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    New York City Night Lighting and Improvements v1.4 - Image 2

    Description

    Required Scenery: Microsoft City Update VIII: Las Vegas. This is the source of the colored lighting added to v1.4. 

    This mod improves the night lighting around the New York area. Initially intended as a quick lighting boost for the Empire State Building, the work spread to Midtown and beyond. 

    A partial list of updated areas:

    • Midtown and Times Square
    • West Side docks and piers
    • Central Park
    • Hudson Yards
    • Lincoln Square
    • Chinatown
    • Financial District
    • Statue of Liberty
    • Jersey City
    • Long Island City
    • Rikers Island
    • George Washington Bridge
    • Downtown Brooklyn
    • Flushing, Queens
    • LaGuardia Airport
    • Many small areas you may only notice if you're a local

    In addition to improving lighting, this scenery also eliminates such things as "rock trees" in Central Park and cars driving in the East River underneath the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges.

    Primary recommended compatible sceneries:

    Notes:

    • In FS2020, if spawning at LGA or another position not in the immediate vicinity of Manhattan, increasing ObjectsLod to 4.0 in your UserCfg (if your setup allows) improves lighting draw distance for most of the lights in this scenery. This solution increases lighting draw distance up to approximately 8 mi/13 km.
    • V1.4 of this scenery also works in FS2024, but the newly added colored lighting and Times Square glow may not display properly if that is your sim of choice. As a result, I will be publishing a FS2024 specific version of this scenery without the Times Square glow. In the meantime FS2024 users who have issues with v1.4 can use v1.2 instead.

    Author request: Please share your screenshots in the user gallery above the comments section- I would appreciate seeing how this scenery looks on other devices.

    Donations gratefully accepted if anyone would like to chip in a few $ for coffee and lunch for my wife or some snacks for my cat 

    Comments(44)

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    18 days ago

    This mod improves greatly the lighting in all the samscence new york scenery, i could not use it without this! If its possible if youj can add some color and make some software to change the empire state building lights? (Red/Green for Christmas, Red/White/Blue for July 4th etc) a developer had already done it for FS2004 and im using it for Prepare3d v4.5. Thanks! :)

    10 months ago

    5/5 this is amazing!
    Thank you
    Aaron_HAuthor

    10 months ago

    Thank you for stopping by to leave a review! Happy flying

    10 months ago

    Just read the update re2024,

    thank you kindly sir

    so odd what breaks and what works with this sim from update to update, lol

    Anyway, yes this looks phenomenal. Thank you for rescuing my town from a blackout. lol.
    Aaron_HAuthor

    10 months ago

    Our town you mean :) You're very welcome, and I'm glad to hear from a fellow New Yorker here

    You're also right about things breaking- the moment I decided to try going beyond bare bones simplicity, it was a nightmare haha. The bigger and more professional devs have my deepest sympathies!
    Aaron_HAuthor

    11 months ago

    @dvlcreations FS2020 screenshots

    11 months ago

    Aaron, I wonder if it because of 2024? Let me do some checking.....thanks for responding......

    11 months ago

    Outstanding job......really payware quality...my only concern/comment...can we disable the pillar lights around Times Square during the day????
    Aaron_HAuthor

    11 months ago

    I appreciate your review and also your screenshots! Is that FS2024 you're using? Interesting to see how this scenery looks on another computer- I'm surprised that the plain cold/warm lighting is relatively dim while the colored lights are really splashing about a bit.

    Regarding the pillar lights, I didn't realize that they left a slight daytime haze effect until after spending hours placing and compiling them (after much other trial and tribulation I've gotta add). I will see about addressing that towards the end of the summer, but I hope it's not too much of a drawback in the meantime.

    11 months ago

    Good morning...not at all.....I appreciate the effort. Being a scenery designer of airports myself, I understand time restraints. Keep me posted....thanks!
    Aaron_HAuthor

    11 months ago

    You're very welcome as always- I also thought your username looked familiar and then realized that I have your FRG installed from when I first started using FS2020 last year. In fact I think it was the very first addon I installed! Absolutely loved it and I still consider it one of the hallmarks of my setup. Many thanks to you for putting that together

    I will also add some screenshots above if you'd care to do any compare/contrast. Btw, what exactly do you see day and night when it comes to the TImes Square glow? Seems like it's not displaying on your end

    11 months ago

    Excellent! Is it possible to add the Tribute in Light, special to September 11? You can code it to display only on 9/11, similar to Asobo's fireworks logic. The Luxor pyramid in Las Vegas uses the same effect. Thanks again for this work of art; it really makes flying near NYC that much more enjoyable!
    Aaron_HAuthor

    11 months ago

    Good to hear from you again! I did actually think about making that, but it would have to be as a separate scenery (the coding skill is beyond my ability at the moment, but I will take a look since you suggested it). If timing is right, I should be able to put that scenery together either way by September. For the time being, there are a couple of very faint light shafts now over the 9/11 memorial (see the pic above with the Statue of Liberty)
    Aaron_HAuthor

    11 months ago

    As for the Luxor Pyramid effect, I'll admit to having one hell of a time trying to use it for the Times Square glow. After many attempts, I nearly gave up on that part of the project since that particular beam has what seems to be an LOD glitch that makes it start off far too big and bright. After much digging around, I found a similar generic effect that is much more stable. The only downside is that it leaves a minor haze during the day, but I don't think that many people would be bothered by it

    11 months ago

    Awesome, I can't wait to see what you can do with it! Thanks again for this wonderful enhancement, can't wait to see what comes in the future!

    11 months ago

    Hi,
    Thank you for this formidable work!
    Greetings
    Aaron_HAuthor

    11 months ago

    Joan, you're very welcome :) I hope this brings you many hours of enjoyment

    11 months ago

    Aaron_HAuthor

    11 months ago

    The second scenery there is 100% compatible (it was the scenery that inspired me to do mine). As for the first scenery, that is a matter of opinion, at least if you want your sim to look like Mario Kart :)

    p.s.- I will be uploading a minor update this afternoon to either move or remove a few experimental light beams I placed around Midtown.

    11 months ago

    It should work, but you can have too much lights at places where both of these mods deal with the same area. I doubt you will see any issues unless you will be on the street level. You can always play with scenery priority using dev mode.
    MSFS 2020MSFS 2024

    New York City Night Lighting and Improvements v1.4

    Tired of New York City looking as if it's in the middle of a blackout? Try this.

    Downloads5K
    Version1.4
    File Size133.28 KB
    Published1 year ago
    Updated10 months ago

    User Reviews

    5.0

    7 reviews

    5
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    More Information

    Simulator
    MSFS2020
    Sub-CategoryNight Lighting
    ICAONULL

    Version History

    I will be quite busy for the next few months, so this will be the final update for Summer 2025 (development will continue) Required scenery for this update is Microsoft City Update VIII: Las Vegas for colored lighting to display Lighting updates include: • Many crosstown streets in the lower half of Manhattan • Chrysler Building • Madison Square Garden • Downtown Brooklyn

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