Older scenery, some lights illuminate ground?

[sddjd]

Just wondering if there's a workaround (MCx or other) for this- some of my older sceneries that lack v4 upgrades have ground polys that only seem to receive some of the user aircraft lights. For example, at ZSPD the nav and strobe lights splash on the ground. However, the aircraft wing, logo, taxi, and landing lights aren't visible until approx 4k ft agl.

I understand this is a legacy scenery issue, but curious why some work and if some way of recompiling the bgl's in question could help. Thanks!

 

[WarpD]

Four thousand foot? Exactly what do you think you'll see at nearly a mile away? LOL

 

[sddjd]

Actually, it's the aircraft's self-illuminating lights that don't become visible until around 4k agl (PMDG 77L, logo, wing, and landing lights don't display on the tail, engines, or fuselage while on ground).

 

[=rk=]

How could recompiling the ground polygon change the way the aircraft lights illuminate the tail? To me it sounds like this airplane has license activation issues, there is nothing about changes between P3Dv4 and FSX (presumably those are the versions you use since you only posted "v4") that causes aircraft lights to work or not work at certain elevations.

 

[sddjd]

My question about using years-old scenery in P3d has nothing whatsoever to do with an implication that my add-on is pirated. Forgive me if I misread your meaning (text often reads different than if we were speaking over coffee/beer); if not I'm happy to take the question of my licenses over to the PMDG community for validation to keep on track.

Simply put, some old FSX sceneries that I own and have installed in P3d have ground polys/textures that don't receive landing lights from some add-on aircraft, but DO show the splashes from the nav lights. This is the case with Imaginesim's FSX ZSPD, Aerosim's RJBB, among others. I understand these may never function correctly with dynamic lighting, but it seems odd that some lights perform well, including AI taxi and landing lights, just not all the user aircraft's lights. Since I like to tinker I'm wondering of some tweaks to certain bgls might apply.

The 77L works flawlessly at all other P3d-native add on airports and even some legacy products. It's at the two named above that the logo light, taxi, and landing lights seem to be suppressed until above a certain altitude.

 

[=rk=]

Touchy? The natural assumption for a license activation issue is just that, an issue with the activation process. It would explain why some payware aircraft systems work and some do not. In my own experience, I was never able to properly activate a particular Flight1 payware aircraft, even with support. Every system worked except main gauges and some lights and ultimately I declined ownership.
There is nothing about a scenery that interacts with the render of user aircraft lights on its surface. It is a software incompatibility, caused by combining products from different compilers into the same render scene. Essentially, the render is glitching and it is not necessarily true that the same aspect of a FSX compiled scenery that prevents dynamic lights from showing on a ground polygon, also prevents them from showing on a user aircraft. To establish this, you would have to render the scenery without the ground polygon, ascertain that dynamic lights do reflect off the remaining default ground and that they also reflect off the user aircraft. Until this check has been performed, all that can be said is that something about an FSX scenery, still apparently, because it could still be something else, causes the PMDG 77L for P3Dv4 dynamic lights to not work within approximately 3000 feet of the named scenery products.

The solution would be just as practical to replace all dynamic lights with volumetric ones, as it would be to recompile the scenery to v4 standard, or you could just maybe wait for the update. I have it on good authority that Changi is in the works...