Sun glare simulation

[YoYo]

6 hours ago, catch said:

Over the two days (and one night) it took me to digest all the details in Dev Blog #84 there was no mention of a problem with sun glare. In fact, the devs were kind enough to offer this statement:

• A new, highly detailed Sun Glare effect.

No mention of any issues. Also, in the Blog #84 video at about 3.00 there is a beautiful representation of sun glare. I see nothing wrong with it. In fact, it simulates the beauty of nature in all its glory quite well.

In conclusion, the devs don't seem to have a problem with it. I would check your equipment. I mean VR enthusiasts can be a little one-eyed about things..

And that's exactly what's incomprehensible and misleading. This blog should be understood as: "For IL-2 Korea, we were working on..." and nothing more (somewhat contrary to the initial reviews on Steam). In many other cases, there's also information about certain changes that have been made, even though we know perfectly well that these are either bugs or issues that need fixing, and were also reported by users. There are two possible solutions here, of course: either the developers are genuinely unaware of the problem, or this was simply intended to be a blog focused on providing information about changes (a bit like the principle - if they don't praise you, praise yourself). Therefore, I believe there should be something like a bug tracker—where developers themselves enter what they're currently working on and assign a priority level to each change. This would prevent the same bugs from being repeated over and over again. Sun glare needs improvement, it can be considered effective, because for example it looks nice on a postcard that exaggerates with colors and other elements to create a wow effect, but it seems that in simulators they strive for realism or as close to realism as possible. Currently, this is not the case, we only have the wow effect, and the Sun glare takes up 1/3 of the screen when sitting in the cockpit (the proper comparison should be the pilot's position, without zoom, in 1:1 scale).

IL-2 Korea:

Additional interpretation by AI.

Q: It's about 10:00 a.m. here, and the screenshot is from the cockpit of the IL-2 Korea simulator. I think the sun glare is greatly exaggerated, or perhaps there are other sun effects. What do you think? Could you also provide an example (image) of how it should look realistic while still maintaining the glare effect when looking directly at the sun? If you think it's okay, please let me know. I have no objections.

A: You're right, the sun glare effect in the original screenshot is greatly exaggerated and looks unnatural. It looks more like a rendering error than a realistic atmospheric phenomenon.

Here's what I think is wrong and how to fix it (Impairments of the original image):

• Size and saturation of the "spot": The biggest problem. It's not glare, it's a giant, uniform, blown-out white spot that obscures a significant portion of the sky and horizon. It looks as if the sun were a quarter of the size of the entire view.
• No gradient: The transition from the sun to the rest of the sky is abrupt. The real solar corona and glow have smooth gradients.
• Depth flattening: Such a large spot of light flattens the perspective, causing the mountains in the distance to lose definition and "blend" into the blown-out portion of the sky.
• Lack of detail in the brightest parts: In reality, even with strong glare, you can still see some structure in the clouds near the sun if your eye adapts. Here, everything is completely white.

What a realistic glare effect should look like (which I included in the generated image):

• Focused Sun: The sun is rendered as a smaller, more defined disk of light, not a blurred spot. This is the starting point, not a complete white zone.
• Expanded Corona and Halo: Instead of a single white spot, we have a broad halo (corona) that is brighter closer to the sun and smoothly transitions into the blue of the sky.
• Realistic Clouds: Clouds near the sun are not completely blown out. Their edges are rim-lit, adding depth and texture, while also being noticeably brighter than the rest of the sky, preserving the contrast.
• Preserving Landscape Contrast: The mountains and river on the ground are better defined and aren't "swallowed" by unnatural overexposure, preserving a sense of distance and scale.

