How to Fix Dark Cockpits and Overexposed Sky in X-Plane 12
If you've encountered dark cockpits in X-Plane 12, you are not alone. Bright and clear cockpit views are essential to a good flight simulation experience. The default lighting in X-Plane 12 renders the light in the cockpit overly dark. While Laminar Research is working on fixing this in a future update of X-Plane 12, there is a simple plugin that will solve this issue and improve your X-Plane 12 visuals even further!
Before and After:
RXP XP12 Enhancer
Elevate your X-Plane 12 visuals using the RXP X-Plane 12 Enhancer - a free plugin developed by the talented developer Jean-Luc (RXP). This plugin refines your X-Plane 12 lighting by fine-tuning a set of carefully selected and calibrated default settings. Experience improvements in exposure, tone mapping, white balance, sky and atmosphere rendering, volumetric clouds, and night lighting.
The plugin also manages auto-exposure to improve contrast between bright and dark areas within the cockpit, maintain consistent exposure levels while zooming, and ensure a natural transition in exposure when moving from darker to brighter environments.
Compatibility:
This script requires X-Plane 12 version 12.06 or higher and only modifies private art datarefs. These datarefs are subject to change in future X-Plane 12 versions and are primarily intended for use by Laminar Research. As a result, this script may not function entirely as expected with future X-Plane 12 updates.
NOTE:
This plugin does not currently work in the latest version of X-Plane 12.1. It is up to the developer of the RXP XP12 Enhance plugin to make it compatible.
Installation:
Download and install the latest version of FlyWithLua.
Copy the RXP XP12 Enhancer Lua script to the FlyWithLua scripts folder:
XP12\Resources\plugins\FlyWithLua\Scripts\rxp-xp12-enhancer.lua