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FSXA Emmisive VC Backlights...

Flying Officer Jevans

Flying Officer Jevans

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So, it now comes to programming the lighting for the VC. I'm using CRT screens as the main instruments, which are all lit as per Bill Leaming's method - ie. lightmap and Multiply Blend mode. Now, that works, and looks great at night, but there's a couple of things I'm not so keen on.

a) The effect fades in during dusk to full intensity. However, before it does this, the effect is absent completely, which for a CRT screen, doesn't look right, not so much during the day, but during the early stages of dusk. Is there any way this can be improved/changed?

b)( kind of related to a) How can I control the absence/presence of the effect for when the screen is switched off? I did think about using another gauge map as the lightmap, where a gauge controls what the lightmap looks like, and so whether it's lit up or not, but that's a bit resource-intensive, and also doesn't solve a).

If there was some way where I could take total control of the appearance of the lightmap, and during the day as well, that would solve both issues. Any ideas?:)
 
For FSX models, I suggest using the Additive mode for all "glass screens" so they will appear bright all the time.

To "control" the lighting, you have two polys for the "screens;" one with lighted FSX Material, the other with unlighted FSX Material.

You switch the two polys via a control node that responds to the appropriate electrical busses, such as "master battery" or "avionics & master battery."

Alternatively, you can have two polys for the "screens;" one with FSX Material w/ Additive mode for the daytime only, and the other with FSX Material w/ Multiply Blend mode for dusk/dawn/night times.

Yet another method might be to have a single poly for the "screens" with an FSX Material w/ Additive mode, but control the Self-Illumination with a small (64x64 pix) "gauge" that provides the "pure white" to "pure black" source based on an electrical bus, or perhaps variable output based on a set of semi-transparent overlays.

Whatever you do decide to do however, make certain that you have throughly planned out in advance precisely what your end goals are, so you don't waste a lot of time painting yourself into a figurative corner! :rotfl:
 
The problem is that these are CRT's, so the background gets lit up too. If I tune it so it's right in the day with additive, then it looks wrong at night etc.

Multiply blend just looks so good in the night, but not in the day for CRT. Hmmm....

I'll have a play.
 
Flying Officer Jevans said:
The problem is that these are CRT's, so the background gets lit up too. If I tune it so it's right in the day with additive, then it looks wrong at night etc.

Multiply blend just looks so good in the night, but not in the day for CRT. Hmmm....

I'll have a play.
Click to expand...

Select the poly(s) for the "screen" and Detach. Then, Link the "screen poly(s)" to the "frame/bezel poly(s)"...

...which then allows you to use different lighting techniques for the frames/bezels, and the LCD/CRT screens!

Yes, that does result in a slightly higher number of draw calls, but...

...since proper cockpit/gauge lighting is of such importance in creating the "immersive experience," it is well worth the small cost IMHO. :cool:
 
It's not really the bezels, more the sort of 'noise' you get on a dirty CRT screen when there is nothing displayed on that part of the screen, but it still lights up a bit. If I use additive, either the 'noise' is the correct shade and the actual displayed items are really dark, or the items are the correct shade and the noise is really light.

I should probably take a screenshot to demonstrate this...:)
 
Well, these are what all the blend modes look like. As you can see, additive never really seems to work well for me - blend I haven't included, but I get much the same results. I think I've sorted the issue of control now, with separate nodes. As you can see, multiplyblend looks great in the dark, but during the rest of the day it looks too dark - especially at dusk.

If I could just get MultiplyBlend to look a bit brighter at dusk and in the day, I'd be sorted!

2010-8-15_18-20-45-228.bmp
 
To use the Additive mode properly, you need to duplicate the $xxxx assigned to the Diffuse Color slot in the Self-Illumination slot...

...that way the gauge provides it's own "backlighting..."

Only use the xxx_L for MultiplyBlend modes.

Here is a shot at dusk of the C310's GNS530 and GNS430 units with Additive on the screens, and MultiplyBlendUserControlled on the bezels & frames:

c310000015.jpg
 
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