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Distant Lighting

Messages
30
Country
us-ohio
Hi Gang,

Is Distant Lighting possible in FS9? By Distant Lighting I mean, lights that can be seen from a distance of say 20nm or so, say as in a beacon or harbor light. I am not talking about beams here, I am taking about lights that can be seen from 20nm from the object. Here is an exerpt from Kevin Breen's Beacon by by F.C. Hingsburg, Chief Engineer , Airways Division, Department of Commerce.

The standard airways beacon projects a beam of a maximum value of approximately 1,000,000 cp. This beam is elevated so that its center line passes 1000 ft. above the adjacent beacon ten miles distant, and the zone of greatest lighting effectiveness extends from 500 ft. to 1500 ft. above this adjacent beacon, thus providing maximum lighting for the low altitude flying which is frequently necessary in bad weather.

But, in our case, we would need only to have the beacon visible at ten nm, and have the beacon still look pretty normal at closer visual points
.

Would this be possible?

Thanks, and take care,
Big John
 
Messages
152
Hi,
the standard FS2004 light do have very limited range, during the day less than 5 nm, during the night a little bit more. But You can use a trick. I used it in my scenery (and I must tell You it was not my idea!). Since my Slovenia scenery has modeled lights and lights are put in library, they all have a polygon (well a box) of size 6x6m and I have used glowing red/white color so they can emit light during the night. I also set a condition on these polys(boxes) so they appear once a plane is more than 2 km away from the object. Using this trick I can see lights approx 20km away or so.

Hope it helps.
 
Messages
611
Country
switzerland
Goran,

I wonder how that looks like! You got any screenshots? Especially at daytime...

Jeff
 
Messages
152
Hi Jeffrey!
Take a look at these screenshots; if You want to make some other, please don't hesitate to ask!

LJLJ_16.jpg


LJLJ_01.jpg


Below is 8,5nm before touchdown
LJLJ85nm.jpg


On short final in fog
LJLJ_fin.jpg


Please note, scenery is designed with FSDS2 but I am sure the same trick could apply to GMAX as well.

Best regards,
 
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bpahe

Resource contributor
Messages
335
Country
sweden
Gorchi,

this is very interesting. I have never succeded in making bright/luminous materials, could you please explain how you did this?

/hans
 
Messages
69
Oh most definitely give an explanation as to how you did this ! ! !
I am VERY interested in the process. I have had success in converting FSDS creations to Gmax versions.

I like what you have done. I'll begin working on a Gmax version.

Sean E.
 
Messages
68
Country
us-southcarolina
I am also interested in learning this technique.....have been working on a rotating airport beacon and would like to increase the power of the lights.

Thanks
 
Messages
152
Approach light in LJLJ

Oh guys...
Well as I said, I made this in FSDS2, not gmax so please bear with me :)
Anyway, the light in SCASM is produced with Light() instruction and for white approach light the code is:
Code:
Light( m 4 0.0 0.0 0.0 20 0.0 0.0 FF 255 250 232 0.0 0.0 0.0 )
Okay, this light works only for certain distance, for larger distances I have put a white box, which has self illumination enabled. In FSDS terms, I have set the following properties (for the box!):

Diffuse color: R255, G254, B234, A255 (alpha=255 -> completely opaque)
Ambient color: R64, G64, B64 (color of the object of the shadow site)
Specular color: R0, G0, B0 (shininess of object)
Emmisive color: R255, G237, B210 (i.e. night self illuminating color)

The next thing was to create this object sufficiently large to be visible at greater distances, so I set the condition of this box Distance from RefPoint (based upon variable h033b), so the object will show at distances greater than 3000m and up till 12000m.

And that's all! Well, there is maybe a little more; in PAPI lights I used 2 Light() instruction per one light (3 brings a little bit too bright light), CALVERT II approach lighting has 3 or 5 lights (spacing is approx 3m) in a row so they look bright enough.

I have attached also the source for library object of white approach light on Ljubljana airport (LJLJ).

If something is unclear or do You have further questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Best regards,
 

Attachments

  • Approach_light_wh.sca
    7.5 KB · Views: 600
Messages
69
Thanx Gorchi for the information. I have gone ahead and tried your settings in Gmax and have come up with the following:

Select a new bitmap materia and input the following:

Diffuse: Select the color box and select the color you wish the light to be.
(Ambient color will change automatically to the same color)

Self-Illumination: Select the 'color' check box and then select the 'glowing' color you would like it to be (normally the same color as the Diffuse)

Opacity: Keep this at 100% for a bright illumination. If you don't want it as bright then shift the opacity downwards.

This self-illumination ability can be used for taxiway lights (what I am using them for) with different LOD models with different self-illumination settings. You can use a simple pyramid model placed at ground level to imitate the light. Or a 'rotate to user' vertical polygon. This has a lot of possibilities to assist in night lighting for both buildings as well as lights.

Thanx again

Sean E.
 

bpahe

Resource contributor
Messages
335
Country
sweden
Hi!

