Help with runway lights on a custom runway!

[Cameron B]

Hi all,
I've done searching here, and really just can't grasp on how to go about this. I have many ground planes that I layered and made into my ground scenery in FS, and then built my buildings on top of, etc. The end result is very nice, and I have my custom taxiways and runways, however, I can't seem to get runway/taxiway lights for the life of me!

What is the easiest way to go about this? I'd honestly be fine with just the plain old default lights, but by the sounds of it, this is going to be hard to achieve in and of itself! Am I wrong?...I sure hope so!

I know only the basics of things, like modeling some, exporting and placing to FS, etc, but know nothing about groundmaker nor airport for windows. By the sounds of it, it seems these are my best bet for doing this procedure...

Someone...anyone...PLEASE help!

Best Regards,
Cameron Bowerman

 

[nickw]

Hi Cameron,

There are different methods. I personally use my effects as you can put more control on them. See my ground lighting tutorial in the Wiki.

 

[Cameron B]

Nick,
Thanks for that...nice tutorial! Is it difficult to assign textures to an fx? Seems they somehow go by color?

 

[Gianni]

Hi all,

first of all I would like to wish a happy new year (a little bit late, but this is my first post in 2006 ;-) ).

@Nick
I have a question to Nick and it seems to me that it might fit to this thread:

I am currently placing light effects in my project (fs2004). For this I used two methods:

* The first by attaching effects to GMAX-editable mesh objects (according to the tutorial). I used this way to place lights on lightpoles
* The second method is to directly place the effects with ObjPlacer XML. I used this way to place light beams on the ground.

What I experienced was that with the first method I had significant impacts on framerates. So what I need to know is wether there are ways to reduce this impact as I will start to make the taxiway-center lights (the green ones). According to this I calculate with a huge number of objects. Of course I would like to use this method because of the benefits of the script offered by Nick.

With the direct placement method I have seen that the assingment of a controller as described in the wiki did not work. The light beams on the ground partly are not visible when you fly "into" the scnery. I do not know why this happens.

So I would appreciate to hear something about possible workarounds or hints to solve the described problems.

greetz
gianni

 

[nickw]

Nick,
Thanks for that...nice tutorial! Is it difficult to assign textures to an fx? Seems they somehow go by color?

You can design a texture... and use that in your FX. The colour is controlled by the FX file itself. 255.255.255.255

 

[nickw]

* The first by attaching effects to GMAX-editable mesh objects (according to the tutorial). I used this way to place lights on lightpoles
* The second method is to directly place the effects with ObjPlacer XML. I used this way to place light beams on the ground.

What I experienced was that with the first method I had significant impacts on framerates.

There should be no affect (different than direct placement) on framerates. Placing objects as attached items against direct XML placements still draws an effect sprite.

With the direct placement method I have seen that the assingment of a controller as described in the wiki did not work. The light beams on the ground partly are not visible when you fly "into" the scnery. I do not know why this happens.

With the direct placemenet, I believe, but would have to confirm, that you do not need a controller file.

 

[Gianni]

@Nick

just to confirm: you are meaning that attachement of effects does not have very large impact on framerates? But direct placement will harm performance?

Hm. I have to say that I then did exactly the wrong in reworking the project. I had the feeling that after I reduced the amount of attached effects the performane recovered noticable. Interesting question. Maybe that the influence on performance is different:

The - large - ground effects (comparably a smaller number than the others) may harm performance in another dimension than the - small (dramatically more) effects on the lightpoles.

If I understand you right, than using only the attachment method will be the better way (in terms of "switching on" the effects by a controller file. Can you confirm this?

greetz
gianni

 

[nickw]

No, I am saying that there should be zero difference. You are still placing the same amount of objects / displaying the same amount of sprites. Get me?

 

[Gianni]

@Nick

sorry, I misunderstood you - I am not so good in english language.

If I got you now, there will be no performance-difference in having placed effects directly or via the attachtool.

But the problem remains that the performance drops having a lot huge number of effects (placed directly or attached) in my project. What then with my taxi-center-lights? Salzburg Airport is a rather small one with only one runway and according to this the number of lights to be placed is straightforward.

As I am not experieced in effects, do you know what I will have to optimize the influence on the framerate caused by the light effects? Is it a question of using a certain size or effect structure?


greetz
gianni

 

[nickw]

Yes, a lot of effects does cause the framerates to dip. The only tips I have are to have only one emitter per effect (but this can cause dull lights), have fewer effects, or use SCASM to place lights instead

Sorry, I know this is not the ideal

 

[Cameron B]

With what has been said above, is it impossible to just get default lights on my custom taxiways/runways?

I'm still a tad confused on the whole controller issue, etc.

