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MSFS20 How to place taxiway hold short blinking light?

RomanDesign

RomanDesign

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canada
I'm trying to place the Taxiway Hold Short blinking light, the model is in the Scenery Editor:
1617570198067.png

But it doesn't light or blink. And I've seen it working on some sceneries. I think I saw a blinking lights separately somewhere, but I could not find those. Anyone knows how to place it properly so it's blinking?
 
Hello Roman... I have created two circle mirror with a 3dsmax light in front of them.
Color and phase are managed in 3dsmax.
1617900047115.png
1617900082832.png

It's not a perfect system.. and you will have to rotate slightly the light to the sky to avoid ground illumination.
 
aut0mater said:
Hi Roman,

I just started myself working on an airport with hold short lights. I am using the EDHK Light Pack from flightsim.to and using the "10w_orange_runway_guard_light_Inlay_EDHK" scaled down to "0.25"

Hope this helps.

https://imgur.com/a/NJbqQQv
Click to expand...
I've done something very similar, only in Blender. But in the middle of the two suggestions in this thread. While I have a very faint ground illumination, it's just a hint, not as bright as the last one...
 
Hello,

I created one in blender.

The recipe in a few words

Prepare the wigwag light, dark light faces
Duplicate one of the light faces and use a bright color
Add an animation so that this face switches from one side to the other I used 12 tick per side
Attach a spot light child to this face
For the night create the emissive texture

Works well for my airport. Good luck.

Regards
Jörg
 
For anyone's future reference this can be done with the light presets in the SDK's airport properties. It's not perfect but I just couldn't face any more dicking around with Blender.

These are the settings. You can only attach custom lights to light rows.

You need to assign the light to a non physical mesh such as light_warm_medium or whatever it's called and then place it on the SDK modelled wigwags by stringing a light row between them and selecting your preset in the light row properties.

This preset is two lights side by side that flash on and off in sequence. So that will be one pair of lights per light row vertices.

Because of their utterly ludicrous x,y,z coordinate system it takes ages to get right, you need the wigwags already placed for coordinate reference, and you'll have to do a new preset for other wigwags pointing in other directions.
 

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superspud said:
You need to assign the light to a non physical mesh such as light_warm_medium
Click to expand...
Hi SS. Hate to open this again but for dummies… is this still valid? I get no properties like you’ve displayed on anything. I wonder if you have time to detail what to select and how in a bit more detail because I’m obviously lost…
 
Ironpot said:
Hi SS. Hate to open this again but for dummies… is this still valid? I get no properties like you’ve displayed on anything. I wonder if you have time to detail what to select and how in a bit more detail because I’m obviously lost…
Click to expand...
Yes. They still work for me.

If you copy those settings exactly you should get the right look. It's the 'relative settings' bit that's an absolute bastard to get right which is the location of each light. Their coordinate system doesn't make any sense, it's pure guessswork so it took me about 30 minutes, but maybe there's something I'm missing.

Double check the height of the light, which is the middle entry in the relative settings line. If it's zero then it'll be buried in the ground.

Place the light row, and then set the preset in the light row's properties. You may also not have checked 'snap to vertices' in the light row properties which will place the light at each point you place rather than a set distance.
 
@superspud thanks for the reply. A bit more to the solution. 1 more sleep!! Santa 🎅 🛷 In the wigwag.jpg image - what is that the properties of? I don’t get that on any of the objects. I placed a light row between the two Taxiway Hold Short blinking light objects (should I use the actual EDAK wigwag -or whatever it’s called) and then put a light_warm_medium over one of the lights. None of these objects have expanded attributes like you showed. I copied the GUID of the light into the light_warm_medium but nothing. Actually haven’t got a clue as I said to what I’m really doing.
 
The light presets are in the airport object's properties at the bottom of its properties window.

You're only using the light_warm_medium as an invisible mesh to place your own custom light on inside the light presets. All custom lights need a mesh assigned to them and in this case you don't want a visible one getting the way.

I'm going to update this - https://flightsim.to/file/17656/a-guide-to-msfs-scenery-creation in the next 3-4 hours or so and I'll break it down properly in there. It'll be at the end of the main document.
 
Thanks so much! You’ve obviously done all your Christmas shopping and have idle time. Like most’normal’ people I’m doing circuits of a car park because we’re out looking for that last minute must have item for a relative I don’t even know and can’t see because of rampant COVID-19. Lol the joys of life!
 