Here's what this frame should look like to preserve the glare effect but in a realistic way:

Seriously, you don't need a PhD in the appearance of the sun to see from the start that something's seriously off here. I also completely agree that when you're in the mountains, observing the sun and its rise, you don't lose any detail on the ground. Meanwhile, in IL-2 Korea, the image is so overexposed that you can't even see what's under the sun, even though it's 10:00 a.m. This is a major problem, designed for a wow factor, and I don't know who it's for. BTW, I probably don't need to add that the pilots were flying with sun glasses (both on the UN and Korean/Chinese sides), so if someone also claims that this is exactly what the pilot saw from his perspective, either they simply don't know it (or deliberately omit this important aspect), or they're using the wow effect again for screenshots only. This effect was even more reduced and the screenshot generated by AI is much more realistic than the first one, which was exaggerated with the "naked eye".

The correct size of the sun in DCS (although I would add a larger blinding effect here):

 

Edited August 14 by YoYo

[Zakson85]

Same AI, same screenshots. A completely different vision of "realism."

looking at both screenshots, I think version 1 is much closer to how the effect of sunlight on a WWII pilot should actually look, with one important caveat: we should distinguish realistic glare/blinding from simply making the screen artificially overexposed.

What actually happened in a real aircraft?

Sunlight was a real and very important factor in aerial combat tactics. Using the sun as cover when approaching an enemy was already a known tactic during WWI. The basic idea was to attack from the direction of the sun, because the opposing pilot would have great difficulty spotting the attacker.

This remained a valid tactic during WWII. Pilots on both sides deliberately tried to approach opponents out of the sun.

And the problem wasn't simply that:

"The sun is bright."

The real problem was loss of visual contrast.

When you look toward an extremely bright light source, an aircraft located close to the sun can almost disappear against the bright sky. The pilot doesn't necessarily see a completely white screen. Instead, the contrast between the enemy aircraft and the background becomes so poor that the aircraft can effectively become invisible.

That is exactly the important effect that I think we see in Screenshot 1.

1. Screenshot 1 — the current version

In my opinion, this is much better as a simulation of the tactical importance of the sun.

You can see:

a very bright area around the Sun,
significant loss of detail,
reduced contrast,
the terrain becoming harder to distinguish,
and, most importantly, the possibility of losing an aircraft against the bright sky.

The key point is that a pilot doesn't necessarily experience the Sun as simply a big white circle. The entire visual scene around it becomes much harder to interpret.

This is also supported by historical evidence. WWII fighter tactics explicitly recommended attacking from the direction of the Sun because the attacking aircraft could approach before being detected.

2. Screenshot 2 — reduced glare

The second version looks much nicer from a graphical/gameplay perspective and gives the player a much clearer view of the landscape.

However, I think it is less realistic as a representation of the problem faced by WWII pilots.

A real pilot couldn't simply have:

"The Sun is extremely bright, but the rest of the image remains perfectly clear."

If you were looking toward the Sun, your eyes had to deal with an enormous difference in brightness.

And there is actually very good historical evidence for this.

WWII pilots were issued special anti-glare/sunglasses specifically because sunlight was a serious problem.

For example, the RAF used anti-glare spectacles during WWII. The USAAF also introduced special flying sunglasses. Early versions reduced the amount of light reaching the eye by around 50%, but this was found to be insufficient in strong sunlight. Later lenses reduced transmission considerably further.

That is quite a strong argument against:

"Pilots had sunglasses, therefore glare shouldn't be significant."

Actually, the opposite is true.

The fact that specialized equipment was developed to reduce the problem shows how significant the problem was.

However, there is one thing I would change in version 1

I wouldn't argue that:

A more realistic model would be:

Sun → strong glare → reduced contrast → loss of detail → difficulty detecting another aircraft

rather than:

Sun → entire screen turns white.

That's an important distinction.

An ideal simulation would probably work something like this:
Sun outside the immediate field of view → mostly normal vision.
Sun close to the field of view → noticeable reduction in contrast.
Enemy aircraft close to the Sun → extremely difficult to see.
Looking directly toward the Sun → severe glare and significant loss of visual information.
Looking away afterward → temporary afterimage/adaptation effect before normal vision returns.

