FS9 Autogen Issues

[GaryGB 10]

Gary, one issue I'm having even with the 100m model is it's so big that you can barely see the outer rails as they are so far away (see last screenshot I posted, it's not finished, I just exported it to see what it would be like in the sim). I put some NAV lights on all 4 corners and it helped, but it's difficult to really tell where the outer edges of this thing are from spot view, top-down isn't so bad but it appears faint against most backgrounds. Currently the rails are .1m square in cross section (about 4"), I can make them bigger, like maybe 1m and they'd show up better

Hi Jim:

I wonder if I'd be giving up accuracy? If I remember correctly an LOD13 square is around 1200m, no? Another problem is that an LOD13 square isn't the same size and shape in Alaska as it is in Panama. Kind of a neat idea with re-positioning the reference point, I'll look into that.

Indeed, the quads do vary, which I had forgotten in my initial session of "imagineering" after a long day, so a "1 size fits all" LOD / LOD Cell sized aircraft would be unfeasible.To refresh my memory on this I went looking and found FS-Insider Adam Szofran's wonderful article "Global Terrain Technology" at its new URL at:http://www.microsoft.com/Products/Games/FSInsider/developers/Pages/GlobalTerrain.aspx

"Subdividing the Surface of the EarthTo help organize and manage the terrain data at run time, we subdivide the surface of the Earth into cells organized into a quad tree. There are several schools of thought concerning how best to do this. One of the simplest is to subdivide the globe along geographic lines of latitude and longitude. However, because the lines of longitude converge at the poles, the scale of the cells varies with latitude. Polyhedral subdivisions of the globe can reduce the scale variation, but at the cost of added complexity [2, 3, 4]. Figure 2: Geographic subdivisions of the globe Figure 3: Polyhedral [6] subdivisions of the globeThe biggest disadvantage of polyhedral subdivision from our perspective is that it's simply too difficult for content producers to author tiling textures that fit the often triangular or parallelogram shaped cells. The geographic subdivision method, in spite of the convergence issues at the poles, simply wins on the basis of simplicity and familiarity. Besides, while Flight Simulator allows trans-polar flight, most of the action still occurs at the middle latitudes where the majority of the world's population is concentrated.To minimize scale distortion where most of our customers live and fly, we designed our quad tree so the ratio of north-south to east-west extent of the cells is nearly 1:1 at +/- 45 degrees of latitude. This was done by designating six root cells, three north of the equator and three south of it. Each root cell covers 90 degrees of latitude and 120 degrees of longitude."

BTW: Even though a "1 size fits all" LOD / LOD Cell sized aircraft would be unfeasible, perhaps a scalable FS scenery library object 'might' still work.The big question with regard to that option might be what is feasible for the creator of that object (you), as I wouldn't want this to become too complex of an undertaking that inappropriately places demands upon your very kind generosity for offering an upgraded / alternative crosshairs tool for scenery placement.Also we'd need to see if this would work for the end user, from the standpoint of such an object's resulting size and visibility as a function of granularity of control over scalability (when configured via an interactive preview capable object placer such as EZ-Scenery / Instant Scenery or Whisplacer).NOTE: I'm not sure yet if custom (non-default) object libraries can somehow be added to Whisplacer for use in FSX.

The airport is KMYL, McCall, ID. I've narrowed the lights down to LM917160A000202.BGL. Thanks for the heads up on the naming convention, that definitely saved some time. I hadn't viewed the area at night and was surprised to see that the lights were not excluded by the photoscenery as most everything else is. I guess it stands to reason that the objects were still there if they were knocking out the autogen. Fair enough, if this scenery ever sees the light of day I'll just put a notation in the readme about the UT lights and disabling the bgl.

I still trying to find more references on how to use "Nav lights" in a SCASM or BGL-C type BGL in FS2004 scenery without suppressing autogen; 1 possible lead so far:http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?p=144752#post144752GaryGB

[Jim Robinson 122]

Hi Gary, yes I'm sure someone could probably make a scaleable (animated) model that would read the current lattitude through XML and adjust it's width accordingly to match the size of an LOD cell anywhere on the planet, but I'm afraid that person isn't me. I spent almost my entire weekend fiddling with my ground poly and haven't made any real headway on the scenery placement tool. I did manage to add some modeled nav lights (ala Posky) to all 4 corners of the 100m job which helps with visibility somewhat. I'll do a little more fiddling and get a "beta package" together soon for you to try out.

