Shockwave Redux on AI not visible from VC

[bandini 1]

Hi Matthias ! Thanks for your explanation. Can you guide me or explane me exactly how do you modify the cfg file (I mainly fly the 737 Pmdg for example).

I compiled myself over 900 bgl for the traffic AI and was a bit sad to see that strobes, nav lights did not appear correctly like with DX9, particularly when airborne. I would be really glad to find an answer !

And by the way....sorry for my bad english....

Cheers

Cedric

[ankh21 17]

Hey Cedric,

 

no need to be worried about your english. I am from Germany, and the last time i've been writing in english that much was in school, now i'am 36 years old :-)

 

Ok, here is what i've done:

 

As Steve suggested, you have to find the fx_dx10shield effect. It's from Steve's DX10 scenery fixer. Search for it inside your FSX effect folder. Then you have to modify your aircraft.cfg, don't forget to make a backup copie for safety reasons before!

Inside the aircraft.cfg, go to the  [lights] section. There you will find many entries like "light.0 = 1....". I inserted this: light.0 = 1, xx.x, yy.yy, zz.z, fx_dx10shield.fx. light.0 means it's the first light, and the = 1 means, it's a strobe light, so it should be fired up right at the beginning, before other lights are switched on.

x, y and z are the coordinates to tell FSX where to put this invisible light to. Now y is very easy, use 0.00, as the light sould be in the Center line of the airplane. x is the position in feet before the Center of the aircraft model. If you have a shockwave file for your aircraft.cfg, you can look about the positionn of the front gear taxi light or of the VC lights to have an idea of the aircraft's dimensions. And z is the postion above the Center of your aircraft, i alway use a value near the beacon on the top of the fuselage. At last you have to renumber all other effect lights. light.0 =, light.1 =, light.2 =, and so on. Safe the .cfg and make a test flight.

 

Some things in addition: If you are uncertain about the positions, just use the fx_dx10shieldTEST.fx, by this you get a red glow on your aircraft's nose, so you can place the effect a Little bit easier. And as far as i know, the number of light effects is limited to 18 or something like that. So if you have about light.0 to light.17 in the [light] section, you have to be careful cause you might loose other effect lights with editing. PMDG is very special (e.g. VC shadows), and for i don't have a PMDG 737 i can't tell you if my instructions are right, just try!

 

Good luck, and please Report back. I am very interested in this topic now. Steve has managed DX10 thus far, it must be a bad spell if we all together won't be able to manage AI lights in DX10 :-)

 

Matthias

[bandini 1]

Thanks for the quick answer !

So the light cannot be added at the end of the light section ex: no 8,9,10 etc ? Anyway not a big deal. Will try first with the stock FSX 737.

And the goal is to put that light 10 feet in front of the VC, right ?

That light will be "automatiquely" ON, or do I need to switch ON the strobes ?

Will try as soon as possible (next week).

 

Thanks

 

Cedric

 

PS: I'm from switzerland

[ankh21 17]

Hey Cedric,

 

nearly neighbor )

I don't know exactly. Following Steve's blog on his website, the sequence of displaying lights has an effect. Light 1 influences light 2, but i don't know if that's the bottom line at all. Following this thread, he just mentioned the need of a shine in view. Placing the effect light just at the end of the list would be easier )

Yes, 10 feet in front, so you have that invisible shine, no matter the direction you are looking through the cockpit windows. As long as there is a light with shine in view, you can see the AI lights.

Oh, as my default flight is with electricity on, i can't answer your last question. But i can tell that the CaptainSim airplanes i am flying with are sometimes quite tricky. Yesterday i tried to define an effect as 6, taxi light. But the only way i could this effect turn on and off was to switch the wing inspection light. I gues, High end models like PMDG are very complex, and the developers do a Lot of tricks to get things the way they like. So results of modifying .cfg can be surprising

I am very tensed what you can tell us after doing your tests, and please try to do the Night/Day cockpit texture test i mentioned before.

 

Thank you very much, and noch a guarde Tag to swizerland Have been in St. Gallen this year, but no time to go for a winter holiday to Swizerland this year :(

 

Matthias

[ankh21 17]

Ok guys,

 

i have done some further testing with the shockwave lights. Thanks Steve for his advise to insert his fx_dx10shield effect in the aircraft.cfg. Now every AI traffic was visible over miles.

 

But i ran into another problem. I tried to add a certain beacon to my CaptainSim 727, but the light was only visible when 1) the clipmode in camera.cfg for spot view was changed to NORMAL, and 2) another effect, in this case a vaportrail on the wingtip, became in sight. Oh oh, i had a suspicion: I observed similar effects with airplanes not compatible with DX10, so i had a closer look to the shockwave lights and noticed, that also landing light effects sometimes are not visible viewing from certain angles. So i think, shockwave lights are not fully DX10 compatible. As far as i follow the shockwave forum, the lights are not intended to be used with DX10, so compatibility is not guaranteed.

For this reason i UNTICKED "Exclude shockwave lights" and did a conversion, and surprise: the beacon on my 727 was there. Also, the nav lights and the landing lights on the stock FSX 737 had no cutoff angles any more.

BUT: AI lights are only visible over very short distance, as Steve mentions in the DX10 Fixer manual. So AI traffic again is unvisible. If the CaptainSim model has any iinfluence (beacons are part of the model, not an effect in the aircraft.cfg) i can't tell.

 

So at the end, it seems to me, that you have to decide if you want shockwave lights as a cool effect on your AI planes, or if you want shockwave lights working on your own aircraft in all situations. If you leave the shockwave lights uncomverted, you will have side effects on your own aircraft.

 

That's my testing result.

 

Matthias