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Editing landing light effect?

Sidney Schwartz

Sidney Schwartz

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This is from the FS2004 effects SDK:

Pitch=0.00, 0.00
The angle at which the emitter is tilted. A tilted emitter emits particles at an angle, a feature that is especially helpful when working with static sprites. Measured in degrees.

I'm hoping this means that the landing light effect can be modified so that the light beam is emitted downward rather than horizontally. Of course the SDK gives no examples of how the pitch parameter is used or what the two values control. Does anyone know? Thanks! :D

Sid
 
Sid,

sorry for the late reply.

You cannot influence landing lights by this as they are no effect. They are hard-coded and have nothing to do with fx-files.

aircraft-scenery-interaction is still very limited. :(
 
Hmmm.....

I think folks should start putting either "FS9" or "FSX" in the Subject line, or at least somewhere in the question!

Thorsten is absolutely correct if the question involves FS9 landing/taxi lights.

Thorsten is completly out to lunch if the question involves FSX landing lights, because they most certainly ARE generated by an .fx file.

However, in BOTH cases the proper method for "aiming" the landing and/or taxi lights is to adjust the pivot of the polygon to which the light is applied... :D
 
Thanks for the reply, Thorston.

Horst18519 said:
You cannot influence landing lights by this as they are no effect. They are hard-coded and have nothing to do with fx-files.
Click to expand...

Then what is the point of having a landing light effect that I can attach to objects? :confused:

Sid
 
Sidney Schwartz said:
Thanks for the reply, Thorston.
Then what is the point of having a landing light effect that I can attach to objects? :confused:

Sid
Click to expand...

Sid, did you even bother to read my reply?

If you had, you'd know that you are most likely asking about FSX style landing lights, and Thorsten's answer concerns FS9 style landing lights... :laughing:
 
I'm sorry for that, but I'm even more happy to learn that things seem to have improved in fsx. :)
 
n4gix said:
Thorsten is completly out to lunch if the question involves FSX landing lights, because they most certainly ARE generated by an .fx file.
Click to expand...

Landing lights in FSX seem to illuminate ground textures (I mean, REALLY illuminate). There was just a white splash in FS9, but in FSX I could clearly the ground texture when I turned the landing lights on. Is this just an optical illusion?
 
n4gix said:
Sid, did you even bother to read my reply?
Click to expand...
How nice. Yes, I did, and I was asking about FS9. Apparently you're the one who is not bothering to read. My my original question states...."This is from the FS2004 effects SDK:" Not the FSX SDK, the FS2004 SDK. Got it now?

Any other extremely simple matters I can clear up for you? :D

Sid
 
Sidney Schwartz said:
How nice. Yes, I did, and I was asking about FS9. Apparently you're the one who is not bothering to read. My my original question states...."This is from the FS2004 effects SDK:" Not the FSX SDK, the FS2004 SDK. Got it now?

Any other extremely simple matters I can clear up for you? :D

Sid
Click to expand...

No, thank you. I'm quite capable of embarrasing myself without assistance... :mischievo

In that case, the FS2004 effects SDK has no relevance whatever with regards to landing lights...

In both FS9 and FSX we're stuck with rotating the polygon in the model to "aim" the lights...

OTOH, in FS9 you can quite easily adjust both the color and the intensity of the "landing light ground splash" by editing the Diffuse Color, and setting the opacity level to 40% or thereabouts.

In FSX we are stuck with the default fx_landing.fx file, unless we create our own, custom .fx file... :teacher:

But then again, what do I know... I just a clown... :ziplip:

Truce? :whiteflag
 
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n4gix said:
Truce? :whiteflag
Click to expand...
Yes. Thank you. :D

All I wanted to do was make a light pole that casts, or appears to cast, light on the ground. I've used scenery objects like this with FSE and EZ-Scenery, but I've yet to figure out how to make my own using Gmax. "How hard could this be?" I thought to myself. :rotfl:

At least you're a smarter clown than me. :D

Sid
 
Sidney Schwartz said:
Yes. Thank you. :D

All I wanted to do was make a light pole that casts, or appears to cast, light on the ground. I've used scenery objects like this with FSE and EZ-Scenery, but I've yet to figure out how to make my own using Gmax. "How hard could this be?" I thought to myself. :rotfl:

At least you're a smarter clown than me. :D

Sid
Click to expand...

Ah! There's a set of "ramp lights" that I created (with a LOT of help from Dick L. (rhumbaflappy) several years ago that were eventually included in Rwy12's libraries.

Email me at n4gix@comcast.net and I will send the .gmax files, textures and instructions on how to modify the .asm code and recompile.
 
I seem to be making progress. Hopefully I'll be able to duplicate what I've done here. Please don't laugh at my light pole...it's just a simple mock-up for testing purposes. :)

The light's probably brighter than it needs to be. I'm going to see if I can make it less bright but larger in area.

Sid
 
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Sidney Schwartz said:
I seem to be making progress. Hopefully I'll be able to duplicate what I've done here. Please don't laugh at my light pole...it's just a simple mock-up for testing purposes. :)

The light's probably brighter than it needs to be. I'm going to see if I can make it less bright but larger in area.

Sid
Click to expand...

Well, I'm delighted to see that the process wasn't "over your head" after all! ;) Have fun! :cool:
 
Thanks, Bill. The process I ended up using was not quite the same as yours, but apparently it was close enough.

Fun...yes, Gmax is fun. When I need even more fun, I poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick. :laughing:

Sid
 
Sidney Schwartz said:
Thanks, Bill. The process I ended up using was not quite the same as yours, but apparently it was close enough.

Fun...yes, Gmax is fun. When I need even more fun, I poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick. :laughing:

Sid
Click to expand...

Well, as I recall there was an extensive cussin, er... discussion of this topic some two+ years ago, and is still available from the archives. As it happens, there's almost always more than one way to accompish one's goal(s).

I suppose you could be grateful you aren't trying to come to grips with modeling, gauge programming, effects and texturing all at the same time... :eek:
 
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