Folks,There was a lot of discussions about the landing lights' intensity in many posts before.I would like to touch on a bit different approach to the problem (pun intended)When you sit at the airport you can see the line of lights representing planes on the approach.What I'm saying is that the intensity of landing lights in real life is so significant, that you can see them way before you see the aircraft itself.It is just the opposite in the FS. You can barely see the landing lights even standing 30 feet from the aircraft nose.Just wondering if anybody have ever been dealing with this problem before.ThanksDom

Hi Dom,a very interesting point, never really thought about it till you asked this question.any thoughts anyone !

Yeah, it's funny, you really can see landing light from a great distance. In the sim, the only lights that seem to show from a distance are the navs and strobes. They show way beyond the 10 nm ring at night. Strange.

This issue has always vexed me. If they can get strobes to flash "asynchronously" then I'm sure someone can do a "bright lights" patch.

Good to hear that other people find it weird, so it's not only my imagination, LOL.I would imagine increasing landing lights intensity would most likely have a dramatic effect on landing lights as seen from the cockpit.many people reported them being way too bright so this is not the way to go.Thanks for sharing your comments,Dom

Sorry to have bumped it, but this is very intriguing.Anyone else have any opinions?ThanksDom

I wish I had a pic at work, but the one below is the best I have to hand. In ths shot, you can clearly see the main LL at the wingroot and you can just about make out the nosewheel and leading edge flap lights as well.So, are you asking why so many add-ons don't have the LL like the wingroot light in this pic?http://www.dreamfleet2000.com/gfx/images/F...BANNER_PAUL.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/117806.jpg

>I would imagine increasing landing lights intensity would most>likely have a dramatic effect on landing lights as seen from>the cockpit.If an effect file would be used to create high-intesity lights instead of a global landing light "tweak", it would be no big problem as most would install it on AI aircraft anyway.However, I'm not sure how the lighting environment in FS works. If the intensity of landing lights would be increased so that it looks better from a distance, would the plane look like a brilliant sphere of light closer up? Does FS take night/day visibility difference into account? I think not. etc etc etc Lots of open issues here.

Thanks for your input guys.The pic shown above is representative of many aircraft out there and generally there is no problem with landing lights when you look at them from that close.It's only when they are far away. You can basically only see the position lights not the LL.I think the same applies to beacon lights. For the planes flying at high altitude at night you can only see the flashing lights. Not in FS though.Well, I guess this is another limitation of the FS engine,Thanks again,Dom

HiIve had a look at a few of the default aircraft and none have landing lights as effects (light#5)which means that the most are modeled in the MDL.As most AI are Multimodle the lights could possibly be modeled only on the first couple,so when the later ones are rendered no light.Also effects files have a Radius peram in them,I notice the nav/strobe have a -1 where as the landing fx have none maybe the default is only a couple feet? anyways food for thought cheersWozza

"String of pearls". That's what I have heard landing lites look like at night. It does when you go to busy airport at night like KMSP.JimCYWG

Howdy,actually, the default Learjet uses landing lights via effects, at least partially. The corresponding lines in the LIGHTS section of the aircraft.cfg are:light.6 = 5, -29.7, -1.3, -1.71, fx_landing ,light.7 = 5, -29.7, 1.3, -1.71, fx_landing ,What prevents these lights from being visible at greater distances are the mip maps of the effects texture used, fx_2.bmp. The lower-level mip maps are smaller and off-white, which means with increasing distance from the user they turn dim quite rapidly.I've made an effects bitmap with mip maps that stay fairly large and white and thus remain visible for about ten miles or so. I also made a special effect file in which the bitmap doesn't always rotate to the user; this makes the effect only visible when the aircraft faces the user more or less head-on, just like with real landing lights.The nice thing about the mip maps is that the light doesn't get overly bright or large when the aircraft is close.BTW, the new bitmap and effect file are based on my marine lights (buoys and lighthouses), which are included with Misty Fjords and also the freeware Columbia River Gorge; didn't think they would come in handy for landing lights ;-)Anyway, there's definitely still room for improvement.Not sure how to distribute this for others to test? I guess the best way is to post in the PAI forums, which allow for more permanent attachments and also seem to be the "in" hangout for AI users. I won't have the time to develop this into an add-on for specific aircraft types but perhaps someone else might volunteer?Cheers, Holger

>Howdy,>>Not sure how to distribute this for others to test? I guess>the best way is to post in the PAI forums, which allow for>more permanent attachments and also seem to be the "in">hangout for AI users. I won't have the time to develop this>into an add-on for specific aircraft types but perhaps someone>else might volunteer?>>Cheers, Holger Hi What about making a new fx_landing calling it fx_landing2 and using a new texture so it wont effect other addons Also great Idea re the mip maps what about removing them completely (will effects stil work without mips as some scenery wont) also how do you stop the rotate to player in effects?CheersWozza

you can try to super impose several emitters in the same fx. At least that works in bridges.Jos

The best answer is to have them hard-coded into the model. Just look at any model with hard-coded nav lights. They do just what you want (shame they do the opposite of what nav lights should do to a degree).