Richard, what does that effect tweak do.. When I fly at night into a big city, it's mostly yellowish anyway.. It would be cool though to be able to have a nice mix of white and yellow.. I agree..

 

I have found that ObjectSize=250 doesn't kill your fps the original number is 350 anything lower than 250 gets iffy

 

True, but if I reduce autogen in fsx, still smooth for me.. Different systems different results I guess..

Yes Billy I prefer whiter sick of yellow lol think you might like it here is my setting to save you some time. Only the color start and end lines have been changed you can do this for all 4 files if you wish or you could mix it up I did not Billy :) I have a killer system I could push it more but its like 95 degrees here with no AC not good lol. Hmmm reducing autogen doesnt that reduce the amount of lights ?

 

 

[ParticleAttributes.0]

Blend Mode=2

Texture=experiencex.bmp

Bounce=0.00

Color Start=249, 246, 238, 200

Color End=249, 246, 238, 0

Jitter Distance=0.00

Jitter Time=0.00

uv1=0.00, 0.00

uv2=0.50, 0.50

X Scale Goal=3.50

Y Scale Goal=3.50

Z Scale Goal=3.50

Extrude Length=0.00

Extrude Pitch Max=0.00

Extrude Heading Max=0.00

Throw some ice in that thar water cooling system.. haha

lol there you go, ice wouldn't last long lol

In the main folder of FSX you find subfolder EFFECTS Within this folder you will have the Following files:

 

fx_exphiway.fx

fx_exphiwayh.fx

fx_expw.fx

fx_expwh.fx

 

 

Ah, well if the lights are driven by fx files then the lights sizes should be able to be tweaked as well as for intensity. So there should be three available tweaks:

 

1. Size of the individual light sources

2. Hue and brightness

3. How much they are clustered together (autogen tweak).

 

What baffles me is why the developer didn't consider these user-options before releasing the product. Oh well.....

 

I'm not the developer, but have been working back and forth through emails.. I haven't changed anything in the Halo.bmp, unless REX or A2A lights have.. The autogen tweak brings the lights much closer together, so you'll get more night lighting.. I had to reduce fsx autogen setting to dense because the framerates were hit pretty good.. Some people have stated that they can't see the lights that far, could be system related, I really don't know.. The developer is a very nice guy and will answer any questions.. Keep in mind, if you fly into big cities, you can tweak the terrain.cfg on the fly,and mess with the objectsize , reload scenery and it takes effect.. The reason I got very excited about this is because I had this idea long ago to add 3d night lighting to the entire world, rather than just a few areas.. I'm glad this program came along and promote things I like, expect nothing in return except to share with the fs community.. Cheers..

 

There's a lot of potential here for sure. See my other comment. Thanks for the info.

Good point Robert, I am thinking this is a wip any ideas to add more functinality would be well recieved by the developer. Oh fyi it does work in dawn and dusk one of my original concerns.

Hello, the ExperienceX product is in its first version, we collect various opinions of buyers and we are already with an update scheduled for September 20, 2012. Following is a list update:

- Inclusion of setting the amount of light per meter in the highways and roads.

- Inclusion of setting the amount of lights for map of towns in autogen options: cold (25 lights) - warm (40 lights) - hot (60 lights) - Fire (80 lights)

- Inclusion of setting the size of the lights.

 

Any questions we are available in

 

[email protected]

 

thank you

 

bracket

beetleprint

 

PS: ExperienceX includes lights around the planet, at dusk, night and dawn. Already have AVAILABLE hotfix for those using GEX Europe and North America and we are working on others. Works with UTX and 100% scenerytech

Do not add lights fotoreais scenarios and scenarios that exclude all use as a base.

 

translated with google translator

Hi Bracket:

 

"hotfix for those using GEX Europe and North America" - where can this be had, thanks a lot.

I don't have UTX - mainly because of the FPS hit.

 

I see this statement all the time. UTX is fully configurable, and without 3D night lighting and urban residential streets, I have found the FPS impact to be minimal.

 

name='Richard Sennett' timestamp='1341432766' post='2411160']

Hi Bracket:

 

"hotfix for those using GEX Europe and North America" - where can this be had, thanks a lot.

[/u]

 

 

 

 

Hotfix GEX Europe and North America only via email.

Order by e-mail to suport

 

thank you

 

bracket

beetleprint

Private Post

---------------

 

Following on from tips above this post, I've done a little experimenting and below is a summary of how you can tweak these lights so they look much much better.

 

As pointed out above, the lights are driven by three things, the experiencex.bmp containing the light images which the software places in your FSX\effects\texture folder. You can experiment with different kinds of textures by making a backup copy of this .bmp file then copying over any halo.bmp texture you might have (either default or one of the many freeware additions) and renaming it experiencex.bmp. I'm using a different halo.bmp which is slightly more twinkly but without being over shimmering.

 

The second influence is the autogen tweak as described in a post above this one.

