Hey folks,

 

recently i purchased Shockwave Redux lights and added them to my AI aircrafts.

Now i was wondering about strange behaviour:

 

-The lights are displayed correctly when AI planes and own aircraft are on the ground.

-The lights are displayed correctly when AI planes are airborne and my own aircraft is on the ground. I can see the strobes of AI planes over a distance of many miles (much more than 10nm)!

-The lights are lost on AI planes when i lift off, at about 1.500 feet above MSL, no matter the distance of the AI planes.

-The lights will be visible on all AI planes over miles, if i change from inside my VC to the outside view during flight.

 

I searched the Forum and found some posts from Steve who told us, that there is  a change in displaying lights depending in the distance, and that he implemented modifications in his fixer, so that lights will be displayed correctly especially on short distances, not over miles away.

But why is there no problem when changing to an outside view? What is the difference between being on the ground in the VC (working lights on AI over miles), being airborne in the VC (no lights) and viewing from an outside view when airborne (lights all over) :unsure:

 

By the way, i've tested light conversion with the fixer. Then, my landing lights are better (without fixing they are only visible from certain angles), but then there are absolutely no  lights on AI anywhere.

I searched the A2A Forum, but there the only Statement i found was: The lights are not intended to be used with DX10, so we cannot make sure they work.

As Shockwave lights are very common, has someone in the community a solution?

 

And please apologize some mistakes you may find, writing in english is a very rare practice for me :blush:

 

Matthias

Things getting interesting now...

Accidentally i had a look over my virtual shoulder sitting in my VC, and bam...AI lights were there!! But only when looking back, +/- 91 degrees or more. As soon as i turn view more ahead, lights are gone.

So the angle seems to play an important role...any way to modify this?

Thanks for any idea

 

Matthias

Effect lights only appear in DX10 (due to bugs in the way lights are handled in the FSX DX10 engine) if there is another effect light with a "shine" in view. By a shine I mean that the effect is defined to illuminate other surfaces.

 

When you can see a navigation light on your aircraft that has a "shine" (either you are outside the VC or inside the VC looking towards the location of a nav light on the wing) other effect lights then become visible. At an airport there may be effect lights with shines visible which provide for the AI lights working.

 

This is all totally crazy but its just the way that it is.

 

The DX10 Light Package is designed to provide a good a workaround as possible making sure that every standard nav light has a shine (including strobes) - however even these will have odd cutoffs on occasion.

 

I guess that you have replaced these with Shockwave Lights. If things worked before then I would revert.

Wow,

 

thanks Steve for this detailed explanation! It might be that looking back (more than 90°) will start rendering the own wing nav light, wich is not visible through the VC walls. That explaines the strange changes in visibility!

You are right, before installing Shockwave, all AI lights worked perfectly thanks to your fixer, but have been not as "impressive" as the redux versions :blush:

 

Mh, just an idea, would it be possible to place a light with shine inside the AI aircraft body, coordinates something like 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, perhaps a strobe with shine? If the shine effect is limited to short distance, you should not see it from outside the AI aircraft, but as rendering a light with shine, the DX10 engine should also display all other lights from (nearly) all other angles?

 

Happy New Year to all of you ^_^ and in particular for you, Steve! Thank you so much for your work!

 

Matthias

I had some problems when I installed shockwave redux lights, during the installation it ask if you , something like, " do you wish to illuminate ground", if you ticked it , you can run the installer again and click no, and see if that sorts the problem out.

Cant remember if I uninstalled and reinstalled the libries or the shaders file in fsx at the time, hope this helps.

Bob

Hey Bob,

 

i think the problem was the part in front of the monitor!!  :angry: 

I am SOOO stupid!

As Steve suggested i reverted everything back to the normal lights, about 100 AI aircraft.cfgs.

Fired up FSX, placed the plane at KSFO 6 a.m., departed behind an illuminated Airbus, and BAM...the AI went dark in front of my eyes. Couldn't beleave that! But i had a sneaking suspicion:

I did every test with the Captain Sim 737, one of my favourite planes. Then i repeated the test with the stock FSX 737-800, and now all AI aircraft are visible over miles,in every situtation.

