Blackbird Sims / Milviz Forum Archive

Good Evening,

In the latest build I have no taxi or landing lights showing on the ground. Tried default and payware airports.

I do not think it is my system, the KA350 in the same scenarios displays just fine.

The "bulbs" on the gear appear on, but no splash.

All other lights seem fine.

Joe

I am getting Taxi lights but I do not see landing lights

sharpless281 wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:37 am

I am getting Taxi lights but I do not see landing lights

You are correct - I do have a splash for taxi light as well but is pointing almost straight down and provides no illumination for me.

Joe

What happens if you position your aircraft over the ground? say 30 or 40 ft up.

I found a way to turn on the Wing Lights and they help some. I am using SPADNEXT and this is what I have done

Panel Lights which I was having issues with too AVT_COCKPIT_LGTS BOOL 1 for on and 0 for off

Taxi Lights AVT_LAND_TAXI_SW 1 TAXI 2 LANDING and 0 OFF

Wing Lights AVT_WING_LIGHTS BOOL 1 ON and 0 OFF

The Landing lights are there but not very bright, they are right in front of the wing wheels

The night flight worked, could see the runway on takeoff and landing, Landing lights I guess tell a plane is coming, that's about it. Turning on taxi and wing lights does the trick. If landing lights are on, taxi lights go off as expected

Slayer wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 26, 2021 10:51 pm

What happens if you position your aircraft over the ground? say 30 or 40 ft up.

If I do as you suggest - using taxi lights I have a light splash hitting the ground, very steep such that it not visible from the cockpit at all, only can see it in spot view.

Same scenario with landing lights on - NOTHING at all, tried various pitch angles.

Joe

sharpless281 wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 27, 2021 1:33 am

The Landing lights are there but not very bright, they are right in front of the wing wheels

What you see is a lighted texture in front of the wheel wells (actually the LED landing lights are attached to to the main gear struts. You should have all of these custom .fx files in the ..\Effects folder. Note that the are separate .fx files for the Left, Right, and Taxi light ground splashes:

Yes they are there but only contain one emitter. Thatt is unusual because as far as I have understood you need two emitters to not have the light iluminate the cockpit.

N4GIX wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 27, 2021 10:44 pm

sharpless281 wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 27, 2021 1:33 am

The Landing lights are there but not very bright, they are right in front of the wing wheels

What you see is a lighted texture in front of the wheel wells (actually the LED landing lights are attached to to the main gear struts. You should have all of these custom .fx files in the ..\Effects folder. Note that the are separate .fx files for the Left, Right, and Taxi light ground splashes:

I do have those three files in place, but still only the taxi light has a splash and that can not be viewed from the cockpit.

Joe

EDIT - I do not profess to be an effects expert - but - I see under Particle Attributes a Color of 66,66,66,10. Isn't that almost black?

Thanks Bill, that will help. I will check it out tomorrow evening when back in my plane

JPL19 wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 27, 2021 11:35 pm

EDIT - I do not profess to be an effects expert - but - I see under Particle Attributes a Color of 66,66,66,10. Isn't that almost black?

Yes it is almost black. The actual "ground splash" is not generated by the .fx script at all, but is generated internally by the sim's core engine. The Particle Attributes Color actually controls the brightness of the little blob of 'light' that is supposed to represent the source (LED or light bulb). I've masked that by having a separate lighted polygon to cover that little blob.

matpietsch wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 27, 2021 11:07 pm

Yes they are there but only contain one emitter. Thatt is unusual because as far as I have understood you need two emitters to not have the light iluminate the cockpit.

That is something I've not heard of, but I will investigate. The stock fx_landing.fx has only one Emitter section.

My solution was to create custom .fx files and offsetting their position using x,y,z coordinates to effectively move the 'ground splash' ahead of the cockpit.

Apparently there was a model error, somehow the fix didn't make it into release.

Please unzip/overwrite: Prepar3D v5\SimObjects\Airplanes\MV_P180E\model with this new model and try it.
(You may have to right click /properties/unblock the file after unzipping)

The only thing this will correct is the lights.

Sorry to drag you into this post Bill

I really wished that you guys used the lighting effects (nav, beacon, strobes) that you have on other products such as the C310, MD550, King Air etc...not use the default balls of light fx's. Any possibility of getting those fx's implemented at some point?

Slayer wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 28, 2021 7:21 pm

Apparently there was a model error, somehow the fix didn't make it into release.

Please unzip/overwrite: Prepar3D v5\SimObjects\Airplanes\MV_P180E\model with this new model and try it.

.......

I now have light splashes for taxi light and both landing lights, BUT, as I mentioned above the taxi light is pointing down at such an angle it does nothing for the VC view.

The landing light splashes are visible in the VC immediately forward of the front wing BUT for just a foot or two, but it does absolutely nothing to actually light the runway.

On short final / flare the landing lights are angled down so steep that any light actually reaching the runway is not visible from the VC (5deg nose down to 5deg nose up).

Joe