Shockwave 3D lights?

[Guest]

I'm thinking about getting the SHockwave 3D lights utility for FSX but i'm wondering if these lights are better than the UTX lights or than the standard PMDG lights, I already have. Any opinions?

[FloG 148]

I think it doesn't affect the street lights, so there won't probably be any improvement over the UTX lights.

Regarding the PMDG lights: Supposing that you talk about the NGX, that one already has customized 3D lights IIRC, so I guess not much of an improvement here. When you talk about the other PMDG planes (same applies for most other airplanes), there will be an improvement, but you need to either tweak the respective aircraft.cfg files yourself(A2A provide a good documenation on how that's done in the manual, though), which is an interesting thing to do, but it can consume a lot of time even with samller planes (I think I spent a whole afternoon the light config of a little Carenado bird to get it right.), or you need to search the internet for configurations others came up with (There's a pretty comprehensive thread covering many common addons in the A2A forums about that, too).

Generally speaking it is worth the money, but setting it up for every single aircraft you use will take a lot of time either way.

[Pe11e 812]

I heard it kills fps badly. The reason I still didn't bought it

[Racn 0]

I use that product and havent noticed a fps issue.

[FloG 148]

I heard it kills fps badly. The reason I still didn't bought it

Never heard of that, and I didn't experience any FPS drop after installing it, but maybe only because I wasn't aware of that, and hence I didn't pay attention to a possible FPS loss. Don't want to say it's impossible, though.

[Fatback 84]

There are "templates" for a lot of aircraft so setup for those is easy. You have to be careful--aircraft with wings that flex you don't want to use the lights on the end of the wings because the shockwave lights won't be on the wing. So some tweaking to do, but IMHO the end result is well worth it.

[Selkan 1]

No FPS drop herewith Shockwave. If your looking for interesting street lighting,have a look at ExperienceX. Some say they have a FPS drop with it, but no issues for me.

[Pe11e 812]

Ok, I will probably consider to buy it, but I'm not sure it is worth it. I'm 99% the time in VC, and I don't see the use of it, eventually more realistic landing lights lighting.

[Racn 0]

I use it for better lighting on older aircraft, I fly in VC also and thats why I bought it, dim lights on non lit runways wasnt my cup of tea. Learning the editing was not to hard, well documented in the manual. Haven't regretted that purchase, still use it today.

[VeryBumpy 272]

Product is ok but some (many?) higher end planes hard code the lights to the plane model making it impossible to use the 3D lights. Its not really a fault with the product but disappointing I am unable to use the product on planes I own.

[Taipan 30]

Firstly there's no FPS impact, they are just effect files. I even shockwaved all of my AI UT2 planes as well they now look very pretty

 

Secondly with the planes that have hardcoded some of the lights, you can overlay the shockwave lights if you want, to have a bigger effect on top of the hardcoded ones. But usually the hardcoded ones are actually better than shockwave, e.g. Lotus Simulations L-39 landing lights. In the cases where they are not, or they are too small, you can just put the large shockwave one on top of it.

The downside is that if you DO want to overlay a builtin light, then it's not in the cfg file so you have to manually try the x,y,z positions and ctrl ; reload the plane and find it by trial and error.

 

Lastly no one mentioned yet they are directx 10 compatible, but they definitely are and you can fix alot of planes who's lights don't show properly in directx 10 if you use that.

[FloG 148]

Product is ok but some (many?) higher end planes hard code the lights to the plane model making it impossible to use the 3D lights. Its not really a fault with the product but disappointing I am unable to use the product on planes I own.

I think most newer Carenado aricraft (if not all of them) have hard coded lights, but as DanW has pointed out it is still possible to use the 3D lights on them. It's just a very time-consuming work to get it right, but on the Carenado birds it sure looks better!

 

Ok, I will probably consider to buy it, but I'm not sure it is worth it. I'm 99% the time in VC, and I don't see the use of it, eventually more realistic landing lights lighting.

Depending on which aircraft you are flying you might see the more realistic landing lights, e.g. in the Default Maule, C172 and Goose, since the landing lights are on the wings and thus behind the cockpit, but still close enough to see them. If you're more into airliners, I agree with you that you won't have any effect in VC view. Also, IIRC, it doesn't add any lighting textures/effects, so no greatere realsim here, I'm afraid.

 

Regards,

Flo

[LHookins 3,113]

in the Default Maule, C172 and Goose, since the landing lights are on the wings and thus behind the cockpit, but still close enough to see them

 

The Shockwave landing light under the Goose wing was a very dramatic effect from the cockpit.

 

Hook

[VeryBumpy 272]

Secondly with the planes that have hardcoded some of the lights, you can overlay the shockwave lights if you want, to have a bigger effect on top of the hardcoded ones.

 

Great idea, going to have to try this.

[VeryBumpy 272]

Secondly with the planes that have hardcoded some of the lights, you can overlay the shockwave lights if you want,

 

Nope, does not work. Concorde X must do something very differently because I am unable to get any landing type headlights to show up.