gMax Approach lights, help!

[Guest]

Hi!I did some custom approach lights in gMax, the lights are actually Landing Lights so that they aren't visible from the other side. Changing the LIGHT_LANDING to LIGHT_LANDING_1 draws only the cone and they work fine except the following:* The light points in FS seem to be bigger than default runway lights. Is there a way I could get smaller points? I have tried to draw the polygon that marks a light in gMax very small but it doesn't seem to affect the size or brightness of the light in FS.* Is there another and perhaps a better way of doing "one-way" BGLC lights in than as a landing lights?I have searched the forum for answers but the best thread stopped where BGLC lights came in....All help appreciated.Thank you.Tatu

[arno 1]

Hi Tatu,About the size, I think it is something hard coded in the sim. Although in the BGL_LIGHT command there is a parameter for the brightness. Maybe you can not control it from GMax. You might want to try to make some manual changes to the ASM source (maybe you can also do the size that way???).Here is the macro for the BGL_LIGHT, so you can see which parameter is what:

BGL_LIGHT	macro	ltype,x,y,z,intensity,li_atten,sq_atten,color,nx,ny,nz	dw	BGLOP_LIGHT	   ; 0ADh	dw	ltype	; light type	real4   x,y,z		  ; light offset	dd	  intensity	  ; light intensity	real4	li_atten; linear attenuation factor	real4	sq_atten; squared attenuation factor	dd	  color		  ; light color	real4	nx,ny,nz; light direction	endm

Arno

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Member Netherlands 2000 Scenery Team[link:home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen]Arno's FlightSim World for scenery design hints, tips and other tricks...

[Guest]

Thank you Arno.I have tried to change those parameters in the asm code. It seems to me (actually is written also in the BGLFP.doc) that Intensity and light direction parameters do not work. nx,ny and nz have no effect. LIGHT_NAV is better looking than LIGHT_LANDING but I can't get LIGHT_NAV directional.It is no problem to control the color and brightness in gMax, just that FS draws Light_landing a bit bigger than Light_nav.Is there a way to convert asm to scasm files? I thought there would be more possibilities.Tatu

[arno 1]

It's true that the direction vector does not work.I don't think SCASM can really help. It's the same command (Light) basically. At the moment you need to do the translation BGLC -> SCASM by hand (I have a converter in the pipeline to do it for you).Arno

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Member Netherlands 2000 Scenery Team[link:home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen]Arno's FlightSim World for scenery design hints, tips and other tricks...

[Guest]

Hi!Thanks again.With Scasm I was thinking if it is easier to do the VectorJump( label x y z len )command...but anyway, it doesn't help much when I have to convert the *.asm to scasm first. I don't know how to do that.I tried to search for similar "VectorJump" command in SDK for bglc, do you know if it exists and how is it called? Thank you,Tatu

[arno 1]

True, VectorJump can do the trick (altought the light is still shining in all directions, it is not displayed when you are on the "wrong" site).In BGLC VectorJump is SEPARATION_PLANE the parameters are:alternate_jumpnormal vectordot_reference (I don't really know if this is the same as the len in SCASM).Arno

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Member Netherlands 2000 Scenery Team[link:home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen]Arno's FlightSim World for scenery design hints, tips and other tricks...

[Guest]

I add a NAV light in gmax and then edit the BGL source so that the poles are only visible from one side, like this:IFMSK wrong_direction, 386h, 8000hBGL_LIGHT LIGHT_NAV, etc...wrong_direction label wordThat checks if the relative z-coordinate, or north-to-south-coordinate, is negative. This works also when the object is rotated, because the relative z-coordinate is also rotated. At the same time I can add other IF-clauses for additional functionality.I don't think the brightness variable actually does anything, but you can adjust the brightness of the light by making the colour of the light brighter or dimmer.Finally, the size of the landing light isn't hard coded into the sim, it is a texture in the file halo.bmp.And Tatu, why didn't you first post this in our forum?-)

[Guest]

Hi Jari,>Finally, the size of the landing light isn't hard coded into >the sim, it is a texture in the file halo.bmp. How do I use this texture to get it associated to the light? Do I need to cover the lightened object with the texture?Could you please explain a little more into detail how to procede?Thanks,Rainer

[Guest]

>Hi Jari, >>>Finally, the size of the landing light isn't hard coded into >>the sim, it is a texture in the file halo.bmp. >>How do I use this texture to get it associated to the light? >Do I need to cover the lightened object with the texture? >>Could you please explain a little more into detail how to >procede? >>Thanks, >>Rainer I think it just works like this: when you make a "light dot" in gMAX or any other program, FS2002 understands that the light should use textures from the halo.bmp - you do not have to assign it by yourself in any way. Also, custom made halo.bmp placed in your scenery's own texture directory don't seem to work. FS2002 only reads the one in its own main texture folder./Sebastian