That would be much more realistic than simply removing the glare effect.

[YoYo]

Of course, there's such a theory, and you can always use the tool to prove it wrong. It really doesn't take Einstein to figure out that the sun in Korea was transmitted by a hidden image, which is not only unrealistic but is shown here.  The difference in comparison is obvious and clearly visible the sun is too close to the earth and has too much effect.

[Zakson85]

You're right! It really doesn't take an Einstein to notice that the developers simulated the sun's significant impact on the course of aerial battles—especially considering the current limitations of display technology. We might well go on defending our respective positions just as fiercely: you pushing for changes, and me arguing for things to stay the way they are.

[catch]

You make some interesting comparisons @Zakson85. So really YoYo seems to be confusing photos of sun glare with what the human eye actually sees. Two totally different experiences. Clear images from a camera vs blinding light as seen by the human eye. I'm with the devs on this one.

[YoYo]

23 minutes ago, catch said:

You make some interesting comparisons @Zakson85. So really YoYo seems to be confusing photos of sun glare with what the human eye actually sees. Two totally different experiences. Clear images from a camera vs blinding light as seen by the human eye. I'm with the devs on this one.

In this case, I'm not at all confused or convinced by anything here 😅. This has been shown and proven many times before, considering the size of the solar disk. The only thing that can be agreed upon is the blind effect, but that's another matter, and no one here is arguing against it, after all. 

[catch]

26 minutes ago, YoYo said:

This has been shown and proven many times before, considering the size of the solar disk.

Really? 🙂 The size of the sun in-game simulates an optical illusion. The eyes can be tricked. The devs nailed it. Look directly at the sun on a clear day and you will see. No. don't do that. 😁

[MajorMagee]

How high the sun is above the horizon significantly changes things. It loosely falls into three bands.

High in the sky the sun is fairly normal looking other than the disk being slightly too large.

As the sun gets lower, the disk starts to touch the top part of the atmosphere where haze exists. That is where the gigantic bloom starts to build between the sun and the horizon. Unless there are clouds to block the sun disk, this gets to be completely unrealistic. Turning HDR on and off seems to have little effect on improving this region's unnatural look.

As it approaches the horizon, as in Stonehouse's examples, the sun starts to look more natural again, especially once the sun brightness is reduced by the thickest part of the atmosphere or it begins to be clipped by the horizon itself. The is where turning HDR on creates the sharp edge on the blown out region around the sun disk.

[MajorMagee]

The sun disk is the size of your pinkie fingernail when you hold your hand up to the sun. The atmospheric glare is covered by the palm of your hand.

I would be more than happy if that is what we actually had in the game.

The best solution would be for the haze setting in the mission generator to be recalibrated. Let the 0 setting create realistic atmospheric effects in that middle range of sun position in the sky, and let 10 produce the giant blinding glare we have now. My testing above showed almost no change in this effect with changes in haze and fog. If it did make a difference, then the mission builder could choose just how blinding they want the sun to be in any given scenario. For now our only choice is to live with it always at full strength, or hide it behind clouds.

Edited August 14 by MajorMagee

[YoYo]

22 hours ago, catch said:

Really? 🙂 The size of the sun in-game simulates an optical illusion. The eyes can be tricked. The devs nailed it. Look directly at the sun on a clear day and you will see. No. don't do that. 😁

Can you read with comprehension? I have serious doubts . So, let me summarize:

• The size of the sun (disk) is too large (not only in relation to reality but also to those done correctly in MSFS and DCS)
• The problem is the effect at dawn and sunset (too large a halo resembling an explosion).
• The problem is with too much glare at these times of day.
• The blinding effect should be preserved; this can be achieved with the current effect, only with a smaller halo.

