Breakthrough! Now I need your help.

[polcat 0]

Some of you might not care that much, but this is something that has bugged me for years! That's right, years. Unrealistic military beacons. I've finally figured out how to edit effects so that I get the correct blink rate and length for military aircraft (the F-16 is what made me really try and work on this). My question is, how can you make a single light effect show up on different places on an aircraft? I would guess that you can also have different colors with different locations? My goal is to have simultaneous beacons, i.e. like on the F-104 by using one effect (.fx) file (http://www.starfighters.nl/Int_f104_society/ and check out Grosseto night flying). If you have any ideas or insight on this, please let me know! Thank you all!

[Guest Patrick_Waugh]

Just use the same effect name in your aircraft.cfg.Not sure what about this is a mystery to you.

[polcat 0]

What I'm trying to get at is, modify an .fx file to make one effect show up in different places so that I don't have to use up so many of the lights in the aircraft.cfg because the max number is 18.

[n4gix 4,947]

>What I'm trying to get at is, modify an .fx file to make one>effect show up in different places so that I don't have to use>up so many of the lights in the aircraft.cfg because the max>number is 18.There are three components to any given effect in an .fx file (omitting non-relevant entries here for clarity):Emitter.0...X Offset=0.00, 0.00Y Offset=0.00, 0.00Z Offset=0.00, 0.00Particle.0ParticleAttributes.0Note that in the Emitter.X section are entries for x,y,z offsets. What I'd do is create a "dummy Emitter.0" section that will establish a base reference point at the model's visual origin (0,0,0), and then seperate Emitter.X, Particle.X and ParticleAttributes.X sections for each of the "lights" you wish to place, and use each Emitter.X's X,Y,Z offsets to "place" the "lights" wherever you want them to be.I'm not so sure that this will make any real difference in the limit however... but, it's worth a try! ;)

[polcat 0]

If this works, man it'll be worth the effort. That's what I was thinking and I like the idea of creating a "base".

[polcat 0]

Here's what I found out. You don't need a "base" in the effects file. If you put 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 in the light section for the placement, it won't work, you have to put in 0.01 to get the lights in their position. Although I used the same locations taken from the light section of the aircraft.cfg, it appears that in the effects file the numbers have to be scaled down. This last part is what I'm working on.

[n4gix 4,947]

>Here's what I found out. You don't need a "base" in the>effects file. If you put 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 in the light>section for the placement, it won't work, you have to put in>0.01 to get the lights in their position. Although I used the>same locations taken from the light section of the>aircraft.cfg, it appears that in the effects file the numbers>have to be scaled down. This last part is what I'm working>on.Cool. In fairness to you however, I should add that - I've never actually tried this myself! ;)It was a WAG (Wild Arsed Guess) based on the application of logic. The concept of a "base" was simply to provide a common point of reference from which to work...For example, if the "base" is in the center (or near center as you've discovered), then the X distance to each wingtip would be polar opposites: -17.4 & 17.4...However, if you can use the .cfg placement numbers as a starting point, then that's better in the long run.The aircraft.cfg uses "meters" for the measurement unit; I have no idea what the measurement unit in .fx gauges is... *:-*

[polcat 0]

Well, I found out that you have to multiply the numbers found in the light section by .305 to get the correct placement within the .fx file. Overall, I'm glad I got it to work and now am enjoying some of my military hardware even more!