fly in real life but I have been in the cockpit occasionally and I drive a lot. Noticing shadows is a rarity as I am looking out or at the instruments. Out of curiosity I took a look at an old film I took on a bright day in a Robin. The shadows are there but even when looking at the film my eyes are drawn to the scenery or instruments. I think our minds filter out the irrelevant details.

[Bjoern]

Shadow effects are configurable in DX10 Fixer and the cloud shadows vanish in overcast situations.

But still, we're talking about a simulator here. If you want realism, shut down the PC and go for some real flying.