I still trying to find more references on how to use "Nav lights" in a SCASM or BGL-C type BGL in FS2004 scenery without suppressing autogen; 1 possible lead so far:http://www.fsdevelop...4752#post144752

Thanks for that, I've managed to decompile LM917160A000202.BGL and find the individual light placements which I copied to a new .sca file. I added the "dummy" return call to all of them and recompiled this to "kmyl_lghts.bgl" which now displays the lights at night without knocking out the autogen.Additionally I followed a link that someone in that thread posted (which was irrelevant to the OP's query in that particular case, but very relevant to me) and also managed to tweak my groundpoly so that it doesn't interfere with autogen either :( .That's two tweaks in one evening for me that worked and I'm stoked. KMYL is starting to look pretty good! :smile:Jim

[GaryGB 10]

Hi Jim:First, a couple of edits for omissions and errors in my post above (...thanks this time due to a recurrent AVG pop-up 'nag-screen' that grabs console focus < grrr ! > ) :

Hi Jim:Indeed, the quads do vary, which I had forgotten in my initial session of "imagineering" after a long day, so a "1 size fits all" LOD / LOD Cell sized aircraft would be unfeasible.To refresh my memory on this I went looking and found FS-Insider Adam Szofran's wonderful article "Global Terrain Technology" at its new URL at:http://www.microsoft.com/Products/Games/FSInsider/developers/Pages/GlobalTerrain.aspx

"Subdividing the Surface of the EarthTo help organize and manage the terrain data at run time, we subdivide the surface of the Earth into cells organized into a quad tree. There are several schools of thought concerning how best to do this. One of the simplest is to subdivide the globe along geographic lines of latitude and longitude. However, because the lines of longitude converge at the poles, the scale of the cells varies with latitude. Polyhedral subdivisions of the globe can reduce the scale variation, but at the cost of added complexity [2, 3, 4].Figure 2: Geographic subdivisions of the globeFigure 3: Polyhedral [6] subdivisions of the globeThe biggest disadvantage of polyhedral subdivision from our perspective is that it's simply too difficult for content producers to author tiling textures that fit the often triangular or parallelogram shaped cells. The geographic subdivision method, in spite of the convergence issues at the poles, simply wins on the basis of simplicity and familiarity. Besides, while Flight Simulator allows trans-polar flight, most of the action still occurs at the middle latitudes where the majority of the world's population is concentrated.To minimize scale distortion where most of our customers live and fly, we designed our quad tree so the ratio of north-south to east-west extent of the cells is nearly 1:1 at +/- 45 degrees of latitude. This was done by designating six root cells, three north of the equator and three south of it. Each root cell covers 90 degrees of latitude and 120 degrees of longitude."

BTW: Even though a "1 size fits all" LOD / LOD Cell sized aircraft would be unfeasible, perhaps a scalable FS scenery library object 'might' still work.The big question with regard to that option might be what is feasible for the creator of that object (you), as I wouldn't want this to become too complex of an undertaking that inappropriately places demands upon your very kind generosity for offering an upgraded / alternative crosshairs tool for scenery placement.Also we'd need to see if this would work for the end user, from the standpoint of such an object's resulting size and visibility as a function of granularity of control over scalability (when configured via an interactive preview capable object placer such as EZ-Scenery / Instant Scenery or Whisplacer).NOTE: I'm not sure yet if custom (non-default) object libraries can somehow be added to Whisplacer for use in FSX.

Hi Gary, yes I'm sure someone could probably make a scalable (animated) model that would read the current latitude through XML and adjust it's width accordingly to match the size of an LOD cell anywhere on the planet, but I'm afraid that person isn't me. I spent almost my entire weekend fiddling with my ground poly and haven't made any real headway on the scenery placement tool. I did manage to add some modeled nav lights (ala Posky) to all 4 corners of the 100m job which helps with visibility somewhat. I'll do a little more fiddling and get a "beta package" together soon for you to try out.

What I meant to communicate was that I'd be grateful to have something even as basic as a larger 100 Meter size Finney Crosshairs Plus to use with occasional special project needs such as planning ground poly use and/or checking out RWY display anomalies in FSX, the SDK for which, IIUC, now requires that custom ground polys / RWYs be made in max 100 Meter segments... to accommodate the "spherical" FSX world model and curved horizons.http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19928&highlight=Round+Earthhttp://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17104&highlight=Round+EarthThe idea for a "LOD reticle or Quad Matrix grid aircraft as we have in the FS2002 Lou Volland English and Metric crosshairs" is more just my thinking out loud as an opener for discussion to hopefully solicit input by you and other scenery developers to see what might be of interest to the FS Community.I like the idea that you expressed for somehow being able to "make a scalable (animated) model that would read the current latitude through XML and adjust it's width accordingly to match the size of an LOD cell anywhere on the planet".But within my currently limited understanding of aircraft and/or scenery modeling, I had not anticipated that might even be possible to achieve, so I certainly would not have asked such a complex task of you under the auspices of your very kind offer for a quick MOD of the existing Finney Crosshairs Plus. :( At most, I thought we might initially identify a way to add some extra sort of graduations and/or a 3D 'frame of reference' to that scenery designer's helper which may contribute to easing certain tasks involved in the scenery development process.Regarding the possible creation of a "scalable" FS scenery object library object for a 'frame of reference' beyond the current crosshairs and CellGrid markings limited to non-photoreal default or custom land class, I meant that via the use of the XML "Scale" parameter, one might be able to assign an appropriate size to a "LOD reticle or Quad Matrix grid" as in this example of "Scale" seen in the context of placement code for a default rotating civilan airport beacon:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?><FSData   version="9.0"   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"   xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="bglcomp.xsd">   <SceneryObject      lat="42.7958654038715"      lon="-70.8411665715632"      alt="0.0M"      altitudeIsAgl="TRUE"      pitch="0"      bank="0"      heading="7.0"      imageComplexity="VERY_SPARSE">      <LibraryObject         name="{7f38bfbc-e295-4a40-845c-3f3c872cfa82}"         scale="1.00"         />      <AttachedObject         attachpointName="attachpt_beacon"         pitch="0"         bank="0"         heading="0">         <RandomAttach            randomness="ALWAYS_DISPLAY"            probability="1"/>         <Beacon            type="CIVILIAN"            baseType="AIRPORT"/>      </AttachedObject>   </SceneryObject></FSData>

