• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

FS2004 Adding effects problems

A

atco

Messages
53
Country
ca-ontario
Hi all,

I'm having real problems attatching effects using MCX.
The only one that seems to work is the smokestack effect.

I have built a set of lights, some taxiway edge lights and taxi centreline lights.

I have my effects and checked them in the fx viewer and they show up perfectly there.

When I attach them though to my gmax made lights they don't show either in MCX or in sim.
I added them exactly how the tutorial adds the smoke so I am sure they are placed correctly.
I actually had no success with MCX adding any effects other than the smokestack.fx
That was the only one that worked, no other smoke nor lights would appear.

Any ideas, have I messed something up again ?
Is there any other way to attach effects other than with MCX?
 
Hi,

Could you maybe show an example that does not work to me? I would be able to debug it then. Might be a bug somewhere.
 
Certainly,

Enclosed is a zip with the mdls and the relevant effects files and controllers.

What I am aiming to do is create the lights and attach the effects to them then compile them into a library to place by hand with IS2.

Thanks for your help Arno

Regards
Garry
 

Attachments

Ok, I'll take a look at it.
 
Hi,

I think the problem is in the effect file itself. My FXEditor tool can not show it either. I am still comparing it to the light effect I use in ModelConverterX to see what the difference is.

One thing I notice is you have three emitters, why do you have 3 for a light and not one?
 
Hi Arno,

Thats odd because FXEditor shows it fine here !

I am very new with effects (as with scenery design in general) and simply referred to other effects in my effects folder as to how they were done and then created the parameters for my own effects.
Thats how I saw other light effects done so I simply assumed thats how they were created.

Regards
Garry
 
Hi,

Two things I noticed:

You have the color rate attribute at 0.0 0.0. Not sure if that works, but that could mean that you get the end colour directly. And your end colour is transparent.

Your first colour has a start and end colour with low alpha values (1 and 2), you would probably never see them.
 
Hi Arno,

I tried an experiment.
I placed the effects using Fence Builder Pro and they show up perfectly in the sim as you can see:
fsd1.jpg


Obviously placing every effect by hand is tolerable (barely) for a small airport, but for my next project (much larger hub) its not realistic.
Ideally I would like to find a solution.

It is possible is it to attach an effect to an mdl, then put the mdl into a library to place in sim?
 
Hi,

Good, seems to be a bug in FXEditor then that it doesn't show. I'll take another look tonight.

Yes, it is possible to add an effect to a mdl object.
 
Hi,

I had another look at this issue.

First I tried to add your affect to another MDL object and I tested it in FS. The effect shows up fine.

In ModelConverterX there is a bug with the drawing order of particle effects compared to the actual object. I noticed that because of this bug the light was not visible from some angles in ModelConverterX.

I also noticed that you had a condition DUSK=1;DAWN=1;NIGHT=1 on your effect. That won't work unfortunately. You need to make two copies of the effect. One with DAY=0;NIGHT=1 and the other with DAWN=1;DUSK=1.

Also be aware that in FS2004 attached effects can be excluded by the exclude file of your own scenery. That is a nasty bug.
 
Thanks for your attention Arno, I fixed the dusk/dawn/night issue, everything shows up perfectly.

Appreciate your time in dealing with this.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top