FSXA Brighter approach lights

[Tejal Bernardo]

Well, as the title said, I have twelve lights (green/red lights) in a row, in the runway threshold, this effects are default, but I see them as very dimmed, it's difficult to see them when landing, I scale them (the only tweak I know for Fx files) and was useless. and I can swear I've been searching for any type of answer without success, really shocking when I guess it should be a basic question or problem.

 

[RicherSims]

I use a combination of BGL lights and effects to get the required brightness. The BGL lights are coded to be uni-directional (red on one side, green on the other).
As you can see below, the lights are bright at distance but shrink to almost nothing up close. That's where pretty night textures for the bulbs and effects come into play.

 

[ollyau]

I think your runway edge lights are much more realistic than the default lights. They definitely don't match with the rest of FSX, though.

 

[Tejal Bernardo]

Hi Mouse, hey the runway is almost the same, how you combine the bgl and effect, unidirectional, you mean you see from one side with a color and the other side with another ? sorry but I am a little dumb, have the runway 1200 meters ?, what I am interested indeed is in those lights in the threshold, it's are callled Rail lights ?, not sure, those lights must be brighter, above all the two strobe lights, that are ridicolous dimmed.
Yes Ollyau, the lights don't match with the sorrounding lights, I see that too, but above all with the Papi lights, which make to look the runways lights as lighters, I think that more or less the lights are correct, I don't like the runways look like a christams tree, the lights look great if you are next to them but no so in the air. it's the brightness , don't know what parameters could be.
Poeople talk about double effect placement, about controlers, could be the secret is in the texture? thanks for the answers.

 

[Tejal Bernardo]

I will be upadating the news, well some thing I observed now is that placing light with one effect with just the day/night tag work, but I place another with the dusk/dawn day/night tag and two effect each for every tag not work, it's switched on all the time, I have tried to manipulate the texture of the effect but once I touch the bmp this not will work in Fsx. bad life this of Fsx hobby.

 

[RicherSims]

That is correct Bernardo. When approaching from one side the green light is visible and the red light is off. When on the runway, the red light is visible and the green is off. That gives the effect of a 2 sided bulb.
I combine them by using the Attached Object Editor in MCX.

Here comes the details I discovered from endless reading here. (LOOOONNGGGGG!!!).

1) First I make a taxi light with a night texture that makes it look lit up.

2) Then I attach a custom effect to give a bit of a glow around the bulb. (You can simply copy the default fx_2.bmp and change its RGB colour using the FX Editor from Arno and save it using a new name.)
For the effects, you need 1 with the day=0, night=1 tag, and a duplicate effect with the dusk=1,dawn=1 tag.

3)Then I attach an FS9 BGL light at the same place. This is coded with the correct colour, time of day settings, and code to make it appear on one side only (Separation plane). The seperation plane depends on your runway heading.
I have highlighted the important parts in red below:

  db  'R','I','F','F'                ; RIFF file identifier
    dd  bgl_data_end - $ - 4            ; size of RIFF data
    db  'M','D','L','9'                ; file identifier (FS9 model)

    db  'M','D','L','H'
    dd  visual_model_header_end - $ - 4
    dd  visual_model_header_end - $ - 4
    dd  0
    dd  0
    dd  1
    dd  0
    dd  0
    dd  156
    db  'F','S','8','0'
    dd  2304
visual_model_header_end  label dword

    db  'I','S','F','T'   
    dd  ver_end - $ - 4  
    db  "rhumbaflappy",0
ver_end label word       

bounding_box_riff_start    label    word
    db  'B','B','O','X'   
    dd  bounding_box_riff_end - $ - 4
    real4  -0.005, -0.005, -0.005  
    real4  0.005, 0.005, 0.005 
bounding_box_riff_end label word       

exterior_riff_start_0 label BGLCODE
    db  'E','X','T','E'   
    dd  exterior_riff_end_0 - $ - 4

    db    'B','G','L',' '
    dd    bgl_riff_end_Light - $ - 4

[COLOR="Red"]SEPARATION_PLANE WrongSide, -31795, 0, 7927, 32768     [B];determines whether you are on the wrongside of the light to turn it off, this is a green light on runway 10.[/B]
    IFIN1 nolight, tod, 2, 4   [B];time of day settings[/B]
      BGL_LIGHT 0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0, 0.0, 0.0, 0FF4eda57h, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0    [B];4eda57 is hex for green[/B]
    nolight       label BGLCODE
      BGL_RETURN    BGL_END
WrongSide label BGLCODE
BGL_RETURN[/COLOR]

bgl_riff_end_Light    label    BGLCODE
exterior_riff_end_0    label    BGLCODE
bgl_data_end label     BGLCODE

Credit goes to Rhumbaflappy for the most of the BGL code.
Read up on separation planes tutorial here:
http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=PAPI_creation_(ASM_tweak)
The are used in PAPIs but you will only need the first separation plane for heading, and not for altitude.

Other answers:
Double placement increases effect brightness, but I think they look odd up close. BGL lights are the only other way to (satisfactorily) increase brightness at distance.
Controllers are used to control when and how effects appear. For example to fix the problem of effects not appearing when approaching the airport from further away.