If you lack a reference and experience, well, that's not my problem. Test the sun in VR. I assume you're only flying in 2D and think it's okay because you haven't tested it in both cases and in 2D may have a wow effect, good for screenshots only. The glare isn't modeled well, even in 2D. In VR, you get the true size of the world, close to 1:1. You can't, and wouldn't, be able to block the sun with your finger, or even your whole hand. This is clearly visible in VR. Here's a photo I took yesterday around 6 p.m. Of course, we have an even brighter effect here, but the sun isn't in one-third or 1/4 of the sky like it is in IL-2 Korea, which is clearly visible in VR. I was also able to block the sun with one finger, at arm's length. Do we have a glare effect here? Do we have a more prominent sun disk? Yes. Do we have it (it's much smaller than what we see, and what we see is the shield effect + glare, the whole effect), yes! Do we have reflections on the glass that hinder visibility, do we have it? Yes! Don't argue with reality, finally get out of the house and look at the sun at sunrise and sunset, because that's what we're talking about.

The whole effect IL-2 Korea:

Edited August 15 by YoYo

[MajorMagee]

I took a look at using the glow and various sun images in the common folder (graphics gtp) to change this, and even with mods enabled they had no effect on the size, intensity, or color. Those images must be legacy leftovers, and currently have nothing to do with how this is being generated (i.e. hard coded). The GB UnGTP program can unpack the gtp files but the luascript files appear to be encrypted differently than they were in GB so I can't see if those may hold any useful parameters we could use to tone this down a bit.

Post processing tools like Reshade don't help either because the data is so blown out that nothing exists to modify.

 

Edited August 15 by MajorMagee

[catch]

16 hours ago, YoYo said:

Here's a photo I took yesterday around 6 p.m. 

Wow that sun disc is huge! Clearly DCS got it wrong (too small) and Korea got it just right. 😄

Maybe you should just send a pm to Han and he'll set you straight about the difference between photographic images and those seen by the naked human eye. And perhaps not using ChatGPT to support your arguments. Then my friend, this nonsense can stop. 🙂

 

 

[MajorMagee]

In nearly seven decades I have never seen anything even remotely like what we have in the game during the two hours before sunset, or after sunrise. That includes as a pilot, passenger, and a landscape photographer (Yes, I actually look at the scene with my own two eyes before looking through the camera lens). Work has carried me everywhere except Africa, Australia, and Antarctica so I suppose there might be some part of the world that does this, but I can tell you with certainty, Korea is not one of them.

All it would take for the "nonsense" to stop is for Luke or one of the developers to stop by and say something like:

We know it's not realistic, but it's an artistic choice to provide a blind spot to enhance the feeling of tension in combat situations.

We know it's not realistic, and we're working on toning it down.

We know, and it's an artifact of how the PBR engine was developed. Sorry, but it is what it is.

Edited August 16 by MajorMagee

[Whittle]

When posting images or photos please include the angle of view that they represent.

There are at least two issues related to FoV that must be considered when forming an opinion:

• For at least 2D, (I have no idea how FoV is handled in VR), the angle of vision that your monitor takes up. In my case, around 30 degrees of  my vision. The in-game camera displays up to 105 degrees, and I spend almost all my time at this setting. This means that objects or the sun glare displayed on my screen would, in reality, appear around 3.5 times larger.
• Images posted in this forum take up even less angle in my vision than full-screen images. Therefore the scaling factor is more extreme. For example, a 105 degree in-game image in this thread is displayed on my monitor over around 15 degrees of my vision, so any objects or effects would actually be around 7 times larger in reality.

[Whittle]

On an unrelated note, simulating sun-glare without any consideration of what a pilot might do to reduce it (such as glasses or covering the sun with a spare hand) is just silly.

[YoYo]

7 hours ago, Whittle said:

When posting images or photos please include the angle of view that they represent.