When configured via an interactive live-preview-capable object placer such as EZ-Scenery / Instant Scenery or Whisplacer, one can dynamically assign "Scale" with immediately visualized change in object size on-screen.However, I'm not certain if the "Scale" parameter in FS SDK XML processes fractional units (aka 'granularity of control over scalability') beyond 2 decimal places to allow precision sizing of a FS scenery library object so that such an object might be used at a specified size for LOD / QMID grid unit reference purposes, live in an FS flight during scenery development activities. B)

I'm still trying to find more references on how to use "Nav lights" in a SCASM or BGL-C type BGL in FS2004 scenery without suppressing autogen; 1 possible lead so far:http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?p=144752#post144752GaryGB

Thanks for that, I've managed to decompile LM917160A000202.BGL and find the individual light placements which I copied to a new .sca file. I added the "dummy" return call to all of them and recompiled this to "kmyl_lghts.bgl" which now displays the lights at night without knocking out the autogen.Additionally I followed a link that someone in that thread posted (which was irrelevant to the OP's query in that particular case, but very relevant to me) and also managed to tweak my groundpoly so that it doesn't interfere with autogen either .That's two tweaks in one evening for me that worked and I'm stoked. KMYL is starting to look pretty good! :smile:Jim

Glad to see things are working out well with the airport project... I think you should feel free to have fun with that right now and consider the scenery builder's crosshair project later whenever the Muse's inspiration moves you in that direction. :( I'd welcome the opportunity to take a look any any beta creations related to either your KMYL airport... or any scenery development aircraft/object you might produce when the time is right. :(PS: Did you place the "RotatedCall :dummy" string after each individual Nav light object, or a single one (ex: at the beginning / end) in the *.SCA file ...to achieve the FS7/FS8/FS9 SCASM equivalent of the FSX "XML" scenery object placement <NoAutogenSuppression> parameter to disable autogen suppression via the SCASM re-compiled output *.BGL for night light placement ?

RotatedCall( :dummy 0 0 0 )Jump( : ):dummyReturn

http://www.scasm.de/doc/sca_cmd2.htm#rcalhttp://www.scasm.de/doc/sca_cmd2.htm#jmp32http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14940 <-- See Post#1 for another autogen-sparing example of "RotatedCall"

RotatedCall( :end 0 0 0 ) ; dummy call to preserve autogenJump32( : ) ; finished now, get outta here

Regards,GaryGB

[Jim Robinson 122]

Hi Gary,

PS: Did you place the "RotatedCall :dummy" string after each individual Nav light object, or a single one (ex: at the beginning / end) in the *.SCA file ...to achieve the FS7/FS8/FS9 SCASM equivalent of the FSX "XML" scenery object placement <NoAutogenSuppression> parameter to disable autogen suppression via the SCASM re-compiled output *.BGL for night light placement ?

I couldn't see any way around adding it to each individual light object but then I spent about 20 minutes with this. Some of the lights were assembled into strings like this though:

; ----------------------------------------; Object # 326, offset: 0xABC4 size: 518 bytes (0x0206) ;; Lat: 0004C238Ah Lon: 0AD711336h; ----------------------------------------Area( C N44:54:02.33 W116:05:51.40 100 )	IfVarRange( :  028C 2 4 )	IfVarRange( :  0346 1 32767 )	PerspectiveCall( :L00ABF0 )	Jump32( : ):L00ABF0	RefPoint( rel :  1.00 N44:54:02.33 W116:05:51.40		V1= 32767 V2= 1 )	Light( m 4 -51.24 23.50 180.12		1065353216 0.00 0.00 CC 167 255 255		0.00 0.00 1.00 )	Light( m 4 -50.74 23.00 180.62		1065353216 0.00 0.00 CC 167 255 255		0.00 0.00 1.00 )	Light( m 4 -61.38 19.00 275.73		1065353216 0.00 0.00 CC 167 255 255		0.00 0.00 1.00 )	Light( m 4 -60.88 18.50 276.23		1065353216 0.00 0.00 CC 167 255 255		0.00 0.00 1.00 )	Light( m 4 90.36 10.00 -316.11		1065353216 0.00 0.00 CC 167 255 255		0.00 0.00 1.00 )	Light( m 4 90.86 9.50 -315.61		1065353216 0.00 0.00 CC 167 255 255		0.00 0.00 1.00 )	Light( m 4 34.12 12.00 -153.99		1065353216 0.00 0.00 CC 167 255 255		0.00 0.00 1.00 )	Light( m 4 34.62 11.50 -153.49		1065353216 0.00 0.00 CC 167 255 255		0.00 0.00 1.00 )	Light( m 4 -13.10 16.50 13.01		1065353216 0.00 0.00 CC 167 255 255		0.00 0.00 1.00 )	Light( m 4 -12.60 16.00 13.51		1065353216 0.00 0.00 CC 167 255 255		0.00 0.00 1.00 )	RotatedCall( :dummy 0 0 0 )	Jump( : )	:dummyReturnEndA

