>Your tutorial is great for backlit gauges at night, but>unfortunately, it does not address the original poster's>query. The original poster showed a picture of a panel during>the day. That same panel has night time backlighting. >Currently, as far as I know, there is no way to backlight>gauges during daylight hours. (Please correct me if I am>wrong!)You are absolutely correct. The FS engine will only switch ON emissive texturing during dawn/dusk/night situations. During the daytime, the only method I'm aware of to provide any illumination is via .fx "floodlights" in the VC. For that reason, all my models now have .fx "floodlights" which come on automatically during the daylight hours, to oversome the extreme shadowing that FS's engine creates during the daytime. This provides the necessary "ambient light" needed to give the illusion of brightly lighted gauges.

>For that reason, all my models now have .fx "floodlights" which come >on automatically during the daylight hours, to oversome the>extreme shadowing that FS's engine creates during the daytime.Hi Bill, as I'm at work and can't dig around in FS too much from here, are you saying that the vc.fx can automatically come on during daylight AND stay off at night as well?The DF 727 is lighted correctly at night and at this point I've rem'd the vc.fx from the cfg file completely. It didn't occur to me that it could come in the day and stay off at night......if that is what you implied.edit oops!! where'd my sig go to?

>Hi Bill, as I'm at work and can't dig around in FS too much>from here, are you saying that the vc.fx can automatically>come on during daylight AND stay off at night as well?>>The DF 727 is lighted correctly at night and at this point>I've rem'd the vc.fx from the cfg file completely. It didn't>occur to me that it could come in the day and stay off at>night......if that is what you implied.Hi Paul!Yes, using the TIME_OF_DAY variable available it is easy to accomplish either in C or XML: TIME_OF_DAY, enum1 = DAY2 = DAWN or DUSK3 = NIGHTSimply create a gauge that will read the TIME_OF_DAY variable. If NOT 3, then toggle ON some light circuit, such as CABIN_LIGHTS and tie your .fx lights to that electrical bus. Using this method, you can either use a manual switch to control those same .fx lights, or have an entirely different .fx set tied to a different elec. bus for night use.By using multiple .fx files, you could even model 'progressive' floodlighting, by having one .fx "light" during dusk/dawn periods and TWO .fx "lights" on during the daytime, when you actually need more ambient light.The only real limits are (a) your creativity, and (:( the finite number of lighting busses available (which are WAY too few!)... :)I kind of like the ability to turn on cockpit floods at night in case I drop my virtual pencil... :)

Thanks Bill, we'll have to play around with this then :-)

"Currently, as far as I know, there is no way to backlight gauges during daylight hours. (Please correct me if I am wrong!)"Hi luhiss,My Hurricane gauges are backlit anytime the switch is on, dawn, day, dusk or night. So it can be done.But as Bill correctly states:"You are absolutely correct. The FS engine will only switch ON emissive texturing during dawn/dusk/night situations."Which is the result of using emissive textures (_LM) for the gauge backlighting in flightsim. I'm using emissive materials instead, which aren't subject to that limitation. I simply copy each gauge poly and then paste it onto the first so I have two polys existing in the same location, one with a non-emissive material assigned to it, the second with an emissive material and pre-processed to be visible whenever the light switch (circuit) assigned to it is on. I've used the Logo Lights circuit for my vintage aircraft for obvious reasons, but any unused aircraft light circuit will do.Reading Bill's tutorial this weekend, I now see that although the emissive material method allows you to brighten the gauges during the day, it isn't nearly as sophisticated or flexible as the lightmap method which allows for shading the effect on both gauge and panel. Perhaps the two methods could be combined for good panel/gauge lighting both day and night.I've also noted the extreme shadow effect that Paul mentions, it can hide VC details and turn medium or dark colors to black, depending on the time of day and aircraft position in relation to the sun. After reading these new replies today, I had a look at the Parameters SDK document and found TIME OF DAY hiding near the bottom in the global data. Good find Bill, and thanks for the tip! I'll see if I can't put this to work illuminating things in the daytime VC.Take care,Robert

