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P3D v3 Runway Light Effect

pinkjr said:
Well, after many hours of testing, I think I came up with a reasonable 3D Light. First, gotta say that working with mipmaps is kind of a pain in the ass! Once you load an _LM texture on Imagetool, you can get rid of mipmpas, but once you try to add them back it creates 9 mipmaps by default. I could not figure out how to add/delete mipmaps...just edit. That being said I made Mipmap 7 pretty bright, and then 8 and 9 I turned to solid white. The results were pretty good, but disappeared at 5 miles at Zoom Level .67.
Following this, I made an LOD model same as before, but with the modified mipmaps. Holy Cow.....can see the light from 20 miles at zoom level .67, and transition was super smooth:
View attachment 38301

I still get the problem of the transparency shining pretty bad on rainy days from far away...looks like lights are turned on:
View attachment 38299

Here with clear weather, no issue:
View attachment 38300

Model has realistic 3d model when near, disappears when far:
View attachment 38302


Hope you like them!
David
Click to expand...


Yes, your lights are looking really good now :)

That's exactly what I said. It is always good to use proven technology. Unfortunately, it is not sufficiently documented, and there is no guide to it. So, if it then succeeds in using this proven technique, and in such a way that it works satisfactorily, then everything is okay. But apparently you have now combined both techniques - the (old) proven and the (new) with a lot of potential.

Very nice that you could use both methods to achieve a satisfying result for you :D
 
Glad it works combining the two (inverted mipmaps and LODs) but I am not using LODs.
For me it is a rather complicated, hard to explain way of making the individual mips so as to have a gradual transition to the next mip when distance increases.
I will try (probably in vain) to explain once more: start from 1024x1024 without mipmaps, save, open up again in your photo editor, scale to 512x512, add 1024x1024 as layer and scale your 1024x1024 layer to 75% and merge, and so on.
So now I guess I was probably once again not able to make myself clear:( but it only confirms what I said earlier :).
Anyway, as long as it works, who cares.
Another thing is that ImageTool does load mipmaps automatically if there are any and they will load but you can add and delete each of them individually.
But my congrats as well for achieving things the way you want it!
 
Christian Bahr said:
Yes, your lights are looking really good now :)

That's exactly what I said. It is always good to use proven technology. Unfortunately, it is not sufficiently documented, and there is no guide to it. So, if it then succeeds in using this proven technique, and in such a way that it works satisfactorily, then everything is okay. But apparently you have now combined both techniques - the (old) proven and the (new) with a lot of potential.

Very nice that you could use both methods to achieve a satisfying result for you :D
Click to expand...

No, thank YOU Christian...you lead me in the right direction and I'll gladly share my findings with you.

Roby yes I'm 100% sure your method works, I just have to learn Imagetool, as in how to edit individual maps and add them back in, and how to reduce the number of mipamps etc...I can add custom mipmaps, but always end up with 9. I'd love to eliminate the last one (8x8 pixels).

Thanks, David
 
I also want to get to know the method of the inverted MipMaps. Not just for fun, but to expand the knowledge base and maybe even to gain new insights. Roby, please. Show us or explain how to do this correctly, I would be very grateful:)
 
Well, I was finally able to modify the mipmaps correctly. Made the 7th,8th, and 9th to almost pure white, and took the LODs from the mdl so I could test.

The result was a beautiful runway light, that would disappear within 1 mile, both in P3D and FSX. So I must be missing something critical. I still left the transparent box around the model, just not sure if it is necessary anymore. I think there is a good solution in between the LOD and mipmap method. Inverting the mipmaps makes the light much brighter as pixels decrease in size, so I could now make the LODs much smaller (and therefore smoother) than before.

A good thing that came out of this is that I made the same modification to my taxiway lights and I can now see them from further away.

David
 
All I can tell you is that the lights should not disappear when more than 1 mile out.
But you should not use LODS in that case. I did not.
Maybe the two cancel eachother out???
 
robystar said:
All I can tell you is that the lights should not disappear when more than 1 mile out.
But you should not use LODS in that case. I did not.
Maybe the two cancel eachother out???
Click to expand...

