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FSX Shiny annunciator lights/HUD for VC?

Messages
141
Country
peru
Hi All,
As per the topic title, I am trying to obtain a material that is full brightness no matter what. Currently I do this in FS9 via ASM editing. In FS-X + gMax, I only seem to be able to apply a light map, in multiply blend mode with a fully white content. I need this for 2 things:
  • Annunciator lights
  • HUD
The HUD is a XML gauge. Annunciator lights are 3D parts with visibility tags. Using the self-illumination slot as "100%" instead of bitmap does not work in any case. It seems per my research that light map is the only way to go, although it does not look very goo in dusk/dawn time.
Any hints?
 
Messages
218
Country
greece
Hello Mario,

First of all, lightmap is a must in FSX. For always-on materials, use Additive for your lightmap.
Additive ignores ambient light and is always luminous.

Blend is similar to additive, but it starts working at dusk/dawn, progressively increasing its brightness as the day ends.
MultiplyBlend is like Blend, but instead of "adding" the color of the lightmap to that of the diffuse, it multiplies it. So, if you have a gray diffuse (128) and a black lightmap(0), the result will be Black (0x128=0). Bill's paper on lighting for FSX will help with more details (check the resources, I think it's there).
 
Messages
141
Country
peru
First of all, lightmap is a must in FSX. For always-on materials, use Additive for your lightmap.
Alexis, thanks a lot! Indeed it works, provided I fill the diffuse with 0,0,0 and copy the original contents to the lightmap! Now VC lighting is just as good as the FS9 version! (although the nice landing light splash lightmap in FS9 had to be removed and replaced by FX lighting in FSX...)
 

n4gix

Resource contributor
Messages
11,674
Country
unitedstates
This is how my annunciator lighting works. I simply copy an "Instance" of the Diffuse texture to the Self-Illumination slot, and make the emissive mode "Additive."

usWxE.jpg
 
Messages
141
Country
peru
Good point! HUD now fixed by adding the $Texture in the self illumination slot! Did not think it will work according to my deprecated FS9 methods..., but it simply does! Colors are altered a bit at daytime, but way better than multiply blend not bright at dusk/dawn. Also, I can remove the all-white 4px*4px lightmap I was using!
 
Messages
809
Country
ca-ontario
Old topic, but still very relevant, so I thought I'd throw my $0.02 in.

I am modeling an interior of a space capsule, which has rather small windows, and since I'm doing this for FSX/FSX-SE, I don't have the luxury of interior shadows. So basically, letting FSX shade the interior with exterior lighting everywhere was out of the question. I basically texture-baked all of the interior (with cabin lighting on) and researched for quite a long while, looking for a material that would be absolutely rock steady, "always-on" at the same intensity, without any influence of the exterior light source (or the absence of it).

So, after endless permutations, I found that specifying diffuse texture (which is my "baked" interior texture) in the "LM" slot, and specifying a completely black RGB(0,0,0) texture in the "diffuse" slot did the trick perfectly!

In the case of instrumentation, the above "recipe" works well, except for the very bright colors (75% white and up) which, for me, get an additional bloom effect, depending on time of day. Also, they do get darker and brighter slightly, depending on TOD.

So - In the above "recipe", tried adding the pure black bitmap into diffuse slot - and it worked perfectly! The always-illuminated colors are staying rock steady, no matter the TOD or attitude of the cockpit.
 
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