Nice one.

It's not a perfect implementation but the visibility is the important thing. There's still no way I can find to make a Blender model's lighting act in the way I want it to.
 
superspud said:
Yes. They still work for me.

If you copy those settings exactly you should get the right look. It's the 'relative settings' bit that's an absolute bastard to get right which is the location of each light. Their coordinate system doesn't make any sense, it's pure guessswork so it took me about 30 minutes, but maybe there's something I'm missing.

Double check the height of the light, which is the middle entry in the relative settings line. If it's zero then it'll be buried in the ground.

Place the light row, and then set the preset in the light row's properties. You may also not have checked 'snap to vertices' in the light row properties which will place the light at each point you place rather than a set distance.
Click to expand...
I was trying to get this working last night and I stumbled upon this post. I think that all of the taxi lights (or a sizable portion of them) were exported with improper origins and transforms. The light you are showing above, for example. If I place it in a row with 2 points, and set the row to place the lights on the vertices, I get 2 lights in the correct places, but they are rotated at an approx 22° angle so they face the wrong way. I attempted to use the relative position coordinates to properly position 2 lights and set them to flash properly. That light looked beautiful. As soon as I moved it to a new location, the bulbs became misaligned. Everywhere I move the assembly, the bulbs shift to a new, slightly different location. What a mess.

The regular taxi light all work great, but you have to set the middle relative position value to .68 to place the light in the center of the globe. Place one and stick it on a light support and you can see that all of them have the light source stuck to the origin point at the bottom of the base. The wigwag is an extreme example since it has 2 bulbs, and an unnatural built in angle that you have to account for in the relative settings fields. Grrr....
 
MD_Flier said:
I was trying to get this working last night and I stumbled upon this post. I think that all of the taxi lights (or a sizable portion of them) were exported with improper origins and transforms. The light you are showing above, for example. If I place it in a row with 2 points, and set the row to place the lights on the vertices, I get 2 lights in the correct places, but they are rotated at an approx 22° angle so they face the wrong way. I attempted to use the relative position coordinates to properly position 2 lights and set them to flash properly. That light looked beautiful. As soon as I moved it to a new location, the bulbs became misaligned. Everywhere I move the assembly, the bulbs shift to a new, slightly different location. What a mess.
Click to expand...
I guesss it's because there isn't really a pivot point as such. The light coordinates are fixed in the properties. With wigwags particularly you often want them each facing slightly inward which means you need a different preset for each side.

It's only an issue for where you need two lights working together such as here. For conventional stuff I'd duplicate the same light individually rather than trying to string them together.

I started off using the wigwag model as the 3d mesh in the light preset properties but that was utterly hopeless so switched to a non physical one and imposed it on the separate unlit model. You can't rotate a light row.
 
I found a real easy way to place the lights and it’s probably what you meant in the instructions anyway and I just interpreted them slightly differently.
1. Add 1 preset named wigwag with the settings you show, add the light row, link to wigwag and place it in front of the right globe. You will only see 1 blinking light on the row.
2. Add another preset but name it wigwag2 and provide the second settings you gave. Add the light row and link this one to wigwag2. Again you’ll only see one flashing light. Place it in front of the left globe.
They both now flash alternatively and you can duplicate and move anywhere easily.
So I used two independent light rows per L/R and just duplicated the light rows in front on the Light01s I placed at every Hold Short. No rotates or angles. Simple!
Thanks again @superspud
 
Thanks guys, I went with what is apparently the "standard' way as described above. Works like a charm. My wigwags and I thank you and wish you a very happy new year!

It sure would be nice if the relative position coordinates were based on the origin of the mesh (which would hopefully be located at the center so rotations worked properly) so we could simply select the wigwag as the mesh, add 2 lights, set the correct positions of the lights, and then use it as a complete unit we could duplicate, position, and rotate as we choose.
 
RomanDesign said:
I'm trying to place the Taxiway Hold Short blinking light, the model is in the Scenery Editor:
View attachment 71697
But it doesn't light or blink. And I've seen it working on some sceneries. I think I saw a blinking lights separately somewhere, but I could not find those. Anyone knows how to place it properly so it's blinking?
Click to expand...

Is that model part of the game assets, or did you bring that in as a custom model?

If it's a default, do you remember where or the file name?
 
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