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Lights Not Showing

Bluestar, I'm sure we can get to the bottom of this. Clearly, AFLT IS working on your system. What is not clear is what you see as a problem.

In the first post above you said
The center line and taxiway lights are not visible. When I use CONNECT the taxiway and center line lights are visible, but extremely bright (too much bloom).
Click to expand...
Let's forget the extremely bright comment for a minute and focus on the rest. Without context this says those lights are on when they should be and off when they're not. At the time I didn't know what you meant by "CONNECT" (which is not intended to be a standard user control.) I inferred from that statement that taxiway edge lights were not visible. Later on you said:
The runway center line lights also do not appear. The taxiway and runway edge lights with there mounting stands appear, but any light that is to be on the surface does not appear.
Click to expand...
but then sent a screenshot showing runway centerline lights (illumination, that is).

It has occurred to me that by "any light that is to be on the surface", you are referring not to the "light bloom" but, rather, to the fact that there are no 3D models for surface lights, because clearly you are seeing the illumination. If that is the case, this is by intent. Having a ground poly modelling a surface light base (basically a silver circle on - most often - the grey asphalt) doesn't seem to add a lot to realism, but could significantly increase the load on the CPU and thereby, adversely affect FPS. So, I decided they would be a waste.

As for the brightness of the light, I can only use the "levers" Flightsim gives me. Like most things, the balance between light visible range and closeup appearance is a compromise. AFLT allows you to easily adjust light brightness by editing "lights.txt", a simple text file.
 
Don,

What I was expecting to see and what AFLT was displaying were different. I was hoping to be able to place runway edge lights and taxiway edge lights on my airport with the associated above ground light stands. This was accomplished. When I started my sim the stands were visible and at night the lights from the stands were visible (no bloom).

What I was expecting to see with the runway center line lights and the taxiway center line lights was very similar to what I was seeing when I built center line lights using ADEX. I was not expecting to see any objects on the runway/taxiway similar to a "surface light base." I did not see the center line lights at night except when using the "CONNECT" button. This is what I was attempting to show with the two pictures I posted, one "DISCONNECT" and one "CONNECT". I thought the purpose of the "bloom effect" was to make the lights standout for editing purposes only.

Where I was getting confused was my misuse/misinterpretation of what I was seeing when I used the "CONNECT" button. The taxiway center line lights and the runway center line lights would appear with the bloom using the "CONNECT" button,. When I didn't use the "CONNECT" button the center line lights would not be visible, but the runway edge lights and taxiway edge lights would be visible as stated in my first paragraph (no bloom). Since I was able to see the edge lights at night, but not the center line lights at night, I thought the problem was with my system.

Hopefully this is a better presentation of what I was trying to accomplish.

Bill
 
OK. Now I understand. You are surprised that the edge lights stay on when you Disconnect, but the surface/centerline lights do not.

Here's the explanation. With P3D, any light that requires its on/off status to change other than at the day/dusk/dawn changeover must be a simobject. SImobjects require more processing than simple scenery objects, So a development goal was to minimize the number of simobjects. Runway/taxiway edge lights need no such on-off control unless you program PCL or the airport operates less than 24 hrs per day. Consequently, in the absence of such conditions, runway/taxiway edge lights are scenery objects, not simobjects and are unaffected by Connect/Disconnect status. For some reason, I chose to always make surface lights simobjects. Therefore, centerline lights are sensitive to Connect/Disconnect status.

AFLT is working on your system as it is intended. All you need do is ignore the Connect/Disconnect dialog. As I said before, it is not intended to be a "standard" user control - but, since I can't suppress it, I felt it needed to be mentioned in the user manual and it is handy for test purposes.

You may think the lights are too dim or too bright. If so, you have several methods of controlling that. But I have to leave that up to the user. It's unlikely I could please everybody with a single setting.

I hope this explanation is adequate.
 
gadgets said:
You may think the lights are too dim or too bright. If so, you have several methods of controlling that. But I have to leave that up to the user. It's unlikely I could please everybody with a single setting.

I hope this explanation is adequate.
Click to expand...

Don,

Thanks for the explanation.

I looked at the lights.txt file. Can you tell me which of the titles is used to adjust the center line light brightness?

Thanks,

Bill
 
Depends on how it is programmed. The information you need will be on the Taxiway lighting dialog
 
Runway and taxiway lights (in general) use the Edge type of light, AFAIK. Details in Appendix C of the PDF user manual. If you are using LOD Variable lights, I assume that the relevant column is Light Bahr, currently set at 1.5.
 
tgibson said:
Runway and taxiway lights (in general) use the Edge type of light, AFAIK. Details in Appendix C of the PDF user manual. If you are using LOD Variable lights, I assume that the relevant column is Light Bahr, currently set at 1.5.
Click to expand...

Tom and Don,

In my AFLT folder there are two files, Lights.txt and BaseModels.txt. The BaseModels.txt file lists 11 different categories of lights under the Name/Category column. The Lights.txt file lists 10 different categories under Model Name/Base Model. The BaseModels.txt file has a category - Surface. The category Surface is missing from the Lights.txt file. Could the absence of the Surface category from the Lights.txt file be one of the reasons that my surface lights are not displaying in my airport?
 
My lights.txt file also does not have a Surface type and they are displaying fine here, as long as I click CONNECT (as you should as well).
 
Could the absence of the Surface category from the Lights.txt file be one of the reasons that my surface lights are not displaying in my airport? No. As noted above, surface lights are always implemented as simobjects. When you Disconnect, YOU turn them off.
 
Don,

When I stay CONNECTED the surface lights always display, even in the day.

I've spent over 40 hours trying to get this to work. I realize the problem is with me and not your program.

I really liked the ability to place the lights as they are in the airport that I am trying to model.. It made the process fast and smooth. Although it took me two hours, I was able to get the MALSR lighting configured as the airport appears. Something I didn't have the talent to do using ADEX.

Thanks for your time and a great program.

Grace and Peace,

Bill
 
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