...which made it easy, as you can see just the one RotatedCall for the entire string. Something must have gotten lost in the decompilation however because my lights came out a greenish white rather than the traditional UT orange cast. It was easy enough to change though, the "CC 167 255 255" controls the color, I've learned. I changed every occurance to "CC 255 179 83" as an experiment and made them orange again, just a little surprised that the color was lost in the decompilation (and whereinahell did the seemingly random "167 255 255" come from?). Actually I too am a little put off with these lights because of their flickering on and off depending on your viewing angle and distance. Also there's the issue of distributing copyrighted material in the event this project ever gets thrown to the wolves. I think I'll opt for an effect type light for this scenery instead. I've actually built one already, complete with light pole using some highly modified variations of Thorsten Reichert's ramp light effects available here.

Regarding the possible creation of a "scalable" FS scenery object library object for a 'frame of reference' beyond the current crosshairs and CellGrid markings limited to non-photoreal default or custom land class, I meant that via the use of the XML "Scale" parameter, one might be able to assign an appropriate size to a "LOD reticle or Quad Matrix grid" as in this example of "Scale" seen in the context of placement code for a default rotating civilan airport beacon

I see what you're saying, I was stuck in "aircraft.mdl mode" :( . I've never used one of the preview capable object placers, it should be easy enough to build the scenery model though. I'm almost certain the scaling factor's accuracy would go beyond 2 decimal places, although that'd be a tough one to verify. These scenery placement models/objects are really child's play in Gmax though, you really should fire up your copy and get into this yourself. I did the "House Tutorial" (gmaxSceneryTutorial.doc) included with the FS2004 Gamepack SDK and it really turned the lights on for me. Only takes a couple hours and you'll be well on your way to building whatever you want in a scenery placement tool. You'll probably loose interest and start pumping out all sorts of cool scenery objects instead though, I'm guessing :( .

I'd welcome the opportunity to take a look any any beta creations related to either your KMYL airport... or any scenery development aircraft/object you might produce when the time is right.

Absolutely, you're on "the list" :( . It'll be a while till KMYL is ready for anyone to look at. I need pictures so I can make buildings and there just aren't many on the net (naturally). I'm thinking of driving to McCall over one of the coming weekends but it's 6 hrs one way and I have no idea what kind of reception a "video gamer" would get there. I wish I knew somebody in the area that was into flightsim. I did manage to find a photo of what appears to be an airport maintenance building and scratched up a quick model in gmax. I love the dent in the tin where somebody apparently backed into it:Here's another, all I could tell from the photo was that the hangar was an off-white with a green roof and had a sign on the gables. This is the ficticous "Idaho Forest Industries hangar". Can a scenery designer take these kinds of liberties with a scenery, or do I need to be more accurate than this? Also disregard the Afcad aprons & taxiways, they're gone now, replaced by the groundpoly, but I can't say it looks any better because I don't have any of the taxiways or ramp areas done yet.Seems we've drifted a bit off topic Jim

[GaryGB 10]

Hi Jim:I like those buildings you made; as a "low and slow bush flyer", I find that the more objects show realistic "wear and tear"', IMHO, the more 'immersive' FS becomes ! :Applause:Thanks for the encouragement with 3D modeling... I'm already getting familiar with the capabilities of Sketchup and the option for Collada *.DEA export to be imported into FS via Arno's ModelConverterX; but I had not considered aircraft model work in GMAX quite yet !. :( I'm still researching a way to use a different night light with either BGLC / BGLC_9 vs SCASM code, preferably I'd like to use light balls of the type Dick Ludowise (described as the "smallest" possible in BGLC).I anticipate that using these "light balls" as ONLY floating points of light at all locations away from airports where I'd be on the ground, because I'd be using them at an offset above the ground without any suspensory 'light post' object, I would save on frame rate hits... and might be able to have many more of these lights populating my roads etc. with better FS performance.But I'm not certain yet whether one can achieve a good visibility distance control in BGLC / BGLC_9 code versus XML scenery object placement code.Hopefully Dick and/or others with knowledge of those arcane options will comment here as to how one might implement use of that "smallest light ball" for larger scenery coverage areas (involving thousands of lights) rather than using the "default" light objects which IIUC are achieved via Effects, SCASM, BGL_Light etc. as it seems that they each have their own issues as to size, visibility at a given point of view in FS.I believe many of us would like to better understand what the displayed difference might be in use of these lights in FS:BGL_LIGHT LIGHT_LANDINGBGL_LIGHT LIGHT_NAVand...Dick's "Light Point" MDLs (do these use the same default 'BGL_LIGHT' object... or are these a "new" light object type ?) :( http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=629http://forum.avsim.net/topic/296289-looking-for-some-light-balls/If they all use the same FS internal default "light object", can one access the same via an FS "Effect" / *.Fx file ?For example, what would the difference be in visual appearance and performance between Dick's "Light Point" MDLs and FS 'Effects', if those "Effect lights" were displayed via XML rather than SCASM or BGLC / BGLC_9 code ? :( Example Effect Light Placement via XML

