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Wink207

Brighter Landing and Taxi Lights

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Hi all:

I need some ideas on how to brighten my taxi lights on the aircraft and landing lights. I really can't see the taxiway stripes at all, nor the runway centerline when landing at night. I think I understand how to change the lights. Go to aircraft.cfg/lights and find the effects file that control the light in question. Then to  FX/Effects and open the effects file in question. This points you to a Texture file in the Effects/Texture folder. Then you can replace the .bmp file. If this sounds ok, then can anyone point me to a good, bright bmp file? The Texture file name is fx_2 I believe.

Thanks much

 

Edit: On the other hand, could I be doing this to myself with some NVidia setting?

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First make sure in the FSX settings menu you have the boxed ticked that says pilot controls landing lights or aircraft lights. That setting is in the area of the settings where you turn bloom and lense flare on and off.

 

Assuming that is done, you haven't mentioned what plane you want to brighten the lights of. Some planes like the Aerosoft Airbus series and the PMDG NGX and 777 have those lights built into the model to proves a 3D effect and can't really be changed. Some other newer aircraft have these types of lights as well and you can't really tweak them. If the aircraft is older or doesn't have 3D lights then you can replace the file called spotlight.bmp which if I recall is the name of the file that some planes use for the landing lights. If you look in the AVSIM file library and search landing lights you should be able to find some replacements that people have uploaded. You can look in the FS9 file area as well since ones created for FS9 will work as well provided the plane uses a spotlight.bmp file.


Avsim Board of Directors | Avsim Forums Moderator

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Thanks for responding Jim.

I will be sure the pilot control box is ticked. And yes I follow your points on the aircraft having landing lights built into the model and that is pretty clear when you look in the aircraft.cfg file under lights and there is no entry for light type 5, which is landing lights. I also looked at a couple of high end add on aircraft like the IFLY737 and their landing lights are also quite dim in my system. I also checked my FS9 sim and the lights there are fine. So now I'm thinking there is a setting either in FX.cfg or in the graphics settings as you mentioned that is causing the lights to be dim.

Any other ideas?

Thanks

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Well, looks like unchecking Lens Flare fixed the problem. Who knows what the heck lens flare was conflicting with. Been doing this for a long time and have learned never look a gift horse in the mouth. But any other ideas are more than welcome.

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Just to be crystal clear, there are actually two types of "lights" in default (and compatible add ons) that are used.

 

1. The "splash" that actually lights up the taxiways and runways is the fx_landing.fx effect file that is "attached" to the actual model's mesh. This is done during the model's compilation into the .mdl file and cannot be added later or affected by end users. This effect file uses fx_2.bmp to create the little "point source" (lightbulb) that often looks horrible, and seemingly gets larger the further away one zooms from the aircraft. The actual bitmap "projected" onto the ground however is the spotlight.bmp file. Unfortunately replacing this one file will affect all aircraft that use the default landing light "system."

 

2. Many add on aircraft also include an effects (.fx) file that generates a "fuzzy ball of light". These effects may either be "attached" to the mesh model as type #1 above, or may be placed via an entry in the [lights] section of the aircraft.cfg file. Obviously, the popular add on lights use this latter method.

 

3. The last type of landing/taxi lights are 3d modeled a la the "Lotus" technique, and are built into the compiled model. These are also not configurable or modifiable by the end user.


Fr. Bill    

AOPA Member: 07141481 AARP Member: 3209010556


     Avsim Board of Directors | Avsim Forums Moderator

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"Crystal Clear". I love it Fr. Upon further investigation, lens flare was not the issue. So now I guess I will track down this spotlight.bmp. Am I the only one having this problem?

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"Crystal Clear". I love it Fr. Upon further investigation, lens flare was not the issue. So now I guess I will track down this spotlight.bmp. Am I the only one having this problem?

You haven't said what plane this is you're using.


Avsim Board of Directors | Avsim Forums Moderator

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Well, after researching this thoroughly as I should have done at the outset, I come to find out that weak lights are endemic to FSX. I rarely flight at night, as befits a pilot of my "seniority", so I had never encountered this in FSX. So it looks like there really is no answer except to hope add on developers will take this on in their products, as with the L-39.

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