Any Solutions Figured Out Yet? :FSX Landing Lights

[hangar 661]

...was just wondering if any devs have figured out how to get the landing lights to light up the ground yet in their fs9-fsx conversions?this seems to have everyone stumped right now

[Guest Valkyrie321]

Heh... I haver NEVER liked how any version of FS has "brightened" the textures with landing lights, and unfortunately FSX is no different. My big gripe right now is several planes have additional lights such as strobes and navigational beacons, but these lights do not activate until you turn on the landing lights???*shrugs*

[hangar 661]

i know what you mean about the ugly looking landing lights...try replacing your spotlight.bmp with the one found in this package:http://www.fs2004.com/downloads/?dlid=1375it makes a BIG difference...keep in mind when you turn them on you may have to aim the spotlight before you see it (press cntrl+shift+keypad8) until the lights come into view better.DavePS - since its an exe installer, i did NOT install this entire package into fsx!...i only installed it to a temp directory, then copied the spotlight.bmp to fsx...i suppose you can try the other textures one at a time to test the results but be careful as it was originally created for fs9...the spotlight works fine however (though much dimmer than what youre used to so turn up the monitor brightness a little).

[n4gix 4,947]

It's a bit difficult for any third-party developer to "fix" something that appears to actually be "broken" in FSX itself...Also, be careful with replacing the spotlight.bmp file. The proper way to control the brightness is in the model's Material Properties (which is something only the modeler can control)...Replacing the default spotlight.bmp file will cause those models that HAVE been correctly set to not be visible at all, which is a classic case of Catch-22... :-eek

[hangar 661]

Bill, if its broken in some way, its certainly not broken in the way that its been referred to in this thread...meaning being able to light up the ground view from within the vc. All of the default planes landing lights work in this respect with the spotlight bmp file mentioned. The only small problem is that some of them are pointed in the wrong direction (too far away) and need to be adjusted by using the key command specified in my original post.You can also view them from the outside reflecting upon the ground, however as i said some are pointing too far ahead of the plane is all...easily adjusted from within the sim.The Cub doesnt work, but i dont think its supposed to have landing lights anyway, and i never tested the helo's or gliderDave

[n4gix 4,947]

>Bill, if its broken in some way, its certainly not broken in>the way that its been referred to in this thread...meaning>being able to light up the ground view from within the vc.Dave, I'm not speculating here. The SDK method for creating landing/taxi lights simply does not work as-described by ACES themselves. I was asked a week ago to send a "minimal model" directly to one of the ACES developers for him to examine. I have yet to receive a reply from him.I've spent the better part of two weeks examining this issue, and have used both the FS9 MakeMDL.exe compiler (FSX is supposed to be backwards compatible to FS9), and the new XtoMDL.exe compiler using the Max7/8 export tools (since the GMax tools aren't ready yet).If I export a model with only landing light and taxi light polygons, they all work perfectly in FSX. As soon as any other part is included in the export, the lights fail...As far as the default models in FSX, their "lighting systems" are far from operating properly. Note for example that those a/c that are supposed to have "taxi lights" don't... have 'em that is... :-roll

[hangar 661]

yea, its a shame about the taxi lights..they are obviously missing or non functioning. It's weird though that the defualt landing lights work fine but not when trying to compile a new model...sounds like some sort of SDK problem either in the documentation or compilers themselves.I have to admit im really missing them too (when i fly in the fs9 ported planes), as i do alot of my flying at night :-(I hope MS can get it quickly sorted so the fs9 ports can fly at night!Dave