 

The third tweak is that you can resize the lights directly by editing the fx files below which are in your FSX\effects folder.,CAUTION, if you make a mistake editing these fx files FSX can fail to start so I suggest making a backup copy of each of the 4 fx files listed below.

 

fx_exphiway.fx

fx_exphiwayh.fx

fx_expw.fx

fx_expwh.fx

 

To get a contrast between the major highway lights and smaller road lighting, you can resize the particles in

fx_exphiway.fx

fx_exphiwayh.fx

 

...to be bigger than the default sizes, but keep the particle sizes smaller or the same as they already are in these ones:

 

fx_expw.fx

fx_expwh.fx

 

To tweak the sizes, it is necessary to understand what the sections of these fx files do.

 

There are two sections which are relevant: The particle and particle attributes.

 

Ignore this section: [Emitter.0]

 

Now go to the [Particle.0] section and increase or decrease the sizes of the particles as you wish, for example:

X Scale=5.00, 5.50

Y Scale=5.00, 5.50

Z Scale=5.00, 5.50

 

This will double the size of the default lights, so use this tweak only for the large highways. Below this you'll see:

 

X Scale Rate=2.00, 2.00

Y Scale Rate=2.00, 2.00

Z Scale Rate=2.00, 2.00

 

This is the time the lights take to achieve their maximum size from the starting scale above, to the "Scale Goal" size in the next section of the file. This can be quite a satisfying effect as you pan around your FSX night scenery since the lights don't instantly glare at you but sort of subtlely fade up as you pan your view.I think perhaps the default 2 seconds is a bit long. You can reduce this time to 0.5 seconds or whatever you wish. This Scale rate is only relevant if the Scale Goal in the next section is larger than the value in the above section.

 

so now go to the next section and ignore everything except

[ParticleAttributes.0]

 

X Scale Goal=6.50

Y Scale Goal=6.50

Z Scale Goal=6.50

 

This is the "final" size of the lights as you pan around. You might find these sizes a little large if you use a hacked texture bmp (saved to experiencex.bmp) and the images are splodges or bigger than the default size. You'll have to experiment. I'm finding the scale goal of around 6.0 for each X,Y,Z dimension perfect for the larger highways. If you want the "village" or minor roads to show much smaller lights then you can tweak the other fx files until you are satisfied.

 

Note: Increasing the size of the particles themselves probably has very little frame rate impact since all this is doing is using the same bitmap and virtually, not actually, resizing it.The frame rate impact is almost entirely dependent on how many INSTANCES of the lights you use and this is itself dependent on your autogen sliders and the autogen size tweaks in your terrain.cfg file.

 

IMPORTANT: You can reload the autogen tweaks (see post above with the screenshots) by altering the values described in that post, then reloading the scenery in FSX without shutting down. But any changes in the fx files themselves needs FSX to be shut down and restarted, since you cannot edit fx files on the fly.

 

So you now have several ways to tweak:

 

1. Autogen tweaks in the last section of your Terrain cfg

2. Different texture.bmp files based on the default experiencex.bmp or a hacked halo.bmp

3. Changing the light particle sizes in the fx files

3. Changing the colours of the lights in the fx flles (see posts above)

5. A combination of these tweaks.

 

ANOTHER REPEAT CAUTION!!!: Do make backups of the fx files. Just to remind you again, if you screw up the syntax in those fx files it can crash FSX or FSX will not start. If that happens you will find extra backups in the beetlelights folder after installing the software.

 

Note: I personally cannot get these lights to work properly with UTX Europe or UTX USA. Although the lights do show in "village" areas they do not show on UTX major roads. This made me think I had not installed them correctly but I had. Disabling UTX roads and re-instating default roads (and traffic) will show these lights up a treat. I don't know whether just using GEX without UTX enables the lights on roads, but I'm pretty sure that UTX plus GEX will again just show the rural lights, not the highway lights.

 

You could enable UTX roads in daytime flying, then disable them at dusk and night.

 

I only wish the developer had been bothered to include the above options and tweaks, plus a bit more info in his otherwise good software. These tweaks will make the lights so much more flexible to your own preference. It does take a bit of effort but I think you'll find it worthwhile.

 

 

All the best,

 

Rob

Great post Rob have to check this out, thank you.

Great post Rob have to check this out, thank you.

 

A pleasure, and thanks for your suggestions too, and those of the above posters. Together we'll make these lights look great!

 

Rob

I find it strange that people think fsx night isn't dark enough, mine is pitch black. I have to increase brightness via nvidia panel to taxi. :D I guess it's monitor difference?

 

My tube monitor was pitch black, and my flat screen is not.

Rob,

 

Can you tell us what exactly you disabled in the UTX control panel to get the lights back on the roads? Even with roads and traffic disabled I can't seem to get any of the highway lights to work.

 

Incidentally, also noticed that there's no lights showing up in Aerosoft's Iceland scenery.

 

James