FS2002 Lights

[Guest usairways_jett2]

I know probably some one has already asked this, but ive been always wondering..... 1. why are the landing lights ( at the airport and on the planes) are so big? 2. why are the strobes so big from far away and upclose, this is unrealistic for sure? mAtt

[Guest usairways_jett2]

ne help?

[Guest]

I still want to ask what the FS development team really does to "improve" the game. Your questions are only the brink of a whole set of questions regarding the always conservative and somewhat unoptimized graphics engine of FS2002.I seem to think that they havent had any major graphics engine people at FS, the FS lights are by far not the best lighting rendering methods. I guess they had no other practical way to increase the lights' intensities (not modelled), as the lights should be able to be seen from a distant aircraft. A cessna's landing lights tend to "blot out" the aircraft itself from the light flare. FS seemed to have taken a literal and physical approach to interpreting this light flare. What is really happening is that the lights do not change in size whether you are 3 feet from them or 2 miles, otherwise, with the current graphics engine, the lights could not be seen from afar. The best effect would be ray-tracing but no computer now could probably do this with acceptable FS frame-rates with multiple lights.

[LAdamson 240]

>I still want to ask what the FS development team really does >to "improve" the game. In all seriousness, there has been much improvement from the years such as FS98. I don't want to get into a big list, but it is quite vast.L.Adamson

[Guest]

I should make my comment more specific and with a smaller focus, there are certain specific improvements to glaring issues that have not been made and do not necessarily meet my standards. I want to make it clear that these are just minor qualms and not things that stop me from buying or using FS.The changes you speak of, I see as legitimate as viewed from a long-time flightsimmer's view. But I was given insight outside of this view when a friend made an interesting point about the overall structure of the program and showed me an outside perspective.Specifically I would like to see FS bridge the gap from a "flightsimmer's software", to a software that could stand for itself. I would like to see the aircraft design meet some sort of standard where we could fly the default aircraft and be satisfied. I see a disparity with how CFS2 and CFS3 suddenly has 10 all-new aircraft, and FS continues to use aircraft 1 generation down the line (i.e. Corsair, Lear, Schweizer, Mooney, 737, 182RG, KingAir, 777, Sopwith) So now we have 6 all-new aircraft, of which 2 are quite ambiguous. I can't see how such a large overlook to the central vehicle in FS, aircraft, was allowed.I have also realized that after flying IL-2 Sturmovik for a while, find the FS GA flight model is not incredibly accurate nor dynamic. The scenery systems could be optimized as well to a good level. Furthermore, the multiplayer plotting can be inaccurate as well, unsuitable for tandem hammerheads (I actually try this :)). At least if graphics must be left conservative, it would be nice to have development go into flight modelling.I suppose I'm not complaining or asking the FS crew directly to make a difference, but I sit here wishing FS could go out of the box and attempt to keep up with modern trends and not just rest on its trusty flightsimmer market-base. I guess because the FS team is on such a large scale that making a coherent and concentrated sim can be quite difficult.

[Guest]

Well, if we're talking IL-2 then I think MS are taking notice. CFS3 has virtual cockpits only - with no useable controls in the cockpit, just like IL-2.I agree with you on the graphics point. They clearly put some effort into the graphics for 2k2 - I would dearly love them to put some effort into the flight part of the flight simulator for the next release. I don't expect it to happen though - the games market is entirely driven by appearances at the moment. A clear case of style over substance every time.

[Guest DSN]

Matt,There are a couple of versions of the aircraft light effects in the effects folder under FS2002. If you look in the aircraft.cfg file, in the lights sections, you'll notice references to the light fx files (fx_strobeh, fx_navredm etc) if you change the reference to the fx_ files to the alternate versions (filenames that do not end with h or m) the lights on the aircraft will appear smaller (forgive me for not having specific information. I'm typing this on a computer that does not have FS2002 installed, so I am working from memory)-DSN