 

[Gianni]

@ Cameron B

I am the same situation like you and it seems to me that it really is hard to find a solution. If we are talking from sceneries for fs9 (I assume) than the problem is that custom made ground polygons "cover" the standard polygons -what we would like - but also they will cover the standards effects (like the lights).

So my attitude was to combine things in a certain way:
* For the runway I cut out those parts of the ground poly (bearing a photo-texture) that were ontop of the standard-runway to achieve the visibility of the standard lighting. That works more or less - but for the time being I have an issue with the PAPI-lights.
* For the taxiways I made groundpolys with the fs2002 gamepack of GMAX. For the green taxiway-center-lights and the blue taxiway-border-lights the idea was to add - very small - 3d-objects and attach lights to them (with the available GMAX-scripts). And there another issue has arosen: the described performance-issue. I am not certain but it seems to me that I will be confronted with a problem for the framerates if I really placed the intended number of light-effects.

So the remaining possibilities are for me:
a) Either to cut out the groundpolys and to use the standardlights of the airport-file
b) Or to try to tweak the airportfile in a way that the "covered" lights will be drawn above the groundpolys. I am currently working on that.
c) Or to do some SCASM-programming to draw the lights.

So - in short words: no, there does not seem to be a simple way to achieve what we both desire. I will post any new information - if I ever will have one.

greetz
gianni

 

[Thomas]

Hi,

I'm also working on the runway/taxilights right now, and although I have a Gmax scenery with custom ground polygons, I used Airport For Windows just to place my runway lights, together with PAPI lights. I created an 'invisible' runway, so just with lights on it without surface. Airport for Windows generates the SCASM code.

It took me a lot of FS restarts to place the runway lights exactly on top of my custom runway, but the result is very good. You can see a screenshot here:

For my taxilights I use a different approach. I placed them all in Gmax with the spacing tool etc and I was able to place about 1500 taxi lights in about 4 hours. I didn't really place 1500 taxi light objects, but box objects. Then I will use the 'attachmultipleobjects'-script also posted somewhere in this forum. The script attaches an object to the 1500 boxes.

Now you will think "but then you have 1500 objects in 1 BGL, with 1 reference point". Wrong . I wrote a .Net program myself that can parse an ASM file with attached objects in it. The program will generate an XML file with long/lat coördinates for every single attached object. Very simple and very fast. So every taxilight has his own reference point, which makes it easier for me to say that a taxilight should not be visible more than 800m for example, and I can use the LOD system on my taxilight object...

 

[nickw]

Dont suppose you want to share that .NET App do you? Would be cool for others.

For the record, we use SASCM for the runway lights as well....

 

[Gianni]

Hi Thomas,

that seems to be the way - great looking pictures.

Hi,

Now you will think "but then you have 1500 objects in 1 BGL, with 1 reference point". Wrong . I wrote a .Net program myself that can parse an ASM file with attached objects in it. The program will generate an XML file with long/lat coördinates for every single attached object. Very simple and very fast. So every taxilight has his own reference point, which makes it easier for me to say that a taxilight should not be visible more than 800m for example, and I can use the LOD system on my taxilight object...

Is there a possibility to use your prog? Would help me really.

Greetz
gianni

 

[Thomas]

Hi,

Don't worry, I was already planning to release it, but first I need to test it some time and I must see that invalid user input is handled, etc... I'll release it as soon as possible

 

[Gianni]

Hi Thomas,

that really is appreciated. Thx in advance.

Could you please tell me how to make this runway "invisible"? Heve never done this before, so a hint would be very helpful.


gianni

 

[Thomas]

Hi Gianni,

Well first install Airport for Windows and start a new project. Click right in the design viewer and choose 'Create Runway'. Then you will have to set some options, like length, wide, ... One of the options you see on the first tab, is 'Surface', there you can choose for 'invisble'. On the second tab, you can set the light system, including PAPI and/or approach lights.

Note that you have to enter coördinates for the runway's center point. So you will have to do some trial and error before the lights will be exactly on top of your custom runway.

For my project I did not add markings and no ILS system in AFW. My markings are custom made in Gmax as well, but I think it is possible to use the ones by AFW as well. And for the ILS system I will use an AFCAD file.

Grtz,
Thomas

 

[Gianni]

Thomas,

thank you for the quick reply. I will start this minute. Have searched so long for the way that I will make a first attempt immediately.

greetz
gianni

 

[Gianni]

Hi Thomas,

this is propably not the right part of the forum, but I would like to ask you two questions concerning the way you described:

with AFW I am able to construct that invisible runway so far. The attachment of lights was possible too (at least the PAPI lights I could attach). But: my airport ist located N47 ..., E13.... . AFW always switches the E13... into somewhat like W19.... after I inserted the coordinaties for the runway (which I read out of AFCAD.

SceneGenX accepts the manual settings. So my question is whether AFW interprets the coordinates in another way than SceneGenX or AFCAD??

sorry for being confused a little

gianni