How to get Bloom effect and realistic night-time lighting in FSX (DX9 only)

Introduction
First of all, the whole idea came out one afternoon of boredom when I decided to do a small Night VFR flight on Scenery Solutions beautiful Ultimate Alaska X. Having some experience myself in night flying I was expecting some challenge on avoiding the high terrain in the area but it was a huge disappointment as FSXs graphic engine showed all the terrain even well into the night. So I decided to investigate on how to fix this problem and after searching several forums (a lot) got some info about several add-ons that could help fixing the problem. The result in my case was so unexpectedly good that I have decided to share what I did so that you guys can benefit from it as well. Before getting into the matter, some motivation and answering some questions: What do I get following this steps? 1. Bloom and HDR effect at minimum performance cost.

2. Realistic level of night-time illumination. High terrain in remote areas is almost invisible. Make sure to plan your way around/above it! Realistic! Runway lights are difficult to spot when coming from a lateral heading. Realistic! Taxiway and apron lights are difficult to spot until close on short final. Realistic! Clouds are no longer easy to spot during the night. If you cant see the stars watch out the OAT! Realistic!

What do I need to get that? As an absolute minimum you need: ENBSeries Direct3D interface included with this document. stars.dat file included with this document.

However I highly recommend the following Payware products: Shade by MogwaiSoft. Replaces the default shaders with new palettes dramatically improving shadow lightning, fog effects and the overall look of FSX. Available on SimMarket: http://secure.simmarket.com/mogwaisoft-shade.phtml Shockwave 3D Lights Redux. Much better defined lighting cones and beams than the default ones. Available from A2ASimulations: http://www.a2asimulations.com/store/shockwavelights/

And if you want to fine-tune the star brightness to your liking, you will need: AutoStar for FSX. Excellent tool by Chris Wright to import and adjust the SAO star catalog into FSX

Is this going to produce any side effects? Apart from improving the overall immersion in the simulation it will sadly have the following (small) side effects: Shift+Z text and FSX kneeboard will read distorted during the night.
No big deal. Might be fixable trying different settings in the enbseries.ini file.

PMDGs 737NGX cockpit darker than the real during daytime.

Again, may be fixable fine-tuning the enbseries.ini file. Other products may be affected in a similar way but none of the ones I own did.

Airports are a little bit harder to find visually than in real life.
Due to FSX limitation the airport beacons are limited to approximately 10NM, thus taking away from us one of the main real-life aids for locating airports from the distance during the night!

Okay, you convinced me. Lets dim the lights! So, lets go for it.

Step 1.

ENBSeries

Copy the d3d9.dll and enbseries.ini files included with this guide (or look at the end of the document for download URL) into your main FSX directory (i.e. C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X). [optional] Fine-tune the parameters in enbseries.ini The included file works perfectly on my laptop but depending on your screens brightness, contrast and/or to suit your personal preferences you may want to try different settings. Settings for Bloom effect are widely available in several forums around the network (Avsim, Orbx, ). Google for FSX enbseries.ini settings.

A more common adjustment may have to do with the amount of night lightning. The main parameters controlling this are: DarkeningAmountNight=35
Try bigger numbers for a darker night environment. Use small adjustments (+/- 5) and remember to save the file and restart FSX to get them applied.

GammaCurveNight=-1
Use small adjustments as well. Negative values create a pale image while positive values increase the contrast.

Step 2.

Star Data

If you tried the step above alone in FSX you will have noticed that stars are barely visible after that modification. As stars can be a significant clue of terrain clearance and/or cloud presence during night flight we need to get them back. The stars.dat file provided with this document is a compromise between what the human eye initially can see from the flight deck, and what it can see on a dim cockpit after 30 minute adaption into the dark, as this cannot be simulated inside FSX. Extract it into the main FSX directory after making a backup copy of the original file! [optional] Fine-tune star brightness. Again, your hardware setup can ultimately influence the final result. If you want to fine-tune the star brightness use AutoStar for FSX program to import the SAO catalog as indicated in the programs documentation. The settings used for the provided stars.dat are: Exponent: 2 Brightness: 1500 Colour Strength: 1 Planet Size: 1

Step 3.

Install Shade [optional]

Just follow the on-screen instructions and program documentation. I use the default settings and 10 day cycle, that work prettily with REX. Make sure you read the documentation as the current version of shade at the time of writing this document requires FSX to be launched on a special way so that the shader gets injected into FSX.

Step 4.

Install Shockwave Lights [optional]

By default they will be applied to FSXs default aircraft. To get them installed into your favourite third party aircraft you will need to manually edit the aircraft.cfg file. Basic knowledge about this files structure and FSX effect functioning is required to do so. Instructions are available in the programs documentation and a vast library of usermade adjustments for popular third party aircraft is available from A2As website and forums.

Step 5.

Launch FSX!

If you didnt install Shade you dont have to do anything different than usual. If, however, you did install it, you have to launch FSX using Shade.exe. After loading the program FSX will be automatically launched. If you are already using another application to launch FSX (i.e. Java FPS limiter, Air Hauler, ) you can use Shade_NL.exe but make sure that FSX.exe gets launched within 30 seconds after its execution. One more step to go. Open the FSX Display Settings dialog and set the Water Effects to the Max setting to avoid shinny water at high. To enable/disable the ENBSeries plugin use the default Shift + F12 keystroke. With ENBSeries enabled, to enable/disable the bloom effect use Shift + F9. You can adjust these key combination to your liking editing the enbseries.ini file. Refer to ENBSeries documentation.

I didnt like it. How do I get rid of this? Fast way. Just disable ENBSeries with Shift + F12 and dont use the Shade launcher programs to launch FSX. Slow way. Delete d3d9.dll and enbseries.ini from your FSX main folder. Uninstall Shade and/or Shockwave Lights if installed. If you manually configured the Shockwave lights into any aircraft.cfg file you will need to undo those changes. And remember to rename the backup copy of the star data file into stars.dat in the main FSX directory (cause you did a backup, right?).

Useful Links ENBSeries: Shade for FSX BlogSpot: AVSIM Forums: Orbx Forums: Shockwave Lights Profiles: Shockwave Lights Forums: SAO Star Catalog: http://enbdev.com/ http://shadeforfsx.blogspot.com/ http://forum.avsim.net/ http://forum.avsim.net
http://www.a2asimulations.com/store/shockwavelights/3dlights_fsx.htm

http://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=32

http://tdc-www.harvard.edu/catalogs/sao.html

Enjoy!

syn November 2011

If you got this guide without the associated files, they can be downloaded from http://tinyurl.com/72838624