You have a certain deadline for when the product has to be finished. In this time, you have to decide what features to implement, actually program them and then test, test, test. Well, you have to draw the line somewhere and say that "these are the features we will implement for the new version, the rest will have to wait".I actually happen to think that they added *too much* into FS2004 without testing the effects of each addition feature. New "offsets" and flattens for roads and rivers that don't get removed when you exclude the vector line itself, new autogen objects and library objects with insanely high view distances, new terrain texture blending that causes CTD's, 3D clouds that kill performance (where's the "cloud texture resolution" slider in FS?)...FS2004 is basically FS2002 with a bazillion addition small features. I wish FS was a continious, constantly updated project like X-Plane or Flightgear. This model works better for flightsims and other complex software. Unfortunately, this model does not work well for Microsoft as they seem to have completely abandoned the concept of patches.

Woah Robert! Back up a second! (beep beep beep). This is getting interesting! >>>>I'm using emissive materials instead, which aren't subject to that limitation. I simply copy each gauge poly and then paste it onto the first so I have two polys existing in the same location<<

> >>>>I'm using emissive materials instead, which aren't>subject to that limitation. I simply copy each gauge poly and>then paste it onto the first so I have two polys existing in>the same location<<<>>Ok.. that makes sense.....It is clear that he's using FSDS2, so of course he's using "FSDS Speak." Translated into "GMax Speak," that would be the same as ticking off the "self-illumiation" box (not the one next to the texture slot, but the box just above the texture boxes with a small window to pick a color.><<<<<, one with a non-emissive material assigned to it, the>second with an emissive material and pre-processed to be>visible whenever the light switch (circuit) assigned to it is>on. <<<<>>What I've been playing with is the _L texture, which shows up>at night, but not the day (as mentioned above).That is my preferred technique. Using a "self-illuminated material" will light up everything, including the background and gauge bezels. Emissive texturing on the other hand, allows you to "paint" the areas you wish illuminated, using various shades of grey to control the intensity. I use pure white (255,255,255) for glass gauges, and darker grey for gauge faces, annunciator lights, etc.>Also, what do you mean by "pre-processed to be visible..."?Again, that's "FSDS Speak." Until FS9, non-FSDS folks didn't have any real options for "pre-processing," but the new embedded XML code in the .mdl allows a LOT of cool stuff! :)By the way, as I mentioned previously, although FSDS has always had the ability (AFAIK) to use "self-illuminating (emissive)" lighting, until a few months ago, I worked with Louis to implement the scheme of _L.bmp lighting that is now possible... :)

>Thanks Bill, we'll have to play around with this then :-)I guess I should mention that XML is the easiest route, since that variable is a native XML parameter. You can use them in C gauges now, but it involves using one of the new techniques to open, fetch, read, and close the XML paramenter within the C code, and you must be using the new gauges.h file that came with the latest SDK.

>Reading Bill's tutorial this weekend, I now see that although>the emissive material method allows you to brighten the gauges>during the day, it isn't nearly as sophisticated or flexible>as the lightmap method which allows for shading the effect on>both gauge and panel. Perhaps the two methods could be>combined for good panel/gauge lighting both day and night.The primary problem with using an emissive material vs. emissive texture is that where the former will light up EVERYTHING: background, gauge bezels, etc., the latter will allow for exact lighting specification on a pixel for pixel basis... :) BTW, for most purposes, the _L.bmp can be reduced to a 256x256 size if the lighting needs aren't that critical...Now I'm going to have to run some experiments with your idea of combining the two methods, since I'm now able to accomplish the "pre-processing" via the embedded XML code.>I've also noted the extreme shadow effect that Paul mentions,>it can hide VC details and turn medium or dark colors to>black, depending on the time of day and aircraft position in>relation to the sun. After reading these new replies today, I>had a look at the Parameters SDK document and found TIME OF>DAY hiding near the bottom in the global data. Good find Bill,>and thanks for the tip! I'll see if I can't put this to work>illuminating things in the daytime VC.One advantage to using the .fx for daytime is that your lighting isn't confined only to a projection poly, but will brighten up EVERYTHING in the VC, as much as you like... :)Truthfully, this whole thread probably should have been moved to the Aircraft & Panel Design forum... :)