<FSData version="9.0"  xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance'  xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="bglcomp.xsd"><SceneryObject  lat = "42.795718831249"  lon = "-70.8413330516989"  alt = "0.000M"  altitudeIsAgl = "TRUE"  pitch = "0.0"  bank = "0.0"  heading = "0.0"  imageComplexity = "VERY_SPARSE" >  <Effect effectName="fx_NavWhi" effectParams="DAWN=0;DUSK=1;" /></SceneryObject></FSData>

I hope in this thread we might also identify additional options with FS night lighting for the FS Community to use ! :smile:Regards,GaryGB

[Jim Robinson 122]

Hi Gary, sorry about the delay I've been "birthday partying" with my now 8 yr old nephew most of the weekend :( . Anyway, I've been playing with scenery lights a little, here's some info:

I anticipate that using these "light balls" as ONLY floating points of light at all locations away from airports where I'd be on the ground, because I'd be using them at an offset above the ground without any suspensory 'light post' object, I would save on frame rate hits... and might be able to have many more of these lights populating my roads etc. with better FS performance.

Yes, I think you're right, this is the best way to go for street lighting. I did some testing previously using some bgl lights I'd built in gmax, attaching them as obstruction lights to other objects (hangars), but hadn't tried using them as street lights. I compiled a couple examples of Dick's code from one of the threads you linked above. I found the white lights actually had a yellowish orange cast so I changed the color to 99CCCC which is a sort of dirty-aqua color and I like the result so far. These lights are a much smaller point of light than the UT style scasm light incidentally. Only after doing some of these tests did I notice that, previously I assumed they were the same.I used "TreePlanter" (which was pretty slick) to place 86 instances of this particular light and I can't see any frame impact whatsoever and this is running on an old Athlon XP 2700+/GEForce 7800 w/256mb system. They may be a little close together, I may go back and thin out every other one, but here's what they look like:

If they all use the same FS internal default "light object", can one access the same via an FS "Effect" / *.Fx file ?For example, what would the difference be in visual appearance and performance between Dick's "Light Point" MDLs and FS 'Effects', if those "Effect lights" were displayed via XML rather than SCASM or BGLC / BGLC_9 code ?

I don't think so, an effect is an entirely different thing using a bitmap that's stored in Effects\Texture, where as near as I can tell bgl lights utilize halo.bmp which resides in the main Texture folder (I used filemon at one time to detect what was being loaded when the lights came into view, this is merely my observation, and by no means, conclusive). Runway lights, taxiway lights, VASI, etc, I believe all fall into this classification of FS lighting which isn't the same as effect lighting. One major difference is that the bgl lights are visible at a greater distance than an effect, which is the main reason I sought an alternative to "fx_obslight.fx" for the hangar obstruction lights mentioned above. Another difference is that the bgl lights don't seem to be affected by the FS9 cloud draw order bug that causes effects to be drawn behind clouds that they should be appearing in front of. It's widely accepted that this only affects effects that are attached to objects, but from my observation it affects any effect that's placed as a scenery object whether attached to another object or not. (say that 3 times fast :( ) I think an effect light has (or can have) a more pleasing appearance than a bgl light from up close, so what I did on some of my above mentioned hangars was to attach the bgl light to all but the highest LOD, with LOD_100 using an attached effect instead.

I believe many of us would like to better understand what the displayed difference might be in use of these lights in FS:BGL_LIGHT LIGHT_LANDINGBGL_LIGHT LIGHT_NAV

Don't know about LIGHT_LANDING but LIGHT_TAXI makes a splash of light on the apron where the LIGHT_NAV is a point of light in the air. I think LIGHT_LANDING is the same as LIGHT_TAXI in this regard. Rather than halo.bmp it appears these types of lights use spotlight.bmp, which is the same bitmap the aircraft landing lights use. It's also the file that get's replaced with the add-on "Xenon landing lights" packages available in the libraries, which leads to some rather odd looking light splashes in some cases I've observed. I personally think a much nicer ground light splash effect can be achieved through use of an .fx effect, so I've pretty much ruled this type of light out for use in scenery design. Dick talks about being able to rotate this type of light up to 89.99° or something like that, which I haven't tried. That may look considerably better, I'll have to put that on my list of things to try one day.In the meantime I've had some success in adding some semi high-res layers to my ground poly:Jim

[GaryGB 10]

Hi Jim:If your nephew looks over your shoulder sometimes when you're working in FS, we might just end up seeing another flight simmer from Idaho join our ranks in the future !

