[Answered] Interesting behaviour

[Reiniers 8]

Hello,

In P3Dv4 I really enjoyed using the ai lights software together with the AIM AI, had a nice result. Recently I switched to P3Dv5 HF1 (clean install, P3Dv4 removed) and added AI traffic again and of course installed the AI lights software 😉 

I have noticed something interesting. When I scan for AI traffic it finds 355 models, when I restore the original lights (using the tool), it finds only 306. I did a restore because the lighting of default aircraft was changed somehow, after restoring it was default again. I have added screenshots below, showing the default Robinson helicopter before and after applying the AI lights. Another thing I noticed on default airports is the blue taxilights switch to white when I approach them (after applying AI lights). Can you find an explanation for this?

Before:

 

After:

Edited May 27, 2020 by Reiniers

[simbol 5,819]

1) The Robinson:

This SimObject is using one of the default effects fx_navred and fx_navgree. So either one of your AI models are using these default effects or your are not using the expert interface which works better to avoid these kind of conflicts. in any case the lighting looks better with the AI Lights effects on this helicopter 😉.

2) Detected models:

Things change dynamically with AIGM, it could be some repaints or AI models were removed and therefore when you click restore the add-on is trying to find all the models you had when you clicked apply the first time, upon not finding them -since they are now not present- AI Lights reborn prunes them from its database and views in order to give you an accurate list of AI Models. Another thing to understand is that some AI models have their lights embedded inside their 3D Object (.MDL) and therefore when the restore occurs these are not counted as there is nothing to restore for these.

3) Default airports is the blue taxi lights switch to white when I approach them (after applying AI lights). Can you find an explanation for this?

Can you show me an screenshot / video of this? and can you confirm this does not happens with AI Lights Reborn installed? This doesn't occur on my system or any of my beta testers.. also are you using the default P3D scaling techniques or the FSReborn scaling techniques under AI Lights Reborn configuration tab?

Please note these scaling techniques are related to the particle shaders, I enabled some changes to the shaders in order to reduce the amount of orange lights caused by blending issues that  TrueSky with V5 HF1 has, however these orange lights will be fixed with the next version of P3D and your experiment and results will help me to tweak this further for the next update of AI Lights Reborn Pro.

Regards,

Simbol

Edited May 27, 2020 by simbol

[Reiniers 8]

Hi Simbol,

Thanks for your quick reply. One of the AI models is indeed using the default effects, so that explains the change on the Robinson. I do agree the lighting looks better with AI Lights, I only did not expect to see a change on a default aircraft. Your comment about the model detection is clear as well, thank you.

About the lights turning white, it is not related to the AI Lights, I just discovered this is being caused by activating cloud or particle shadows. I remembered that I also switched from TrueSky to the 'classic' clouds because of VRAM issues. When I disable shadow casting for clouds, the problem is gone. So this is another issue for LM I guess.

Thanks again for explaining the behaviour I noticed, I will start playing with some settings in the expert interface and see what happens.

 

Regards, Reinier

 

 

 

[simbol 5,819]

3 minutes ago, Reiniers said:

About the lights turning white, it is not related to the AI Lights, I just discovered this is being caused by activating cloud or particle shadows. I remembered that I also switched from TrueSky to the 'classic' clouds because of VRAM issues. When I disable shadow casting for clouds, the problem is gone. So this is another issue for LM I guess.

Hi Reiner,

This is very interesting, do you mind doing a video for me with all the steps to replicate it? This way I can report this P3D bug to LM today, you see we are testing HF2 at the moment so if we act quickly it is very possible we can get this fixed before the HF2 becomes available for general public.

Kind regards,

Simbol

[Reiniers 8]

Hi Simbol,

I had to leave for work, but now started P3D again. Only one issue, the white taxi lights are back and changing settings does not make any difference now. I wil experiment some more with the settings and report back. So the taxi lights near me are turning white, at some distance they stay blue. It looks like this:

 

Very strange... I also use Orbx, I will try to see if there is a difference with that turned off.

P.S. turning of HDR makes all taxi lights white now

 

Edited May 27, 2020 by Reiniers

[simbol 5,819]

2 hours ago, Reiniers said:

P.S. turning of HDR makes all taxi lights white now

I will try to see if this happens with HF2.. as it might not 🙂

S.

[Reiniers 8]

Just to report back, I have tried a lot of different settings, like enabling/disabling shadows, set special effects sliders higher. Also went back to default graphics settings, the white taxi lights are stil here. Disabling Orbx did not make a difference. I received an update notification for my graphics driver, I will install it later today and will see what happens.

[simbol 5,819]

2 hours ago, Reiniers said:

Just to report back, I have tried a lot of different settings, like enabling/disabling shadows, set special effects sliders higher. Also went back to default graphics settings, the white taxi lights are stil here. Disabling Orbx did not make a difference. I received an update notification for my graphics driver, I will install it later today and will see what happens.

Hi Reiners,

First many thanks for all your tests and bringing this to my attention, I have now narrow this down to AI Lights Reborn shaders (the scaling techniques) and it is caused by me trying to reduce the orange lights in the horizon. This will be corrected in the next AI Lights Reborn when HF2 is released for general public.

All the best,

Simbol

Edited May 29, 2020 by simbol

[simbol 5,819]

** UPDATE **

Here you have a picture using AI Lights Reborn with this bug resolved, as you can see the landing lights are now brighter from the distance, they are also not orange despite of Enhance Atmospherics being enabled (True Sky) and the taxi lights color remain un-affected. 🙂

These changes will be released in conjunction with HF2 via our AI Lights Reborn automatic updates.

All the best,

Simbol

Edited May 29, 2020 by simbol