Hi Luhiss,Sorry I confused you, are you using GMAX? I'm modeling with FSDS2, and I understand the definitions and terms are somewhat different between the two programs. To answer your question I'm not using any lightmap textures at all, only emissive materials. I begin by placing the gauge poly at the desired location, and mapping the dummy bitmap ($hurricane1, etc) to it. I then copy that gauge poly and paste another poly right on top of the first. I now have two identical gauge polys at the same location with the same dummy bitmap texture applied to the appropriate side. I then go into the part properties material editor for the second gauge poly and change the material to one with an emissive color enabled (the color of the light emitted from the object if it were glowing). In FSDS you have diffuse, ambient, specular and emissive color choices on the material editor dialog, I change the emissive color to something other than 0,0,0 RGB (pure black) to cause the part to glow. Could be any color and intensity you want. Then I 'Pre-Process' (explanation follows below) the part to cause it to display only when the logo light switch is on, and this backlights any gauges drawn on that gauge poly. I'm using the logo light circuit for the backlighting because I'm using the panel, wing and cabin light circuits for map lights and other VC fx lighting of different intensities. I could do with about 10 more light cicuits, among other things! The same method can be used to create aircraft lighting such as nav lights etc. Actually, that's where I got the idea to use emissive materials. On the Hurricane the tail light is mounted on the trailing edge of the rudder, and a stock fx nav light won't work as the light must move with the rudder and the fx lights remain in position as declared in the aircraft.cfg file. In the FSDS help files I learned how to create a white nav light using an emissive polygon pre-processed to display when the nav lights were on, and then I applied this concept to the VC panel gauge backlighting. But as I noted in an earlier reply, the emissive texture method allows for shading the lighting effect, and looks to be a better and more sophisticated way of doing this than using simple emissive materials, it just doesn't work during the day. Now that I've read Bill's tutorial, I'm going to try to combine the two methods! "Also, what do you mean by "pre-processed to be visible..."?"As I mentioned before, I'm using FSDS2. With this program aircraft and scenery parts can be pre-processed for specific display conditions. In this case I'm using the 'Logo Light Switch on' condition and 'g_lightstates variable' to cause the part to display only when an XML switch using the (A:LIGHT LOGO,bool) parameter is turned to the on position. "Now I'm going to have to run some experiments with your idea of combining the two methods, since I'm now able to accomplish the "pre-processing" via the embedded XML code."Bill,Just read your new replies Bill, as I said above to luhiss I'll look into this also, but I'm afraid I'm far behind the curve when it comes to your emissive texture method, and I'll need to learn how to accomplish gauge backlighting your way first! Let us know how it goes."Truthfully, this whole thread probably should have been moved to the Aircraft & Panel Design forum..." Agreed :)Take care everone,Robert

>Just read your new replies Bill, as I said above to luhiss >I'll look into this also, but I'm afraid I'm far behind the>curve when it comes to your emissive texture method, and I'll>need to learn how to accomplish gauge backlighting your way>first! Let us know how it goes.Bob, if you have trouble groking the technique out in FSDS2, contact Bob Hayes ([email protected]), as he's the ESDG Chief FSDS2 modeler. He and I both worked with Louis Sinclair to get it working correctly. I explained how to Louis, Louis wrote the code, and Bob tested it out! :)Although I purchased FSDS2, it was primarily to help get the durn lights working for Bobby's modeling of the Premier I and the Citation X. I have no real reason to learn how to use a keyboard driven modeling program... :) I'm a point-click-n-drag kinda guy... :)The hardest thing for most folks to grasp is that the _L.bmp must be rotated 180

Thanks Bill, will do if I run into trouble with it. Between that and writing the Time Of Day VC light gauge I'm looking at late nights for the rest of the week!:-lol Robert

"Truthfully, this whole thread probably should have been moved to the Aircraft & Panel Design forum..."I had no idea where this thread was heading :-xWarm regards,

> "Truthfully, this whole thread probably should have been>moved to the Aircraft & Panel Design forum...">>I had no idea where this thread was heading :-xOh, to be sure! No one knew! But, at least three people who hadn't previously corresponded before have learned something they didn't know before, myself included!Good job, and thanks for the excellent question! :)