There are at least two issues related to FoV that must be considered when forming an opinion:

• For at least 2D, (I have no idea how FoV is handled in VR), the angle of vision that your monitor takes up. In my case, around 30 degrees of  my vision. The in-game camera displays up to 105 degrees, and I spend almost all my time at this setting. This means that objects or the sun glare displayed on my screen would, in reality, appear around 3.5 times larger.
• Images posted in this forum take up even less angle in my vision than full-screen images. Therefore the scaling factor is more extreme. For example, a 105 degree in-game image in this thread is displayed on my monitor over around 15 degrees of my vision, so any objects or effects would actually be around 7 times larger in reality.

Of course, I completely agree. Photography somewhat distorts the appearance and adds additional effects, especially when HDR is added. In a still camera, it also depends on the aperture (I think I gave examples on the previous page). We've also written about degrees here before, +1.

I'm still wondering about one thing: towards evening, the sun isn't strong enough to look at directly. It's not like during the day; there's no momentary blinding effect, but in IL-2 Korea, it still occurs. Below is an example of the sun, taken in June by me. You can easily look at such a sun and admire it (directly), but in IL-2, there's a blinding effect still the same as at day and blue sky. I'm not even talking about the size itself.

Meanwhile, in IL-2 Korea, the sun was mistaken for an explosion:

Regards!

10 hours ago, catch said:

Wow that sun disc is huge! Clearly DCS got it wrong (too small) and Korea got it just right. 😄

Maybe you should just send a pm to Han and he'll set you straight about the difference between photographic images and those seen by the naked human eye. And perhaps not using ChatGPT to support your arguments. Then my friend, this nonsense can stop. 🙂

Add that I'm stupid and blind, because that's what's missing from this pathetic argument. Man, are you an adult living off hate, or are you a child? You provide no arguments, no screenshots, no scientific papers, no data, you don't address anything specifically mentioned. I see absolutely no substantive statement here, and you only resort to low-level attacks based on the principle "I know better, it's okay." Either you know what you're talking about and specifically address individual issues, or you really shouldn't post, because you're wasting not only your time but also the time of others. If you want to address specific issues substantively, then post; you have the right to do so, and you have the right to disagree with other users' opinions. However, either keep the discussion relevant and provide arguments for your position, or simply remain silent, because it's a waste of time.

Edited August 16 by YoYo

[Zakson85]

here’s no point arguing with you, since you don’t actually address the arguments presented. You post processed sunset photos that compress the dynamic range to 8-bit (0–255 levels), or you share "hyper-realistic" DCS footage where the sun and its actual brightness don't even exist. You and a few others have your own vision of "realism," and you dislike the explosion—the "nuclear explosion," as you keep calling it. If someone posts footage of the sun with different exposure settings, you claim the camera was set up incorrectly, yet in your own examples, the settings are always supposedly perfect ;) Then there’s that whole business of dragging Einstein into it. Just because you churn out posts in bulk across every topic doesn't mean you're right! You haven't shown a single example that accurately captures the blinding effect—and the discomfort a fighter pilot feels when looking toward the sun—while also satisfying your vision of the "absolute truth" :) 
Finally, I’ll reiterate a point I’ve made ad nauseam: the sun in an air combat simulator is supposed to be blinding—it’s meant to be uncomfortable. Korea is doing a good job of this, given the technology they have available.

[YoYo]

I see a confusion here. Is there a single post here that says the sun shouldn't blind you? Show me. We're talking about the sun's excessively large disk and the halo effect. How many times do we have to repeat this? Do you think that if there's more sun and a smaller halo, it won't blind you? It will, but you'll also see more of the sky and everything around you, especially on earth. The halo effect is so large that not only is it unrealistic, but it's also incorrectly applied in the morning and evening, when you can even look at the sun with the naked eye. I understand you don't use VR and think the height is fine, although I find it difficult to understand because we have a reference not only for the size of the plane (normal view 1:1) but also for the ground, and it's easy to see in 2D. In VR, you can clearly see that the sun is either too big or so close to you that you'd be cooked, and there would be no life on Earth.