I am hopping mad!! Never do tests with an addon aircraft, Matthias, NEVER EVER. Must be something with the VC of the Captain Sim 737, in the CS 727 the light behaviour is normal.

 

Sorry, sorry for much ado about nothing :(

 

By the way, my shockwave installer didn't have an Option to illuminate ground. I only purchased the REDUX Version for FSX?!

 

Thank you all for your comments and your help!

 

Matthias

Mh,

 

again i've been a little bit too fast! Did another flight, now with CS 727 which seems to be ok, but again AI lights are not visible during cruise, only

when the own wing is rendered (viewing back). I will do some more testing tomorrow and report.

Anyone with a CS plane and shockwave lights who can confirm?

Just at the moment all AI are back again, but i have EDDL in sight right now and have to prepare my landing

 

Matthias

Happy New Year

 

I did some more testing, but no luck so far. Even the normal navigation and strobes lights are not visible from the VC when airborne, even with the stock 737-800 :(

Lights in DX10 su...

@Steve, if using your ballast.fx as the light.0 in the light section, will have any positive effect?? Perhaps as a phantom light inside the planes fuselage?

 

Matthias

Matthias

 

You could try attaching the fx_dx10shield.fx to your aircraft. Start with the fx_dx10shieldtest.fx. The latter is a set of visible red lights that you should try and position to be about 10 feet in front of the cockpit. If you can get that to work then switch the non test version which are identical but phantom lights.

Thanks Steve for helping with this topic even on the first day of the Year!

Mh, just to get ist right, in front of the cockpit i am flying in, or in front of every's ai cockpit?

I guess in front of my own cockpit to have a "shine" effect in view?

Will try and report, thanks!!

 

Matthias

yes that's correct - but my experience was that it took a bit of doing.

 

The "shield" was an alternative to the airport light field - but I decided the latter was better - but if you want to see AI and have only a few aircraft that you fly it might be worth experimenting.

Thank you ^_^

 

I'am going to modify the stock 737 and perhaps one of the CS planes for testing. That's even better than modifying about 100 of AI aircraft .cfgs

 

Matthias

Oh Steve,

 

you made my day! Although my 737 looked like Rudolph with its red nose, your hint with shieldtest solved the problem. Inserted as first effect as light.0 = 1, so as a beacon, and suddenly the sky was full of little blinking AI :-)

Will do further testing now with the phantom lights now.

But i wonder if i am the only one missing other planes from cockpit view? I Must confess, i can't remember the thing before installing redux lights.

But now i am happy like a child on christmas, thank you so much. I will so further testing. Perhaps there is a possibility to activate AI lights in every flying cockpit.

Steve, you gave me a wunderful Christmas present!

 

Matthias

Hi all !

Very interesting post as I'm also suffering from the lack of traffic lights !! Thanks Matthias for searching a solution. I'm not at home those days but will try Steve's suggestion as soon as possible. Keep us informed Matthias

 

Cheers

 

Cedric

Hi Cedric,

 

Steve's suggestion works like a charme! Adding the invisible shieldfield in front of the cockpit makes all the traffic visible.

 

BUT: I was quite amazed, that i could see AI traffic in front of my plane without any modification and without any Airport surrounding. After some Investigation, i am quite sure, that you can see all the lights, when the cockpit night texture changes to daytime texture.

Place your aircraft at a busy airport during dawn, just a few minutes before the FSX time and season table Switches to daytime. Then take off and have some traffic Patterns around the airport. Watch your cockpit light, and at the moment the cockpit night texture changes to daytime texture, you can see the AI lights even if the airport is not in sight.

I will do some furhter testint, but it seems to be, that the cockpit night texture is involved.

 

Perhaps Steve has to restrain a laughter cause the Explanation of that might be very very simple, but i was quite amazed. So perhaps modifying the way FSX handles the cokcpit night texture would be easier than modifying every aircraft.cfg to get the shieldfield in Position.

 

Matthias