FS2004 Taxi Light

[PaulJC]

Do taxi lights work in FSX? I have set up a taxi light on my aircraft model which is part of the nose gear assembly, I have the taxi _light & taxi _light01 parented to nose gear so it retracts etc, but when the aircraft is on the ground I get a circle of light on the ground directly below the taxi light instead of on the actual taxi light, I have the pivot points as shown in the screenshot below.

Thanks in advance.

 

[n4gix]

It's all down to the pivot orientation, Paul!

Red -> right
Blue -> up ("blue skies!")
Green -> forward ("green light: go!")

 

[PaulJC]

Thanks, I will rotate the pivot 90 degrees on the X axis & see what happens.

 

[n4gix]

It should work, Paul. I checked in Max2012 with a model I'm currently working on which does work as designed.

 

[PaulJC]

Thanks Bill for your help, but I can't get it to work. This is the way I have it set up:

light_taxi_01 parented to light_taxi parented to Taxi Light Front parented to Taxi Light parented to c_gear_top_strut
light_taxi, light_taxi_01 & Taxi Light Front all use the pivot axis given by you earlier & I get the same result as before (See screenshot), I have no trouble with doing landing lights & this is the first time I have tried using taxi lights.

 

[n4gix]

Ah, for FSX you don't use the parent/child like we did in FS9. That's where things are going pear-shaped.

One polygon, facing forward with the attachpointed fx_landing.fx applied, visibility set to "light_taxi"

  <PartInfo>
    <Name>light_taxi_vis</Name>
    <Visibility>
      <Parameter>
        <Code>
          (A:LIGHT TAXI,bool)
          (A:ELECTRICAL MASTER BATTERY,bool)
          and
        </Code>
      </Parameter>
    </Visibility>
  </PartInfo>

 

[PaulJC]

Thanks again Bill, but I am working with the FS2004 SDK, I have managed to get the taxi light working by cloning a landing light, but it only works with the landing light switch? how can this be when it is named Taxi Light as it should be according to the MakeMDL.parts.xml, it worked with taxi light switch before?

 

[n4gix]

FS2004 (FS9) SDK doesn't use the modeldef.xml file at all. It doesn't even know it exists...

Instead, FS9 SDK requires specific "part_names" to assign the control event. For taxi lights, that precise "part_name" is:

light_taxi

You can of course have an "underscore+number" such as light_taxi_01, et cetera but the root-name must always be this, and only this!

I no longer even have the FS9 SDK installed, so I had to load up one of my ancient FS9 models in GMax and refresh my memory...

I have to ask though why you are using the FS9 SDK to build an FSX model?

 

[PaulJC]

I am using the FS9 SDK because I only have the standard FSX version which doesn't have the FSX SDK included & the model I am making is primarily for FS9 but it should work in FSX, I also find it easier to test the model in FSX instead of FS9 because of not having to mess around with CD's each time I want to test it, I have tested the taxi light in FS9 & it is the same as in FSX, only works with the landing light switch even though I am using light_taxi & light_taxi_01 for part names.

 

[n4gix]

I was going to load up FS9 on one of my old, retired FS computers, but apparently the Registry has silently destroyed itself, as it won't load Windows Vista any longer... I do seem to remember that my DA42 did support both landing and taxi light control though...

Try this light_taxi.gmax (Merge into an existing project). I know that the polys are working and pointing in the right direction!

 

[PaulJC]

Thanks Bill it works a treat!! but is there a way to make it brighter.

 

[Heretic]

Nope, FS9's/X' default taxi and landing light splashes only have an on/off setting.

 

[n4gix]

Paul, I'm sure you've noticed that the triangle polys I use are H U G E. Size doesn't really matter of course, but I got tired of having really tiny polys getting lost among the rest of the mesh, making them difficult to select...

The only way to make the lights "brighter" would be to stack several sets of them on top of each other.

 

[tgibson]

I believe the brightness and color of the light splash can be controlled by one of the colors in the light's Material (I don't remember if it is Ambient, Diffuse, or Specular though). I also think the Opacity value will affect how "dense" it is. I believe this Material should also be named light_taxi.

Hope this helps,

 

[PaulJC]

Thanks Tom, I will have a go at changing the material settings.


This is my finished model.