The criticism have been listed in this post and we ask that you do not distort what has been said.

Here's what a sun halo looks like btw. if you block the sun with your finger:

In DCS and MSFS this is done correctly (in IL-2 GB it looks better, not as exaggerated). All we're saying is - do it the same way as in MSFS or DCS, but add a glare/blind effect during a sunny day.

Btw. although this is also a different topic do you also think that pilots don't wear sunglasses or sun visors just to eliminate the unpleasant feeling of looking at the sun doring Korean War (you cite such an argument)? Very interesting....

Edited August 16 by YoYo

[Zakson85]

You keep twisting the facts to suit your needs. Perhaps unconsciously—I wouldn't know. You point to the sun at its zenith, while the discussion is supposedly about sunrise and sunset. I fly exclusively in VR, and in my opinion—as well as that of others—the Korea simulation is tactically true to reality.

ps. 
Yes, they wear glasses and decide for themselves when to put them on and take them off—it’s not determined by some algorithm implemented by the helmet's creators. The developers' request to add a sunglasses simulation is entirely appropriate—more so than removing the "atomic blast" effect.

[catch]

10 hours ago, Zakson85 said:

here’s no point arguing with you, since you don’t actually address the arguments presented. You post processed sunset photos that compress the dynamic range to 8-bit (0–255 levels), or you share "hyper-realistic" DCS footage where the sun and its actual brightness don't even exist. You and a few others have your own vision of "realism," and you dislike the explosion—the "nuclear explosion," as you keep calling it. If someone posts footage of the sun with different exposure settings, you claim the camera was set up incorrectly, yet in your own examples, the settings are always supposedly perfect 😉 Then there’s that whole business of dragging Einstein into it. Just because you churn out posts in bulk across every topic doesn't mean you're right! You haven't shown a single example that accurately captures the blinding effect—and the discomfort a fighter pilot feels when looking toward the sun—while also satisfying your vision of the "absolute truth" 🙂
Finally, I’ll reiterate a point I’ve made ad nauseam: the sun in an air combat simulator is supposed to be blinding—it’s meant to be uncomfortable. Korea is doing a good job of this, given the technology they have available.

Well said Zak. On many levels. Worth repeating I think. To educate the uninformed and allow them to form the correct conclusion with considered dialogue rather than rants.

[Stonehouse]

Confusing reading through this.

I could be wrong but to me it sounds like both sides of the discussion agree that they want the sun glare to be blinding to pilots in game.

As I read things, one side is saying the sunrise and sunset effect on the atmosphere around the sun when the sun is a close to the horizon is overdone and the other side is misunderstanding this to be that they are saying the sun glare is too blinding. That is pretty much how I would summarise this thread if I had to. 

For what it is worth I believe there is an issue with the lighting HDR and how it interacts with how the sun appears in game as shown in my post earlier in the thread and I've reported it in the beta test forum. Not sure what will come of that or whether it will address any point raised here. 

 

 

[MajorMagee]

Both very low to the horizon and at high angles the PBR's Atmospheric Bloom looks acceptably realistic.

The issue is when the sun enters those intermediate angles where the disk in transiting the hazy part of the atmosphere and the Atmospheric Bloom stretches vertically and grows unacceptably large (18x the disk size or more instead of 8X or less).

Seperate from the PBR's Atmospheric Bloom the sun disk itself has lens flare and overall screen glare effects when you look directly toward the sun. This is controlled by the file post_effects.ini that contains parameters related to various aspects of Sun Rays and Glare. This is working as one would expect in a combat flight sim, and no one is currently arguing about these effects.

As I've suggested before if the PBR's Atmospheric Bloom was made to be responsive to changes in the mission's Haze and Fog settings (it currently changes the color intensity, but not the size) we would all be happy. For example setting Haze to zero should reduce the scattering of the light making the gradient from the pure white of the sun disk to the unobstructed blue of the sky happen over a much shorter distance. Haze at max can look like what we have now with other settings falling in between.

