Shockwave's 3D Lights Redux

[WebMaximus 372]

Hi fellow captains!After watching some videos featuring the 3D Lights Redux I'm tempted to buy them but at the same time a bit afraid doing so since I've heard and read they under some circumstances can cause trouble.The aircrafts I mainly fly and would install them to isLevel-D 767DA's Piper Cheyenne XCoolsky's Super 80 ProThanks in advance for your advice and comments from present owners how they work together with the aircrafts mentioned above!

[BobP 56]

Hi,For me the "awe wow" wore off very quickly. After installing the lights, I lost the strobes for all aircraft. Plus the "3d" light effect results in some anomalies that defy the laws the physics. I ended up re-installing FSX to get rid of it. You can have mine. :)Bob..

[WebMaximus 372]

Hi Bob!Not the kind of answer I was hoping for considering how cool it looks when watching the promo videos but I really appreciate your straight-forward answer that will save me the money even though the price was quite fair.All the best,

[Guest JIMJAM]

I own most their planes and support them but sorry, not paying for lights.Some of my planes came with them and I do not see the big deal.There are freeware lights,X-graphics is a total graphics makeover plus lighting choices for a little more.It is a choice we have and some love em.

[Guest pwheeler]

I own the lights. The main issue I have is when running with bloom on. It causes the bloom to cut out when the shockwave strobe lights flash.I find the landing lights effect good but maybe a little too strong. Its a shame they don't have a tool to reduce the intensity of the effect.

[WebMaximus 372]

Thanks for all input, for now I will stick to the default lights afraid to mess up my FSX installation in any way since I've tried keeping it very clean this time since last reinstall of my whole PC when I also decided to go with 64-bit Vista to better utilize the 4 GB RAM I have installed and so far so good - not a single OOM error or anything similar in the last couple of months ;)

[jwenham 1]

I have them and like the look of them. I have not experienced any of the problems listed by the others but I am not using bloom. Its not that big of an investment so I say give it a try, they give it that little extra eye candy to the sim.

[WebMaximus 372]

I don't use bloom either so maybe I will, I really liked the look of them! It's not the investment I'm worried about but to not mess up my FSX installation but guess I could always do a complete windows backup before installing them and then simply roll back should I not like them or should they mess anything up.

[Guest pwheeler]

If you do try them then the advice I would give is:1: backup your FSX default aircraft 'aircraft.cfg' files, so that if you don't like the new lights its easy to remove them. This is the main file that is modded to add the new lights.2: Backup your 'halo.bmp'. This is the halo effect around all the lights in the sim. The Shockwave lights install their own halo.bmp without warning you. If you don't like their halo effect (I found it messed up the UTX night lights) then you can easily put your backed up 'halo.bmp' back and get the default halo back.I personally use the shockwave lights (I don't use bloom either) but with a modded version of their halo.bmp which doesn't spoil the UTX lights.I would like to find a away of making the Shockwave lights a bit more subtle. They are a great idea but a bit over-the-top for my tastes.

[WebMaximus 372]

Thanks for your advice!Actually I just bought them and installed them and up until now I have only looked at the default aircrafts and so far I must say I'm impressed, what a difference from the default lights...to me it looks MUCH more realistic!!Getting too tired here but will read about how to add them to 3rd party aircrafts tomorrow and hopefully all will continue to be good...otherwise I have a restore just sitting there on my spare disk waiting to come to use ;)

[WebMaximus 372]

So far I've managed to find a good working 3D lights config for the Super 80 Pro, however I'm still looking for a good config for Digital Aviations Piper Cheyenne X and prefferably the IIXL model and was hoping someone might already have one?I did try to configure one myself but haven't succeded so far and I would really like to have one since I use this a/c alot.TIA,

[Petraeus 147]

I did try some weeks ago to install them to the DA Cheyenne, based on a set of parameters I found somewhere in a forum, but I had problems with the overhead light switches clicking on and off. I don't know if anyone has had more success than that.Petraeus

[WebMaximus 372]

OK, that's about how far I got as well on my own when trying - had the same problems with the light switches having their own life and also I had problem with flickering light inside the cockpit when having the panel lights ON.That's a shame it doesn't seem to be possible in an easy way to install the 3D lights to this a/c considering what a great a/c it is and also what a great effect you get from the 3D lights - the combination would really be great!Have given up using the 3D lights with this a/c for now and will go back to the default lights and maybe someone will some day come up with a solution or maybe an upgrade of the 3D lights or the Piper Cheyenne X because to me it seems there is some kind of incompatibility between the two products currently.