On the runway light I got rid of the LODs and tried just using the modified mipmap strategy, and got those results. There is one more thing I need to try, to make the size of the actual light "spot" smaller within the texture sheet. Oh and perhaps modify the RejectParticleSize under FSX.config, not sure what value is set at right now.
 
Well, I think I reached the same conclusion as others before me, but it was fun researching......learned a whole bunch of new stuff on the way.

For FSX the only way to get decent runway lights is still SCASM. Tried BGL_Lights, textured models, heavily modified effects, Inversed mipmaps and LOD method. On P3D, LODs work best.....in combination with effects and/or modified mipmaps.

The second best method I found for FSX was to use an effect such as Obstruction_2 (which is essentially what FSX does with BGL lights), scale it to 1.5 and use a nice 1024x1024 halo texture with very bright mipmaps. This will yield a light that can be seen from 3-5 miles away at zoom level .70, not too bad if you really want 3D lights, but deff not as visible as SCASM. HOWEVER, on small airport runways, 4-5 mile visibility on a clear day is pretty realistic, problem is that the average simmer likes seeing the runway from 10 SM out, even if it's a 1500' runway.

As part of the research I data mined top end payware sceneries made for FSX, and found that SCASM is still widely used. Those who used alternate methods yielded results similar to what I found. One very well known scenery the runway lights disappear 2.5 miles out, but the airport has so much illumination that the user inherently finds alternate references for visual nav alignment, almost naturally. I have been a user of this scenery for a couple of years and had never noticed!

One thing that really struck me was how different FSX and P3D treat LOD models. It seems like FSX discards very small objects much quicker than P3D, even after the "RejectObjectSize" manipulation.

Hope others find this helpful, but it's always worth it to reach a conclusion on your own, even if it leads to lack of sleeping LOL!
 
pinkjr said:
One thing that really struck me was how different FSX and P3D treat LOD models. It seems like FSX discards very small objects much quicker than P3D, even after the "RejectObjectSize" manipulation.
Hope others find this helpful, but it's always worth it to reach a conclusion on your own, even if it leads to lack of sleeping LOL!
Click to expand...

Yes, it is correct. The FSX and P3D have a different LOD system. The FSX is coarser, the P3D on the other hand is much finer. This is the reason why all 3-D models have to be prepared once for the FSX and once for the P3D to get a well-functioning LOD system. And some FSX tweaks then cause premature hiding of small objects. Here you have to exercise great care.
 
Christian Bahr said:
Hopefully I will not be embarrassed now. Sure, you can still pick up the 3-D lights and improve them. Maybe the MiMap technology is far more mature than my 3-D lights.

It was not easy to develop something of your own because there were strong deviations in the presentation. Depending on whether the HDR option was set in the graphics settings or not set, you got very different lights. However, this problem could be limited. The 3-D lights have a freely scalable visibility, currently the lights are visible around 32nm.

Have a little Lib with various lights created: http://fsdeveloper.com/forum/attach...3/?temp_hash=f07e89ca3eebaf7b241ee33c297b429c
Click to expand...
Hi,

I am right now trying to place some pilot controlled runway lights in my custom scenery at my home airfield. I just found SODE, that makes it possible, but their demo runway light model is just not good for my purposes. And it's in MDL, so I just can't edit it.
I was very happy to find your light objects published here, but unfortunately the BGL format is not good for me (it's easy to place it in a scenery but then it wouldn't be pilot controlled). I don't know how to extract them from BGL and compile to MDL.
Would it be a too big thing to ask if you could send me these light objects as MDL files?
Thank you.

Update: Disregard my request, I just found your package full with mdl's in an other topic :)
Many thanks for that!
 
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Hello.

Many thanks for the feedback. Nice that you found the Rescource yourself :-)
Good luck with your lighting concept!
 
