What is the best method to add lighting inside a building

[jgarnold]

My scenery has a building with windows and very large entrance and exit (see image) below).
Even during daylight the inside of the building (easily viewed from the outside) is quite dark and I would like to add some low lighting so that it doesn't look so dark inside.
What is the best/preferable method to do this? My model was created with Blender but not sure if the lighting should be from Blender or devmode.
Thanks.

 

[SPerx]

I have used Blender spotlights to illuminate the inside of TAB-Vees at night. One is selected as an object and shows as orange for clarity. I am not certain if that would work in daylight hours. I would not use point lights as they do not cast light around unless you set a large radius, which will potentially give you a ball of light protruding through the walls of your building. I have never successfully applied "area light" so cannot comment on that. The screenshot shows the spot light array I use in the TAB-V. The cone is the area the light renders to, so there is no backwash of light up through the structure, nor through the side of the structure even though the cone penetrates it. I do get light leakage under the structure if the TAB-V is not set perfectly to the ground in the sim. A fix would be to have a floor in the TAB-V but that introduces other issues for me which are outwith the scope of your question.

You would need to de-sewlect the day/night cycle to achieve your purpose.

 

[jgarnold]

Thanks. I will try that later. Thanks also for reminding me of area light which I will also try.

 

[WildLynxPilot]

Various default street lights from the fs-base group can be also used in devmode if you can hide poles inside some structures. You have more control of the spotlights in Blender as you can adjust strength, color and the size of the cone.

 

[jgarnold]

That's a good idea. My walls are quite thick and so maybe I can hide the poles inside the walls and hopefully there are street lights which don't have tall posts (my building sits on posts and so don't want part of the posts poking through the base).

[ADDED LATER]
Problem with an Asobo street light I think could be that they only would light up at night and I want to illuminate during the day. Am I wrong?

 

[jgarnold]

Street light illuminates during the day but I can't hide the very tall post in the building unfortunately.

 

[SPerx]

It might be worth running a test to position spotlight light objects tucked away high in the angle between your internal wall and the ceiling. IIRC the light object does not render as a visible object - I normally make and simple object such as the floodlights on the front of this building.

If you then rotate the cone to project light into the area you want to appear illuminated, de-select day/night cycle; and tweak the colour and intensity of the light I suspect you have a solution that does not require hiding any tangible object.

 

[SPerx]

Not to hijack your thread, but I think pictures can explain more succinctly.

This is a TAB-V showing the night-time effect of using SDK spotlights inside a building. The pool of light from vertically orientated spotlight cones appears as a circle of light on the shelter floor, and would illuminate any object within the lit space { Image 2}, including the user's aircraft and cockpit if one spawned into the shelter {Image 3}. Note there is no ball of light inside the shelter where the SDK spotlights are placed.

The array of apparent lights around the arch of the internal roof are simple cuboid forms with an emissive material on the lower face to simulate the internal lights.

The light in front of the shelter is produced by an array of SDK spotlights, also with emissive 3D pseudo floodlights around the external arch of the front of the shelter. That was taken from MAMU's video on lights on YouTube

My shelter with animated doors, triggered by proximity, has a similar light configuration as the non-animated one. When the shelter doors are closed I get the pool of light in front of the structure, but no light leaking from inside {Image 4}

And when the doors open, the interior is illuminated. {Image 5} - captured during the door movement.

I will run an experiment to see if the internal lighting manifests itself in daylight hours, by disabling the day/night cycle.

 

[SPerx]

The test.

TAB-V object with all internal spotlights adjusted to disable day/night cycle. The pool of light on the floor is evident.

The shelter is orientated E - W and the time is 11:30 UK Summer Time, so the sun is broadly off to the right, so no MSFS sun getting in to the shelter. {Image 1}

If I slew the user aircraft in to the shelter the internal spotlights illuminate the object - {Image 2}

The cockpit is bathed in yellow light when the user aircraft is inside the shelter - {Image 3}

I suspect that for your purposes SDK Spotlights are the way ahead, likely with some angling of the light cones to put light on to walls and/or interior objects create the impression of an artificially illuminated internal space.

Hope something of this helps.