Yes, I think you're right, this is the best way to go for street lighting. I did some testing previously using some bgl lights I'd built in gmax, attaching them as obstruction lights to other objects (hangars), but hadn't tried using them as street lights. I compiled a couple examples of Dick's code from one of the threads you linked above. I found the white lights actually had a yellowish orange cast so I changed the color to 99CCCC which is a sort of dirty-aqua color and I like the result so far. These lights are a much smaller point of light than the UT style scasm light incidentally. Only after doing some of these tests did I notice that, previously I assumed they were the same. I used "TreePlanter" (which was pretty slick) to place 86 instances of this particular light and I can't see any frame impact whatsoever. They may be a little close together, I may go back and thin out every other one

I'll bet that you'll find FS can "take all those... and a whole lot more" ! :(

this is running on an old Athlon XP 2700+/GEForce 7800 w/256mb system.

The Athlon XP 2700+ in a capable motherboard can deliver some unanticipated extra performance with a simple (conservative) FSB overclock on the supplied cooling fan.BTW: Your GeForce 7800 with 256 MB VRAM is rated close to my old ATI AGP-8X video card; you might also be able to boost its FS throughput substantially with a optimized AGP Aperture Size, (safely) adjusted PCI latency and (conservative) overclock for the AGP video card ! :( http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=43&card2=382If you'd care to try out some video card tweaks for a quick test flight (you'll see results immediately upon loading your flight), just let me know and I'll send the info to you in a PM.Additionally I have researched some significant tweaks for FS9.Cfg that might further enhance your FS9 experience (...seriously !). B) If you'd care to try them out via a simple edited 'copy' of your FS9.Cfg for a quick test flight (you'll see results immediately upon loading your flight), just let me know and I'll send the info to you in a PM.Alternatively, we could connect live via 'TeamSpeak' sometime. :(

I believe many of us would like to better understand what the displayed difference might be in use of these lights in FS:BGL_LIGHT LIGHT_LANDINGBGL_LIGHT LIGHT_NAVand...Dick's "Light Point" MDLs (do these use the same default 'BGL_LIGHT' object... or are these a "new" light object type ?)

I don't think so, an effect is an entirely different thing using a bitmap that's stored in Effects\Texture, where as near as I can tell bgl lights utilize halo.bmp which resides in the main Texture folder (I used filemon at one time to detect what was being loaded when the lights came into view, this is merely my observation, and by no means, conclusive). Runway lights, taxiway lights, VASI, etc, I believe all fall into this classification of FS lighting which isn't the same as effect lighting. One major difference is that the bgl lights are visible at a greater distance than an effect, which is the main reason I sought an alternative to "fx_obslight.fx" for the hangar obstruction lights mentioned above. Another difference is that the bgl lights don't seem to be affected by the FS9 cloud draw order bug that causes effects to be drawn behind clouds that they should be appearing in front of. It's widely accepted that this only affects effects that are attached to objects, but from my observation it affects any effect that's placed as a scenery object whether attached to another object or not. (say that 3 times fast). I think an effect light has (or can have) a more pleasing appearance than a bgl light from up close, so what I did on some of my above mentioned hangars was to attach the bgl light to all but the highest LOD, with LOD_100 using an attached effect instead.Don't know about LIGHT_LANDING but LIGHT_TAXI makes a splash of light on the apron where the LIGHT_NAV is a point of light in the air. I think LIGHT_LANDING is the same as LIGHT_TAXI in this regard. Rather than halo.bmp it appears these types of lights use spotlight.bmp, which is the same bitmap the aircraft landing lights use. It's also the file that get's replaced with the add-on "Xenon landing lights" packages available in the libraries, which leads to some rather odd looking light splashes in some cases I've observed. I personally think a much nicer ground light splash effect can be achieved through use of an .fx effect, so I've pretty much ruled this type of light out for use in scenery design. Dick talks about being able to rotate this type of light up to 89.99° or something like that, which I haven't tried. That may look considerably better, I'll have to put that on my list of things to try one day.

Excellent info, thanks for sharing your insights and test results with these 'lighting' options !Regarding an FS lighting "Effect" idea I had in mind, may I inquire as to whether you've worked with the interactive FSX Visual Fx Tool ?I was curious if you had ever tested the Fx "Emits Light" attribute, and knew whether this invoked use of similar FS sub-system 'light objects' (such as I thought might be involved with "EmissiveBloom" and gauge objects etc.) ?