Both Goran and Sean, thanks for the information! This solves, well not really a problem, but an issue that I have not dared to start working with since the FS2004 gamepack came out. Never got the bright_ suffix working before neither... ;)

/hans
 
Messages
69
All right Gentlemen and Ladies,

It has been brought to my attention that my instructions in my previous post are ineffective. So, I reviewed my workflow and lo-and-behold..... I forgot a few steps. DOH!!!! :eek:

So, I am now going to include screenshots of the finished effect as well as the Gmax material setting used to get the effect.

Step 1:
Create the object that you wish to 'glow effect'

Step 2:
Open the Gmax material editor and create a new standard Material

Step 3: (see pic for settings used)
- Select the Diffuse color box and select the base color of the object
- Select and drag the color box from the Diffuse and drop it into the Specular color box. Select 'copy' when prompted.
- Select the Self-Illumination check box next to color
- Drag and drop the color box from the Diffuse and drop it into the Self-Illumination color box. Select 'copy' when prompted.
- Change the Specular Level to 100 to achieve a bright glow effect

Glow_Gmax_FS9.jpg


Step 4:
Save and export through MakeMDL_FS9 and place into scenery


Glow_FS9.jpg


To lower the intensity of the effect, adjust the Specular Level percentage. You can go above 100% to get that nuclear fallout glow.

I apologize for the inaccuracies and hope this better explains the material setup in Gmax.

Sean E.
 
Messages
68
Country
us-southcarolina
Thanks alot Sean! You have made a relatively complex problem with the new gamepack very understandable :teacher: . :wizard:
 
Messages
152
Sean, thanks also from me as I am currently in first steps learning gmax ;) And every tutorial about gmax is useful!

Best regards,
 
Messages
69
You guys are welcome.
If you have any questions regarding how to do something in Gmax, you can message me and I will get back with you as soon as possible. If the explanation would be useful to the forum, I will go ahead and post it as a tutorial.

One of these days I will have to crank up my video recorder and create some video tutorials based on suggestions (like this illumination).

Talk with you all later.

Sean E.
 
Messages
59
Country
us-florida
Hello! I know I have come a bit late in this topic, but I have a couple of questions (for Sean especially). I am using a gmax tweaked ground poly in FS9, which, of course, means that all of my lights are gone. I understand Sean's use of the big bright taxiway light objects to help visibility at farther distancess, and infer that he would use LOD's of that with an actual sized light. First, I am wondering if there is a good LOD tutorial out there (if I search on LOD on this site the search term is too short). Secondly, I wonder how to place the lights. Would it be more benificial to place them within gmax or with XML? The latter would be rather tough, while in Gmax you can at least use the spacing tool.

Another question I would like to ask is where to find the specifications for the spacing of runway lights and US approach lighting systems as it seems these would have to be redone as well.

Thanks for your help!

Matt Perry
foxtrotsierra.org
 
Messages
59
Country
us-florida
It's great when I can answer my own post!

First off, sorry about the uninformed question on LOD tutorials, as I did find Arno's tutorial earlier today.

The way I have solved my problem for now is to make the photoreal ground polygon with the FS2002 gmax gamepack and edit the asm's using Arno's FS2002 method. Then create the runways and taxiways in AFW, make them transparent, and compile it in the FS2002 style. This way I can assign the layers to the ground poly and the AFW objects so they all show. Now with the transparent runways and taxiways, I can still have my photoreal surfaces with the lights created by the AFW scenery showing on top!

I know that this isn't so FS9 savvy, but it works for now! :D

Matt Perry
foxtrotsierra.org
 
Messages
18
Country
us-virginia
Thanks for bringing this topic up Matt, I learned something today.








I need to make some adjustments to the object placement, size, and color; otherwise so far so good.

Thanks Sean for sharing this info.
 
Messages
535
Country
germany
Just found that topic and it's quite interesting to me, too. I want to make some "parking lights" (the big ones at top of a pale with the BIG bright spot on the ground - like a street lamp). Therefore I need a transparent ground polygon with night glowing ... can I use the methods mentioned above for that? How do I have to alter them for just NIGHT light?

Can anyone tell me how to get a transparent ground polgon?!?
 
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Messages
17
Country
jamaica
I am trying to build some app lights for my mkjs scenery, I am using FSDS v3. I made the lights they don’t show up past 3 nm, and they flicker. Can someone help me with this please thanks
 
Messages
172
Country
netherlands
we'll this is interesting indeed :scratchch !
I have been working with scenery lights up till now, so how does this method work compared to that?
I have a basic blue taxiway light model. The top part is blue and partly transparent to imitate glass.
Can i assign a material to it that allows it to be transparent yet also emit light (preferable only at night)? Or must I clone the glass part, and assign this material you described to it?
What prefix must i give the material (i feel this is a stupid question....) and does it only illuminate at night? if so, what is it overday?
Thanks in advance :) !
 
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