There is some improvement in the Atmospheric Bloom's vertical stretching based on your viewing angle (high altitude looking down into the thick part of the atmosphere versus looking through the soup).

 

Edited August 17 by MajorMagee

[MajorMagee]

Being an Engineer I started looking at the underlying Physics.

Humidity versus Bloom - Mie Scattering

0% to 40% RH (Baseline Stable Size): There is virtually no growth. The solar bloom remains at a stable, tight baseline size—typically 1.5 to 3 times the diameter of the sun's disk—driven strictly by dry, background dust and fine particulates.

40% to 70% RH (The Growth Curve Initial Bending): Soluble aerosol particles begin tracking along an exponential growth curve. The particles swell slightly, causing the bloom region to expand to roughly 4 to 6 times the sun's disk size.

70% to 95%+ RH (The Deliquescence Surge): Soluble salts hit their "deliquescence point" and instantly dissolve into spherical water droplets. Above 80% RH, the curve spikes vertically. The forward scattering angle contracts into an intense, hyper-concentrated forward peak. Visually, this washes out the sky, blowing the bloom up to a massive 10 to 30+ times the size of the sun's disk, turning the entire surrounding sky into a bright, blinding white wall. This appears to be what we have all the time no matter the haze Setting for the mission.

Bloom Size (Suns)

▲

|                                                 ___________/ (90%+ RH: Overwhelming White Glare) 

|                                                |

|                    _________________/ (70%-80% RH: Deliquescence / Sharp Growth Jump)

|                   |

|___________/ (0%-40% RH: Constant baseline size; no change)

|

|─────────────────────────────► Relative Humidity (RH)

Also, there is the "Forward Peak" Paradox: Counterintuitively, as water droplets grow larger, the physical angle of scattering narrows tighter toward the center. However, because the total light-scattering efficiency increases by up to 400% to 800%, the visual glare becomes so overwhelmingly intense that it overexposes human vision and camera sensors, making the visible bloom region look significantly larger to the naked eye.

and then there are the rainbows to consider...

 

Edited August 19 by MajorMagee

[MajorMagee]

To follow up on my proposal here's what's currently in the game at 1730 in the summer against a clear blue sky seen from 30,000 ft. I've located the sun's disk by lowering it's brightness relative to the sky. (If you look closely you'll see the sun is actually slightly smaller than the area I darkened)

These are scale drawing examples to show the proposed relative sizes for each of the Mission Haze Settings to match the Mie Scattering predicted values versus Relative Humidity.

Haze Setting None = 0 and Weak = 1, 2, 3, and 4 would use the 0% to 40% RH range of 1.5 to 3 sun diameters

With Haze set at 4 = 3 Sun diameters

Haze Setting Average = 5, 6, and 7 would use the 40% to 70% RH range range of 4 to 6 sun diameters

With Haze set at 5 = 4 Sun diameters

With Haze set at 6 = 5 Sun diameters

With Haze set at 7 = 6 Sun diameters

Haze Setting Strong = 8, 9, and 10 would use the 70% to 95%+ RH range of 10, 20 and 30 sun diameters

With Haze set at 8 = 10 sun diameters

With Haze set at 9 = 20 sun diameters

Produces something of similar relative size to what we have in the game now (see first image).

With Haze set at 10 = 30 sun diameters.

 

Edited August 20 by MajorMagee

[YoYo]

Great analysis @MajorMagee! 👍

In my opinion, the problem is broader, but overall, I'd be happy if sunrises and sunsets were fixed. The halo effect in the IL-2 Korea is one of the worst-executed sun effects in any flight simulator. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the developers fix it finally. 👌

Btw. I don't use WT at all, but I was curious what it looks like there (WT players are probably not the target for IL-Korea, though as always good luck, I want something more ambitious), here are their results: https://warthunder.com/en/news/6909-development-new-skies-in-war-thunder-en.