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Guest Jos

- - Possible to create taxiway lights for FS9? - -

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Guest ThrottleUp

Hello everyone http://www.ifdg.net/forum/style_emoticons/default/bye.gifSeeking the wisdom of you scenery gurus.Many add-on airport scenery packs for FS9 have taxiway lights which I find really cool. The default FS9 taxiways look very empty without them.1. Is there an add-on out there that creates these lights that will make them appear on *every* airport?2. If not..how hard would it be to create such lights? Is it as easy as sticking a file in the main texture folder...or is it a lot more complicated than that?! http://instagiber.net/smiliesdotcom/contri...y/corkysm20.gifThe lights *do not* have to light up. I never fly at night in the sim anyway so thats not a factor hee hee!I would just like the physical taxiway light units showing!Would greatly appreciate feedback!Thank you :)http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/114667.jpg

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Guest luissa

Hi,I think you need to add the lights one by one to the airport. The light itself is a small flat polygon that rotates towards you and the polygon is painted with a texture of the light.You can place the light as a scenery macro with many scenery design tools. If you want to try the one I used in Porto Santo, please tell me.http://www.ptsim.com/madeira/psanto.jpgRegards, Luis

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Hello Nevin,Good things come to those who ask. Luis has offered his lights that look very nice.I took the image that you posted the other day and made a texture out of it for the same thing.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/114785.jpgAs Luis says, you will have to place them individually, but there are numerous programs that allow you to do this very easily.Best regards.Luis

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Guest ThrottleUp

luissa & luis - Thank you both very much for your input! Luissa - yes with your permission I would really like to use those lights! And Luis I shall use what you created out of that taxi-light photo as well! Mix n match!However I am utterly clueless as to how to go about this so I shall have to look for a tutorial or something. I do have a question though. In the main FS9Texture folder I see texture bitmaps for the taxiways. Now these of course are applied to every default airport in the FS9 world. Can you just insert a taxiway-light in there?....it wont show up on the default taxiways?Thanks again!!!:)

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Hi Nevin,No, only adding the texture will not give you lights at all default airports. The default taxiways only define a polygon on the ground. To get a 3D light, you will have to add extra objects (polygons) yourself to place these lights on.


Arno

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

FSDeveloper.com | Former Microsoft FS MVP | Blog

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Guest luissa

Hi Nevin,Each single light is an object and you need a tool to place objects. If you still want me to send a macro that shows a texture to rotate to the viewer, please confirm that.Regards, Luis

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Guest ThrottleUp

------------------------------------------------------------------------ The default taxiways only define a polygon on the ground. To get a 3D light, you will have to add extra objects (polygons) yourself to place these lights on.------------------------------------------------------------------------Ohhh I see what youre saying...ok that clears my question up, thanks much! So the bitmaps in the Texture folder are 2D (like a piece of paper lying on the ground)...to get a standing 3D object needs some more work!Thx Arno! :)------------------------------------------------------------------------If you still want me to send a macro that shows a texture to rotate to the viewer, please confirm that.------------------------------------------------------------------------Yes please! I would really appreciate that, thanks for offering! You can PM it to me if you want or my email addy is nevin@scandinavica.com:)