In the meantime I've had some success in adding some semi high-res layers to my ground poly:

That grass and RWY looks great... also, as seen above, flying at dusk is IMHO, one of the best times for FS to show off its "magic" ! :Big Grin:Regards,GaryGB

[Jim Robinson 122]

Hi Gary, yes I'd be very interested to know what I can do to get a little more performance out of this old girl. By all means, let's see what you've got. Thanks.

If your nephew looks over your shoulder sometimes when you're working in FS, we might just end up seeing another flight simmer from Idaho join our ranks in the future !

Heh, heh, yes he's already into it a little but his mother thinks I'm off the deep end with this "video game" so I'm reluctant to introduce him to the "finer points of simming" until he asks about them. In the meantime he's in love with the Carenado 206 on floats and actually does a pretty good job of using his flaps, gear, etc. I've shown him very little about actually flying the airplane, and only in very small doses, but somehow he's managed to put all the pieces together on his own and can now pull off some fairly meaningful flights. :(

Regarding an FS lighting "Effect" idea I had in mind, may I inquire as to whether you've worked with the interactive FSX Visual Fx Tool ?I was curious if you had ever tested the Fx "Emits Light" attribute, and knew whether this invoked use of similar FS sub-system 'light objects' (such as I thought might be involved with "EmissiveBloom" and gauge objects etc.) ?

I've never been able to get any of FSX's little SDK add-ons to work actually, which is the reason for the delay in my reply. After some extensive experimenting and a little research I believe my problem is lack of the SP2 version SDK. :( I have that in my hot little hand right now so I'll let you know on that one if I can get it to work. I'm hopefully heading towards FSX real soon with a new i7 950 build so I'm very interested in checking this out.Jim

[GaryGB 10]

Hi Gary, yes I'd be very interested to know what I can do to get a little more performance out of this old girl. By all means, let's see what you've got. Thanks.

Hi Jim:I have a few initial questions about your computer as I prepare some info for you: :( * What version of Windows are you running (ex: Windows 98 SE, Windows XP Home or Pro, Windows Vista) ?* How much total system RAM in MB or GB ?* What type / speed / quantity are the system RAM memory modules (ex: (2) - 512 MB 333MHz PC2700 DDR DIMM modules = 1 GB total) ? * Which Motherboard (aka "mobo") model and Revision (from the silkscreen printed onto that main board inside the case) ? * If a commercially built production line / store bought system, what Manufacturer, model name, and/or "part" number is it ? * What exact Model of the NVidia GeForce 7800 do you have ? (click "Choose a Card" pick-list button above your card at):http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=43&card2=382 * What manufacturer made the video card if not NVidia themselves (ex "EVGA" etc.) ?* What version of the NVidia driver for the GeForce 7800 are you using ?* Are you presently using any 3rd party utilities with that video card (ex: nHancer, RivaTuner etc.) ? * Are you familiar with how to enter the motherboard BIOS setup screen during power-up of your computer ?If so...* What is your AGP Aperture Size set at (ex: 64, 128, 256 MB) ?Also...* What's the system RAM module Column Address Strobe (CAS) latency, aka 'CL' setting (ex: 3, 2.5, or 2 on 333 MHz systems) ?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAS_latency * What hard drive type / RPM speed (ex: Parallel ATA / Ultra DMA 100/133 mbps @7200 RPM, Serial ATA-I 150 mbps @7200 RPM etc.) ?If you prefer, feel free to send this info to me via a PM here at AVSIM.FYI: Only a portion of this info is required before I send you the 'initial' FS9.Cfg tweaks, so if these hardware details are as yet unfamiliar, let me know, and I'll send some initial generic tweaks likely to still work for you until we've ID'd the specs above (all this gratis, of course !)

I've never been able to get any of FSX's little SDK add-ons to work actually, which is the reason for the delay in my reply. After some extensive experimenting and a little research I believe my problem is lack of the SP2 version SDK. :( I have that in my hot little hand right now so I'll let you know on that one if I can get it to work. I'm hopefully heading towards FSX real soon with a new i7 950 build so I'm very interested in checking this out.

The FSX Deluxe version has the required base components for the FSX SDK, and IIRC, one can then get the freely-downloadable SDK SP1 and SP2 updates to install on top of that.http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=SDK_Installation_%28FSX%29PS: You might have a more 'complete' FSX experience using Deluxe version with AccelerationNOTE: It's cheapest to get both buying "FSX Gold" aka "Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Gold Edition" [PC Game]http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=44668&page=2Also, one must manually activate the FSX Visual Effects Tool (VisualFx.dll) in the "active" dll.xml file for it to be available:http://www.simforums.com/forums/fsx-sdk-install-guide_topic31522.htmlBTW: This utility comes in handy for some edits to the "active" FSX system XML files:ModuleToolX 0.4http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fsxutil&DLID=117187Regards, :( GaryGB

[Jim Robinson 122]

Hi Gary, here goes :( :

* What version of Windows are you running (ex: Windows 98 SE, Windows XP Home or Pro, Windows Vista) ?

Win XP Pro SP2

* How much total system RAM in MB or GB ?* What type / speed / quantity are the system RAM memory modules (ex: (2) - 512 MB 333MHz PC2700 DDR DIMM modules = 1 GB total) ?

