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dan
14 Jan 2006, 07:33
Hi All,

I've seen that by using the old-stlye roads, one can put animated headlights on them! Supposedly this can be done in FSSC by checking "lit at night," but so far I have not seen any effect. I've seen this done in a freeware scenery that I have - so I hope there's another way it can be done! :)

Thanks!

Dan
arno
16 Jan 2006, 12:11
Hi Dan,

It should still work if you use the old road commands (which do not follow the mesh nicely and have other trouble). Also it seems that in Fs2004 the moving lights show slightly different.
dan
17 Jan 2006, 12:30
Hi Dan,

It should still work if you use the old road commands (which do not follow the mesh nicely and have other trouble). Also it seems that in Fs2004 the moving lights show slightly different.

Yes - I did get them to display - but the lights are indeed different! They seem duller and you can't seem to see the lights that well. Seems like a waste of my time to do it.

Are there any other easy ways to achieve this effect?

Thanks Arno!

Dan
Phoenix
17 Jan 2006, 12:53
Hi Dan,

It is quite simple in gmax. Do you use gmax at all? If so, I'll post an explaination.
arno
17 Jan 2006, 13:08
GMax (old gamepack and using the BGL_LIGHT command) or effect files are indeed the two other ways to place lights rather easy. But if you want to do that for a long road with some animation, it can become quite some work, as you basically have to place each light.
Phoenix
17 Jan 2006, 13:22
Hi Arno,

I was thinking more along the lines of simply creating a plane just above the ground, with the day texture having a fully transparent alpha channel, i.e. not visible during the day, and a night texture having a whitish color with a light pattern gradient on the alpha channel. Then simply animating it. With a screenshot taken using [CTRL]-[Z] lookdown feature, the ground texture for the road can be imported into gmax and scaled to use as a guide for the road path if necessary. Though if the ground surface is a fair bit uneven, this can be quite involved.

I wasn't aware of ur method using the fs2002 gamepack, I'll have to try it sometime.
dan
17 Jan 2006, 14:02
I'm embarrased to say that I don't know anything about GMAX! :eek: I'm more with FSDS.

I really should learn it - maybe that'll be my project when summer vacation arrives. :D However, it sounds tedious because I would say that the roads around the airport I'm doing would probably total around 3-5 miles in length.

Thanks guys!
arno
17 Jan 2006, 14:03
Hi Dan,

I guess FSDS can make lights as well, I am just not very familiar with FSDS anymore :D.