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FSXA New way to make light splash.

jtanabodee

Resource contributor
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thailand
Hi,
After some discuss with Ian from this topic about taxi light. I found it is too faint to my like to make taxi light (blue light on the taxi way). But I modified the setting a bit and use it as a light glow. It came out very good. Bill has posted his setting about the light and I personally found that difficult to make and I cannot control the color of light. This setting is much simpler and you all can do it without difficulty.
Please refer the setting to Ian's setting at this link. url=http://fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=259310
To give a short summary:
1. Make the light color to a separate texture, not the same you use with other things like the pole of light. It should be a smaller one since we'd like to have diffuse edge as much as possible. I use 128X128. Paint the light you want on a pure black background. Then save it as a night light texture. I still use _lm behind the name, although it is NOT necessary. It will be convenient to know which one is the night texture. Mine is halo_lm.dds like the way Ian use. I don't think alpha channel is needed.
2. Make a pure only black texture and save it as day texture on the same name. Mine is halo.dds.
3. Then set up the material like the way Ian use. But I modified it a bit.
The most important settings are:
No shadow
No base material specular
Framebuffer Blend is the most of the most important setting.
Destination Blend= One (This means the whole object will be the destination. Transparency will depend on the source color not the alpha channel.)
Source Blend = SrcColor (This means what is black in the texture will be transparent, not blend. Where the texture is in color will be blend to the object behind this materal.)
Final Alpha Mulitply =0.5

Set final alpha value at render time =true
So with this settings, the pure black texture will not be seen. (day texture = diffuse texture. I always amaze why don't they use simple term make more understanding.) So that during the day it is not visible and the night what is pure black in the texture will be transparent. What is in colour in texture will be blend with the object behind this material.
I think alpha channel is not needed.
As I said final result is remarkable.
vmmcLight01.JPG


vmmcLight02-1.JPG


4. Make you light plane. I used cone at first gmax model but I fould that the edge is too sharp and not realistic. This picture I used cone.
vmmcLight.JPG


So I changed to a plane and I set double side for the material too.

LightGmax (3).JPG


This is the way I made my light. The arrow number 1 is the light glow plane. The arrow number 2 is the attached effect.
The bottom plane I elevated to 0.1 and it does not cause flickering.
Try it, and post the result of yours. Please disscuss more.
Thanks,
Tic
 
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Clever how you eliminate the defined edge! Impressive job, and thanks for sharing. :)
 
Should I chage the name of topic to "New way to make light glow." Splash is used for water. But I could not change the name of topic.

Thanks ollyau, try it and you will love it. It is easy to make.
One other thing, it have some problem with the low visibity like Ian said. It will show up as a white plan. I still cannot find the way out of this. But I can live with that since the night light is so real.
I took alpha channel out and the result still the same.
No alpha channel is needed.

Please give credit to Ian. He is the first one who tell us about his setting.
 
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A very good idea! Looks great.
Would you be willing to issue a small gmax file (one lamp) as an example?
For a closer view would help very much. Thanks...
 
A very good idea! Looks great.
Would you be willing to issue a small gmax file (one lamp) as an example?
For a closer view would help very much. Thanks...
OK, I'll do that tomorrow. I'll pack just only the light to make easier to study.
 
It looks good but must admit am a bit confused with the last step, are they seperate planes used to simulate the rays of light coming from the pole, what do the textures themselves looks like?

Thanks :)
 
OK, guys. I got this file uploaded.
The file include the light glow plane, like the way you make trees, and the post. The post has no texture so you will not be confused what you are looking for.
Hope you enjoy this. It looks good and easy to make.
Please post your result if it is different than what I got.
Dear Southwest, it is just crossing plan like you are making a tree. I map the texture in red circle of this picture to the plan, that's all. You can change the color of light easily. If you want it brighter, paint it brighter than mine but the edge surround it has to be pure black.

halomap_lm.jpg
 

Attachments

  • LightGlow.zip
    48 KB · Views: 1,626
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Oh man!. I got a complication from this.
Good news is the aircraft behind it illuminated.
Bad news is the sky behind it do illuminated too. The cloud looks the same.

vmmcLight04.jpg


Other thing, it will be white if the visibility decreased lower than 10 mile during the day. During the night this effect is not seen.
 
Oh man!. I got a complication from this.
Good news is the aircraft behind it illuminated.
Bad news is the sky behind it do illuminated too. The cloud looks the same.

vmmcLight04.jpg


Other thing, it will be white if the visibility decreased lower than 10 mile during the day. During the night this effect is not seen.

I have tried this technique before but I had some issues with the transparency. Even in daylight you can sometime see the light cone a little.
 
The material settings are as is in the .zip file. Textures are 24bit, DXT3, .bmp's with no alpha channel.

Should there be an alpha channel for these textures?
 
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All working now and looking good, was a problem with the texture formats and alpha channels.

If you see in my material setting, there is no alpha channel at all. No need for that since we are using SrcColor Source Color as a blend. I'm not sure that I have delete the alpha channel out before I packed that gmax file or not. I did test that and no alpha is needed, really! And you need DXT5 dds file not DXT3.
Davinci said:
I have tried this technique before but I had some issues with the transparency. Even in daylight you can sometime see the light cone a little.
I don't have that issue during the day but if the visibility is lower than 10 mil. I'll get that effect.

Unlimited Visibility

day.jpg


Visibility 10 miles
day_vis3.jpg


Visibility 1/4 miles.
day_vis1-4.jpg


During the night is much better. I got this effect when vis is lower than 3 miles.
Night3-4.jpg


It is not the same setting as Bill's work.
Only Diffuse Texture, Self-illuminated texture working with SourceBlend =SrcColor Destination Blend= 1
Of course No shadow setting is a must.

Diffuse or Specular color has no effect at all since I check NO base material specular.
Overall the setting is much simpler.

That's all. No need alpha channel, no specular texture, no fresnel ramp.
 
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Ooh, I recall seeing a screenshot of something similar to the 2nd to last screenshot, but I can't recall anything that would help bring it up again.
 
But that effect is well known by the Bill testing with the splash lights. it was something that could not be resolved, it is not ?
 
But that effect is well known by the Bill testing with the splash lights. it was something that could not be resolved, it is not ?

Indeed, Bernardo. That's why I set this aside until I can figure out a way to have the lights "on" only at night...

During the day and/or foggy conditions, they look bad...
 
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