The buzz is building over X-Plane® 10 and we’re all eagerly looking forward to its new features. One of these looks like it is going to affect the OpenSceneryX library in a big way: The new X-Plane® global lighting model. When global lighting is enabled, X-Plane® will dynamically shed light, not just from the sun and landing lights (as X-Plane® 9) but also from other light sources. In addition, it will also generate dynamic shadows from all these light sources.

This affects OpenSceneryX in two ways: Firstly, a lot of the existing objects in the library include faked shadows, created by flat surfaces placed on the ground with a texture that looks like a shadow. Secondly, a number of objects have LIT (night) textures that contain simulated spill lighting effects as if there was a light shining on the texture.