I can't see my plane at night!

[A/SGT.Mav316]

Alot of new addons planes don't come with night textures so that you can visibly see them in the spot plane veiw for example while flying at night ! This is kind of a disappointing set back  :-/! i can't do night flights because I can't even see the ground textures either. Is anyoneelse experiencing this and what have you done to correct the night dark spell.

Please shed a light on this subject!

[BFMF]

Try flying during the daytime

[FSTipster]

If you can't see the ground textures as well as the aircraft, the problem would seem to go a little deeper than the textures themselves.

Does the sim look ok in daytime? As bright as you'd expect? I'd have a look at both the brightness and contrast settings on your monitor, and the gamma setting in your video card driver. It sounds as though something is set way too low somewhere.

[ozzy72]

I've seen this before. What you need to do is upgrade directX to v9, and install the latest drivers, then take off. Now go to spot view and turn the lights on and off. If the model disappears when the lights are on (sometimes it becomes half transparent, half black), then it is the model that is the problem.

Ozzy

[A/SGT.Mav316]

good one Andrew ! lol

Okay two things:

1. I think Ozzy hit the head on the nail, that some of these addon planes just don't have night textures on them. I was wondering if there was a way to create the night textures for them. (some lights on these addon planes only highlight certain areas of the plane such as the tailfin and the front fuselage section).

2. I am running Direct X v.9, so that is not the issue. But that contrast and brightness thing is not the issue either. I am wondering if something else may be wrong. In noticed that the night sky is pitch black with stars  ::), but when I go into the change veiw screen the little window shows the dark skyline a hazy light blue color. It still looks like night but it is brighter. I take note that you can see the shape of the clouds and the ocean under the plane. But when you play the game from the cockpit or spot plane veiw you can barely tells what is up from down with out looking at the horizon guage in the cockpit.

Is there something else I can do!

[ozzy72]

Hmm odd. With the lighting thing, are the models gmax or FSDS? With a lot of planes they will only light up the tail and stuff, they are realistic!
As for modifying the textures I think you'd need the original data for that, although gmax models shouldn't have an issue with lighting.

Ozzy

[A/SGT.Mav316]

I think they are Gmax models, but it is all cool. I don't mind about it now. Can't have everything you want it is Freeware ! I will stick to my C17, F-16 and American Airlines 737 meljet.

[fleetwood77]

You might want to give Powerstrip a try.
http://www.entechtaiwan.com/ps.htm
At least you could make some brightness adjustments during your flights to see what difference you notice during day time/night time flights.