Complement:

The 3-D lights have been developed for the P3DV4. Do you use the ModelConverter by Arno? Then you can drag the respective MDL file into the ModelConverter (drag & drop) and then export the MDL file as a P3Dv2 MDL file. That should work :)
 
Christian Bahr said:
Complement:

The 3-D lights have been developed for the P3DV4. Do you use the ModelConverter by Arno? Then you can drag the respective MDL file into the ModelConverter (drag & drop) and then export the MDL file as a P3Dv2 MDL file. That should work :)
Click to expand...
Hi,

In the meantime I deleted my comment, because I found the error :) But I guess you still saw it.
So it turned out that nothing is wrong with your models, the problem was that I just named the model folders incorrectly in SODE. Now it works.
 
Christian Bahr said:
Complement:

The 3-D lights have been developed for the P3DV4. Do you use the ModelConverter by Arno? Then you can drag the respective MDL file into the ModelConverter (drag & drop) and then export the MDL file as a P3Dv2 MDL file. That should work :)
Click to expand...
In one thing I need your help though.
Everything works fine, finally I was able to produce pilot controlled runway lighting in my scenery, and also your lights look good. Well, the lights are, but there is one problem.
The model has three black sheets, which are visible when the light model is shown. How can I get rid of those?
Capture.PNG


To tell the truth when I tried to open your mdl files, modelconverterx did nothing (did not open them, but no error messages either), so I opened the X files (not the series haha) instead. And there these three black sheets appeared and it seems that the mdl files which I created from the x files with MCX, also have these.
How can I fix this? Or could you send the proper light mdl's to me? I also use P3D v4.
Thank you.
 
Hello,

if you open the MDL, then the DDS file must be in the same directory where the MDL is located. Otherwise nothing will be displayed. And you have to switch in the modelconverter to the night mode (Texture night render mode). Do you have the MDL and the DDS file in one and the same folder and the problem also occurs in the simulator or only in the preview of the modelconverter?

modelconverter_3d_lights_p3dv4.jpg
 
Christian Bahr said:
Hello,

if you open the MDL, then the DDS file must be in the same directory where the MDL is located. Otherwise nothing will be displayed. And you have to switch in the modelconverter to the night mode (Texture night render mode). Do you have the MDL and the DDS file in one and the same folder and the problem also occurs in the simulator or only in the preview of the modelconverter?
Click to expand...
Yes, I did exactly the same, texture files and mdl in the same folder, drag-and-drop mdl to modelconverterx, but absolutely nothing happens. It's not opening it, but also does not give any error, the log is empty. Very strange. When I open the X files instead, I get the strangely textured model that I shown above, and also the log is full with warnings, that the file contains unsupported x commands and could not find animations. I use the latest 1.3.0.0 version of MCX.
So the problem also occurs in the simulator, it looks just like in MCX, with all those strange black sheets which change their size the closer I go to them.
 
Hm, so I have no idea what it could be. Anyway, an X-file is not included in the zip archive. Where did you get the x-file from? And animations are not included in the MDL files either. Maybe something has gone wrong with your Modelconverter-Installation. The current version is 1.4.0.0, but you write from version 1.3.0.0:

modelconverter_version.jpg
 
Oh well, yes, I thought I'm using the latest version of MCX, because on the website I downloaded it from it still says latest stable version 1.3.0.0... (https://www.scenerydesign.org/modelconverterx/) But now I downloaded the latest latest and finally it opens your mdl files. But it still doesn't look good :)
Or should it look like this?

pic1.PNG

pic2.PNG


Anyway now I tried to let it load by SODE, but it does not appear... Now I have to figure out what's going on.
Btw I took your light package from here:
https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/3d-lights-download.441282/
It has also x files besides many others.
 
Now everything is clear. You got an old version of the P3DV4 3-D lights. In a previous post I had pointed to a resource here in the forum. This was not the link in this post meant, but the Zipp-Archive in the "Resource" here in the forum: 3-D Lights - For Prepar3Dv4

Maybe I should remove the old Zip-Archive in this initial post and leave a direct link to the new Rescource!

Incidentally, the light is displayed correctly in the modelconverter because it is a preview in the modelconverter. In the simulator, however, the light looks right.
 
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