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    MSFS DarkStreets - Image 1

    Description

    MSFS DarkStreets is a lightweight scenery package that enhances the night flying experience by excluding street lights outside of urban areas.

    If you want to help out with ideas, testing, contributions, or just hang out with a bunch of sim nerds, feel free to join the project Discord!
    https://discord.gg/aSgwX7VA

    Full Earth Coverage:
    AF - Africa
    AS - Asia (RU, KZ, Central and Eastern CN, MM, N Part of SE Asia, KR, KP, JP, TW)
    EU - Europe (EU, Eastern Europe, NW Middle East)
    ME - Middle East (SA, IR, AF, PK, YE, OM, AE, Central Asia, IN, NP, Western CN)
    NA - North America (US, CA, MX, Central America, Caribbean)
    OC - Oceania (S part of SE Asia, ID, PH, MY, PG, AU, NZ, Pacific islands)
    SA - South America

    Up Next:
    Subregion Tweaks and Algorithm Improvements


    !IMPORTANT!
    2024 SU5 has improved the light exclusion polygons LOD issue. Unfortunately there's nothing I can do to make it the same as 2020. Tools like DynamicLOD can help if you have the computer to power through TLODs 600-800.


    Developed for the flightsim community using Claude.ai, Python, ArcGIS Pro, QGIS, mapshaper.org, and FOSS data sources including:
    Copernicus - Europe's eyes on Earth (GHSL - Global Human Settlement Layer)
    NASA Black Marble (VIIRS - Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite)
    NaturalEarth
    NightEarth.com (Reference only)

    Over 320,000 exclusion polygons were programmatically generated from the satellite data sources using different data manipulation and filtering techniques.

    Installation:
    1. Delete old versions of kiwikat-darkstreets
    2. Unzip and throw the 'kiwikat-darkstreets-XX' folders (containing ContentInfo, Scenery, json, etc.) into your sim's Community folder for each region you wish to use


    Special thanks to @ryanbatc and the testing team for their efforts and listening to me ramble on about the project!

    Comments(128)

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    6 days ago

    Fantastic mod. How did all the brains at Asobo believe that all the lit rural roads was realistic. Thanks for fixing their error.

    7 days ago

    Realistically, this is only compatible with FS2020 as FS2024's ongoing LOD problems compromise the usefulness of this utility. Great for FS2020 users though!
    kiwikatAuthor

    7 days ago

    If you need it to be a perfect experience and you only fly airliners, I suppose that is fair. Otherwise it still works decently well in SU5. I am disappointed by what seems like a regression in SU5 prod patch. I am seeing issues that were not present in the beta. I posted some of my findings in the asobo dev forum- not sure there's much else I can do though.
    U

    7 days ago

    This comment has been deleted

    8 days ago

    Must have for me. Absolute great for night flights! Thank you so much!!

    11 days ago

    Very nice, much more realistic looking at night!

    13 days ago

    It looks good. The only issue is when I pan left or right, the lights are there and then I can see them disappear. Is there any way to get rid of them all around me and not just when I pan?
    Also I can still see them in the distant at FL300
    kiwikatAuthor

    12 days ago

    What is your TLOD set at? Do you have a good computer? Two different things are happening here-

    I have only noticed the panning thing happening when my computer has been bogged down more than normal and the sim is loading scenery slower than normal. Otherwise it shouldn't happen, and isn't an issue with the mod per se.

    At FL300 though even with an external LOD tool bumped all the way to 800 you'll still see the lights pop out at the horizon. There's nothing I can do about that unfortunately- ask asobo to extend exclusion polygons farther than what they did in SU5. In addition, we're bumping into the baked in lights at that distance, and there's REALLY nothing I can do about that.
    kiwikatAuthor

    12 days ago

    Doing some more research tonight- it can also pop in/out when you've been tabbed out of the sim for a while. It doesn't seem to load the exclusion polygons while you are tabbed out. I was working on a screenshot for a report for Asobo and I noticed when I came back into the sim, there were lights everywhere again until the scenery reloaded.

    10 days ago

    I beleive I know what it is. I have off-screen Pre-Cache Terrain set to Medium. I need this set that way to mitigate the dreaded GPU VRAM popup. I have a 3080 and i9 10K but I also have a 4K screen. Worked fine in 2020 but in 2024 by VRAM is getting killed. I think if I set the pre-cache terrain to ultra it will reduce the pop when I pan.

    14 days ago

    Couple of new ones. Can I assume Ca is Canada? PAC is Pacific Islands? Au is Australia? Love this mod, thanks so much for the effort you put into this. I want to give you 5 stars but Im not given any option to give them. Why would they make it so difficult to show appreciation?
    kiwikatAuthor

    14 days ago

    A picture above shows the different areas and how they are labeled. If you’re installing it as an update from the previous version make sure to delete the old folders first, do not simply do an overwrite.

    14 days ago

    Ah yea, when all else fails rtfm, lol. Thanks mate, happy landings.

    19 days ago

    Is there any performance impact from installing every region?

    22 days ago

    Looks phenomenal at night.

    12 days ago

    would you say it definitely helps in SU5? what is your LOD set to?
    kiwikatAuthor

    12 days ago

    They did nothing in SU5 to make this mod unnecessary, and actually improved the loading distance for the exclusion polygons. It still isn't perfect but it is way better than before SU5.

    27 days ago

    Thats great!

    I used a mod like this in X-Plane 11. It just looks so much better when there are lower density streetlights.

    Thank you so much for your work!

    about 1 month ago

    Cool addon! Will be cool to see streetlamp on this addons for entire world!
    MSFS 2020MSFS 2024

    MSFS DarkStreets

    MSFS DarkStreets is a scenery package designed to enhance night flying by removing street lights in non-urban areas across the world. Developed using various geographic information systems, this add-on focuses on programmatic generation of exclusion polygons, with additional support for user requests for improvements.

    Downloads9K
    Version1.0.0
    File Size104.44 MB
    Published4 months ago
    Updated3 months ago

    User Reviews

    4.9

    32 reviews

    5
    94%
    4
    0%
    3
    6%
    2
    0%
    1
    0%

    More Information

    Simulator
    MSFS2020/24
    Sub-CategoryNight Lighting
    ICAONULL

    Version History

    1.0.0 - Full project rework! DarkStreets now covers the entire Earth with over 320,000 polygons. By utilizing satellite imagery products, precision has been increased and many of the accuracy issues with OSM and other data sources are eliminated. See description and screenshot for coverage details. DELETE ALL OLD DARKSTREETS FILES BEFORE INSTALLING!

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