P3D v3 Trying to make airport lights, but have problems

[Azurafiles]

Trying to make airport lights that shine on apron from a light mast using the below guide.
http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/fsx-light-method.426810/page-3

But as you can see, the light rays do not show when watching the with the apron behind the light ray.
What could be causing this?

Any help would be welcome so I can test.
You can also see that the light splash on the ground does not illuminate the apron, but only the none apron area.

 

[Chazz]

How did you build the taxiways and apron? If you have used blender, 3ds, gmax or something like that, I think you have to make/ assign a night texture.

 

[Tejal Bernardo]

about the apron could be it's not a hard Surface? and maybe some parameter in the "alpha test" function,

 

[Shaun]

Put an lod-0 in the lights.

 

[Azurafiles]

How did you build the taxiways and apron? If you have used blender, 3ds, gmax or something like that, I think you have to make/ assign a night texture.

I use Sketchup

 

[Azurafiles]

about the apron could be it's not a hard Surface? and maybe some parameter in the "alpha test" function,

Not sure, how would I know this?
I compile the model with Ground Wizard in MDCX ''this is a sketchup model''

 

[Azurafiles]

Put an lod-0 in the lights.

Never tried using lod's

Where should I put a zero and any thing else need to be changed?

Thanks

 

[AndyCYXU]

You can also see that the light splash on the ground does not illuminate the apron, but only the none apron area.

I am new to this whole airport design thing myself, but i had problems with TAXI lights not working on my taxiways which are a Ground Poly after researching some topics I think that p3dv3 the lights as explain in tutorials will not show light splash on ground poly objects, not even the light rays! so what I did..

both taxiways/runways and lights are made in SU.
instead of using MCX to make my taxiways/runways/aprons object a ground poly I converted it into MDL model file with all its textures, then I used "convert and place object" wizard of MCX, imported the MDL file and converted the whole thing with that. (you need to know coordinates of your object to use it if not simply export to MDL only then use ADE to place it)
I did the same thing with the SU object that has all the taxi lights.
and then everything worked good.
As it seems lights created following many tutorials for FSX will not light up GROUND POLY in p3d, they do in FSX but not in P3D, you will not even see the light rays.
so the way I went instead of making my aprons/taxiways etc.. a ground poly they are an object that can also be placed using ADE by importing the MDL file to ADE and placing it manually if you don't know coordinates, same with lights.
so kind of go Object on Object and it worked, but going Object(light) on GroundPoly(apron/taxiway etc..) will NOT work.

Bottom line: your lights will not work over any ground poly! yet they work perfectly fine (as seen in your picture) to illuminate nicely grass beside which is NOT a groundpoly.

idk I hope I am being helpful here maybe your problem is entirely different

Andy

 

[Shaun]

Add an empty LOD.

 

[Tejal Bernardo]

I think that the Surface must be "hard Surface" to see the lights, or at least is what i have always thought, like the aircrafts taxilights efect on the runways, right now don't know if read about this somewhere or by experience. MCX have a utility for this porpouse.

 

[robystar]

Yes, as Shaun said, use MCX and add an empty LOD.

 

[pinkjr]

Yes, as Shaun said, use MCX and add an empty LOD.

Roby, how do you add an empty LOD?

 

[pinkjr]

basically Add Empty LOD = 0?

 

[robystar]

Once loaded your object (mdl or bgl), lick on 'Generate LODs' in MCX and then in the 'Level of Detail Creator', click on 'Add empty LOD' and specify 10 or zero whatever you want.

 

[pinkjr]

Thanks Roby, I just wasn't sure what the value was for. I'll try zero and 10.

 

[robystar]

Do not lick it but click it. Sorry.

 

[pinkjr]

Roby, thank you so much for your recommendation, I added the empty LOD = 10 and it worked exactly as advertised! I have to go now share the wealth as others are having similar issues.

What exactly triggers the necessity for this work around, did P3D introduce a new graphical filter that does away with normal splash techniques?

Again, thank you so much.

David

 

[robystar]

Thank Shaun.

 

[pinkjr]

Thank Shaun.

Correct, thank you Shaun and everyone else as well.

 

[Azurafiles]

How did you build the taxiways and apron? If you have used blender, 3ds, gmax or something like that, I think you have to make/ assign a night texture.

I used Sketchup to make the custom ground and then used ground wizard in mdcx