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Guest luissa

>Yes please! I would really appreciate that, thanks for>offering! You can PM it to me if you want or my email addy isHi NevinCreate an empty folder and save the following text on a file called bluelight.api:; bluelight.api; Parameters:; 1 = elevation; 2 = visibility PerspectiveCall( :layer@ ) Jump( :next@ ):layer@ Perspective mif( %1 ) RefPoint( ns :ret@ d $Y $X v1= %2 E= %1 v2= 5 ) melse RefPoint( 7 :ret@ 1 d $Y $X v1= %2 v2= 5 ) mifend SetScaleX( :ret@ 0 0 11 ) RotateToAircraft( :start@ 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 ) Return:start@ Points( 0 -3 0 0 3 0 0 3 12 0 -3 12 0 ) LoadBitmap( 0 L6 EF 0 200 0 bluel.bmp ) TexPoly( m 0 0 32767 0 0 0 0 1 255 0 2 255 255 3 0 255 ) IfVarAnd( :ret@ 28C 6 ) RGBLColor( EF 0 0 255 ) Dot( 0 10 1 ):ret@ Return:next@get the latest version of SCASM at www.scasm.de and place the EXE on the working folder (which will contain 2 files when you copy SCASM.EXE into it). Then create the following file where you need to adpat latitudes and longitudes to your case. Note that all my lights will be positioned with reference to the point definied in the GRP() command that is to say N33:04:24.285 W016:20:59.805Header( 1 N34:34:24 N31:34:24 W14:50:59 W17:50:59 )LatRange( N31:34:24 N34:34:24 )GRP( N33:04:24.285 W016:20:59.805 )Set( BUF 1024 )Set( areamx 1024 )Set( LINBUF 2048 )include( lights.txt )Save this text file as, for example my_airport.txt. You have 3 files now on the working folder. Now the 4th and last file which will have the name of lights.txt:; This is the BLUE LIGHTS setArea( 5 d 0 0 20 )IfVarRange( : 0346 5 5 ) Uvar( $X 39.5 )Uvar( $Y -392.1 )macro( bluelight.api 80 3000 )Uvar( $X 42.5 )Uvar( $Y -399.9 )macro( bluelight.api 80 3000 )Uvar( $X 46.8 )Uvar( $Y -407.7 )macro( bluelight.api 80 3000 )Uvar( $X 52.1 )Uvar( $Y -414 )macro( bluelight.api 80 3000 )Uvar( $X 58.1 )Uvar( $Y -418.7 )macro( bluelight.api 80 3000 )Uvar( $X 65.7 )Uvar( $Y -422.3 )macro( bluelight.api 80 3000 ); many more lights will normally followEndAThe first light will be 39.5 meters to the east and 392.1 to the south of the GRP() referred to above. In order to get a BGL you enter a MSDOS window and change the directory to go to the working folder and you type at the MSDOS prompt:>SCASM my_airport.txtThat is all. If you get no error, a 5th file will be created called my_airport.BGL. You only need to copy this file to an active SCENERY folder to see the result.Regards, LuisPS: you need the texture file file which in this example is called bluel.bmp. You can copy the one sent by Luis Feliz-Tirado and call it bluel.bmp. May be you need to adjust the altitude of the blue light to coincide with the texture provided by Luis. The command to look at is Dot( 0 10 1 ). Changing to, for example, Dot( 0 11 1 ) will place the light a little bit higher.

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Guest ThrottleUp

Thanks very much luissa :)Thats a nice reply along with all the instructions. This is however a whole new ball game for me so Im studying all of this carefully!------------------------------------------------------------------------May be you need to adjustthe altitude of the blue light to coincide with the textureprovided by Luis.------------------------------------------------------------------------So Luis' texture is a 2D ground texture and your 3D polygon-taxiway lights will sit on them? By altitude does that me adjusting the *length* of the light? Sorry...so many questions! But Im excited for doing this! Its something I've always wanted in my FS9!:) Ok back to looking at the print-out!

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Guest luissa

Hi,About your question: the 3D object that we are talking about is just a single vertical rectangle (say a sheet of paper painted on one side) with the texture of the light. Look to the texture that Luis has posted. The black part around the lamp is transparent in the sim so that, if you place the sheet of paper on the ground (perpendicular to the ground, though) you will see an illusion of the blue lamp if you place yourself in front of it. Now if the vertical polygon rotates to the viewer (and that is possible) you will get a complete illusion that you are looking to a normal 3D object. You could, of course, make a solid object but you would need something like 50 (or more) polygons (faces) to completely model the lamp. That will be a waste of "FS frame rates", specially when you are going to place a considerable number of objects. With just a single face you get the same visual effect.In my macro I have this painted rectangle and a a blue dot of light a few centimenters beyond the textured polygon. This will make the light shine in dark. I set the altitude of this dot to coincide with the drawing in the texture (the blue color part). BUT, AS MY TEXTURE IS different from the one sent Luis Feliz-Tirado, I was alerting you for a possible misaligned dot. I hope you can get it working!Luis

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Guest Jos

Hi,This is quiet interesting. I am using FS2002 and working on an airport (EBOS) in order to make it better and also working in FS9.I searched the Net for taxiway lighting (such as you showed here) and found "taxiway edge"... but only a .bgl is encluded in the file... no API. Or can I open this .bgl and change the coordinates so that I can place them along my taxiways ?Is there anywhere an API avalable or macro that will work in both FS ?It is also for me a great challenge to build scenery, time consuming and very hard learning... but I like it.Greetz. Jos

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Hi Jose,It could be that the BGL you found is an object library. But the documentation comming with it should tell you if that is so.The macro Luis posted above works in both Fs2002 and Fs2004.


Arno

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

FSDeveloper.com | Former Microsoft FS MVP | Blog

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Guest Jos

Hi Arno,Sorry, but I found the file... with an API (with two .bgl's you must place into your scenery map of the airport). I am very absent-minded due to building the scenery and all the things I have to learn.I have to set the right scale... the taxilight showed up as a Control Tower, h

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Guest Jos

Hi Arno,Could not sleep (it's four o'clock in the morning now here) until I was certain that the "taxi edge" light works well. I set the scale to 0,01 and there it was at his tiny normal size... bright shining as it should. Fantastic.Thanks for your reply. Jos

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