Don't be afraid to ask for more help.

 

[Tejal Bernardo]

Hi, I checked tha day night; dusk dawn issue, and this work correctly, was me which had mistyped the tag.
Interesting the double sided lights, but I will try doubled effects placement,
I guess the effect texture can be edited, why don't work when I edit them ? I just apply more color and brigthness.

 

[RicherSims]

Which effect are you editing and how exactly are you editing them?

I once forgot to save my texture back as an extended bitmap. Caused me great headache in trying to figure out why they were not showing up.

 

[Tejal Bernardo]

Yes, it's my only guess, photoshop when export no export correct the bmp. it's the only thing I am suspicious.
Must be some kind of effect according to the service, it's imposible the red lights on the top of the poles are so dimmed, something else to investigate, but having a town, a forest and else to do be stoped here is bad

 

[RicherSims]

You have not said the name of the effect file you are editing.
I need to know so I can determine what the correct format should be.
If it is the default fx_2.bmp, you need to use a program like DXTBMP to save it again as an Extended Bitmap.

 

[Tejal Bernardo]

right, it's the fsx_2.bmp and I'm guessing that should be Dxtbmp, having problems with the alphachannels.

 

[RicherSims]

That effect texture has no alpha channel. After you have edited it in photoshop, simply open it in DXTBMP and save it again as Extended BMP. It should now show up in FSX.

 

[Tejal Bernardo]

Yes, they have, all of them have, anyway the effects must be edited with care to no get strange outputs,but in someway work, thanks for the interest, I will tell if I get something.

 

[jerzem]

Hi Mousy,

Your Point 3 in the Post Nr. 6

I´ve found your post and was happy, because i had search a lot of time a way to make my rwy lights as the stock lights AND put it exactly to the point where I want it.

But now I have a problem. I don´t know, what shall I do with the code you wrote in. Have I to make a *.fx file?

You wrote "Then I attach an FS9 BGL light at the same place...." I wish, I have to create a new Objekt (maked a Plane), but when I use the Attach Tool, I can only attach an *.fx file. No others appears to me.

But when I make an *.fx file and put your code in, I don´t see the light in FSX.

Please, please... can you tell me more about that? What I have to do with your code to make it work in FSX.

Many thanks
Oli

PS: The problem is only your Point 3. To attach an "effect.fx" works perfect. I can this single and multiple with a script (from tutorial in the Wiki).

 

[RicherSims]

First of all I used ModelConverterX to do my attach, since it is much simpler. If you are using Gmax or 3DSMax, it is a bit more involved.

The BGL light is created by typing the code in notepad and then saving as a ".asm" file.
This file can then be "dragged and dropped" onto BGLC_9.exe which comes in the BGL Compiler SDK of the FS2004SDK.

The result is a BGL light which must be renamed to a ".MDL" file as it as actually an FS9 model.
Next you add this to an FS9 Library by using the LibraryCreatorXML tool.
The resulting GUID is what you use to reference the BGL light when you attach it as an object in MCX.

P.S. MCX and Library Creator XML can all be found here: http://www.scenerydesign.org/development-releases/
The BGL compiler SDK of the FS2004SDK can be found here: http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/downloads.php?do=file&id=29

Hope this is clear enough.

 

[L_Rob]

I use a combination of BGL lights and effects to get the required brightness. The BGL lights are coded to be uni-directional (red on one side, green on the other).
As you can see below, the lights are bright at distance but shrink to almost nothing up close. That's where pretty night textures for the bulbs and effects come into play.

Hi Mousy,
I hope this is not too far off topic but your description of .bgl lights that are bright at a distance yet shrink as one gets close is something I'd like to investigate for lighthouse effects for FSX and P3D v2. However I think I remember reading that there is a problem with FS 9 .bgl lights at least in P3D v2.x.

Do you have any suggestions? Ideally I would like to be able to be able to control the characteristics of the light (color, period, duration, fade in and fade out, etc) as I now can using a .fx effect file. It would be great if it would be easy to make specific effects for various lighthouses simply changing the lighthouse characteristics, e.g. R W fl 10 seconds, etc. At least there would be no separation plane to worry about. In addition, this might be a way of overcoming what seems to be the limited range of standard light effects in P3D v2.1, even using a controller with a distance setting.

Thanks much

Larry

 

[RicherSims]

I have yet to look into developing for P3D2 so I have no idea. (Perhaps I will set up a test with my lights when I get a chance).
I do know you can easily change the colour of said bgl lights, and they are visible from quite a distance out in FSX, however I am an unsure of whether attributes such as duration and period exist (as compared to effects). Perhaps someone such as Rhumbaflappy, from whom I got the code, could answer such questions.

PS: I have since moved away from bgl lights and towards brightly lit 2D planes using the frame buffer blend technique, using mipmaps to control brightness at varying distance. They function like effects but with a significantly smaller impact on frames. The downside is they do not work well with fog and clouds, and apparently not at all with P3D2 (in any weather).

 

[L_Rob]

Thanks for this! I think my best bet is to wait for someone who knows what they are doing to figure it out with respect to P3D v2 etc.