Greetings...I've recently gotten a new pc and am in the process of reinstalling FS2004. Fired up the sim to check out my progress and lo-and-behold, I had large, "cartoonish" looking circular nav lights. My old pc had nice, sharp looking realistic nav lights. I tried searching for a solution but came up empty. Any idea what causes this? Is there a setting I'm missing somewhere?thanks!Chris

Hi Chris,'Cartoonish nav lights' are those lights which had been modeled in Gmax or any other 3D programing tools, opposed to lights produced by an effect file (defaut aircrafts use those)So if you see cartoonish nav lights on some add-on aircraft, it's because the aircraft was designed with 3D lights, and there is nothing you can do about it.Defaut aircrafts use the aircraft.cfg to add beacons, navigation and other strobe lights - look for the [lights] section. Each position for each lightspoints to a specific effect file located in the FS effects folder.Sometime some add-ons replace without warning those effect files, so if you havent made a backup of those effect files, you must find the original ones from the CDs.Also, keep in mind that those 3D lights look even worse on LCD screens, I learned this when I got rid of my old CRT monitor and bought an LCD.

Hi Chris,'Cartoonish nav lights' are those lights which had been modeled in Gmax or any other 3D programing tools, opposed to lights produced by an effect file (defaut aircrafts use those)So if you see cartoonish nav lights on some add-on aircraft, it's because the aircraft was designed with 3D lights, and there is nothing you can do about it.Defaut aircrafts use the aircraft.cfg to add beacons, navigation and other strobe lights - look for the [lights] section. Each position for each lightspoints to a specific effect file located in the FS effects folder.Sometime some add-ons replace without warning those effect files, so if you havent made a backup of those effect files, you must find the original ones from the CDs.Also, keep in mind that those 3D lights look even worse on LCD screens, I learned this when I got rid of my old CRT monitor and bought an LCD.

The cartoonish lights are necessary sometimes if you have an aircraft that has features like flexing wings. The aircraft.cfg lights will not move with the structure and will hang in space when the wing flexes away from wherever the lights are placed. So if there are lights attached to a structure that is supposed to move, then the mdl lights are the only option.

Oh yes, absolutely true, totally forgot about the flex wings.

huh... thats interesting.Now that I think of it, the aircraft I was checking out was the Opensky 737-700. It had the goofy looking nav lights.I remember on my original installation of FS2004 the nav lights looked like that (goofy), then about 8 months ago my FS got corrupted and I did a re-install and I was pleasantly surprised that my nav lights looked great!...even on the Opensky aircraft. Then just last month my entire system bit the big one. Now after the install on the new machine they look terrible...I mean, like large balls at the end of the wings.Maybe I'll dig up those FX files from the CD and see what they do.thanks for any and all info!Chris

Did you try to change "halo" texture, within textures folder? For example with "Nick's light fix". Might help.

Did you try to change "halo" texture, within textures folder? For example with "Nick's light fix". Might help.

I did not. I just found Nick's light fix in the library, I'll give it a try tonight!thanks