There are 3 identical "Crucial" 1GB sticks, and the label on the package says 184 pin Unbuff DIMM 128MX64 DDR PC2700

* Which Motherboard (aka "mobo") model and Revision (from the silkscreen printed onto that main board inside the case) ?

Abit NF7S v2.0

* If a commercially built production line / store bought system, what Manufacturer, model name, and/or "part" number is it ?

Nope, built it myself, first in 2002 with a major upgrade in 2008.

* What exact Model of the NVidia GeForce 7800 do you have ? (click "Choose a Card" pick-list button above your card at):http://www.gpureview...d1=43&card2=382* What manufacturer made the video card if not NVidia themselves (ex "EVGA" etc.) ?

BFG Tech GEForce 7800 GS OC (OC = overclocked, supposed to be overclocked from the factory)

* What version of the NVidia driver for the GeForce 7800 are you using ?* Are you presently using any 3rd party utilities with that video card (ex: nHancer, RivaTuner etc.) ?

Forceware version 163.71 which I think was the current version when I bought the card. I tried several newer driver versions as they were released back in those days, but IIRC there was always some issue with AA using the newer drivers. I also tried Nhancer and had similar issues so I got rid of all of it and went back to 163.71 which has given fairly staisfactory results. I have AA off in the sim and "8xS" in the Nvidia control panel. I'm also using the ENB HDR bloom plug-in. Chances are there's a version available now that may work better, I adopted the "If it ain't broke don't fix it" attitude shortly after the struggles with AA and newer drivers and stopped upgrading. This is incidentally one of the infamous Nvidia cards that invoked countless "My select aircraft preview window is completely black" threads in all the forums back in those days.

* Are you familiar with how to enter the motherboard BIOS setup screen during power-up of your computer ?If so...* What is your AGP Aperture Size set at (ex: 64, 128, 256 MB) ?Also...* What's the system RAM module Column Address Strobe (CAS) latency, aka 'CL' setting (ex: 3, 2.5, or 2 on 333 MHz systems) ?http://en.wikipedia....iki/CAS_latency

Currently AGP Aperture is set to 256 MB, CAS latency is "2.5". Recently my CMOS battery packed in and of course I lost all my BIOS settings. When I built the computer I did the research and had everything set up like it was supposed to be, but I haven't taken the time since the battery episode to get the manuals out and do it right a second time. I simply replaced the battery and then loaded "Optomized defaults" in the BIOS. The "Optomized defaut" AGP Aperture setting was 64 MB which I found caused random failures of AA in the sim in graphic intensive locations. This could be fixed simply by dropping to windowed mode and returning to full screen (opening FSNav and closing it again would also fix it). Since changing to 256 MB I've had no more issues with loosing AA.

* What hard drive type / RPM speed (ex: Parallel ATA / Ultra DMA 100/133 mbps @7200 RPM, Serial ATA-I 150 mbps @7200 RPM etc.) ?

There's a pair of WD SATA 120s set up on RAID 0. I think they are 7200 RPM, they say "Caviar" on the label. That's about all I know about them (except that this setup is lightning fast in Windows Explorer compared to any other computer I deal with in my daily travels)

The FSX Deluxe version has the required base components for the FSX SDK, and IIRC, one can then get the freely-downloadable SDK SP1 and SP2 updates to install on top of that.http://www.fsdevelop...ation_%28FSX%29

I got it working finally with the SP2 SDK, or at least I now have a "Tools" menu and am able to pull up the visualfxtool and Object_Placement mission creation tool (which are the only 2 I enabled so fart). I haven't yet made sense of either of them, but they are there anyway.

PS: You might have a more 'complete' FSX experience using Deluxe version with AccelerationNOTE: It's cheapest to get both buying "FSX Gold" aka "Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Gold Edition" [PC Game]http://www.sim-outho...?t=44668&page=2

From what I've seen there isn't going to be much of an "FSX experience" in any case until I break down and build a new machine :( . I really should pick up a copy of FSX Gold though just to add to my collection, if for no other reason. Next time I buy something from the pilot shop I'll add one to the order for sure.Appreciate the help, GaryJim

[GaryGB 10]

Hi Jim:I sent you a PM here at AVSIM ! :(PS: I forgot to ask: are you already using the "/3 GB switch" in your Windows XP Pro Boot.ini file in conjunction with an FS9.exe file edited to set the LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE flag ? :( http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=OOM_Errorhttp://forum.simflight.com/topic/55994-set-fs-and-winxp-to-use-the-3gb-switch/Regards,GaryGB

[Dirk98 354]

Additionally I have researched some significant tweaks for FS9.Cfg that might further enhance your FS9 experience (...seriously !)

Gary, I suspect I'm having some latency problems of video vs. audio that might be related to autogen as well and tweaked by fs9 settings. I'd like to try out your tweaks, so could you please send them to me? If yes, I'll PM you.Thanks,Dirk.