GMAX Lighting

[JMEppright 2]

Gentlemen,I'm coming along great with GMAX but have run into a snag. I have a sidewalk/ramp that needs to be illuminated at night. I'm missing something about materials that would allow an object not to darken at night. Help is appreciated.

[Guest jersey shore]

Gmax lighting isnt supported within flight simulator. What you can do it one of 2 things..1. create a texture and apply it within gmax2. use effects to simulate night lighting(fs2004 only)Dave

[JMEppright 2]

I'm aware that GMAX doesn't work at illuminating objects in FS2004. I also know the drill to use a XXX_LM file to look like an object is illuminated. For some reason, that does not work with the box I am working on. The mystery continues.

[n4gix 4,947]

Make certain you have checked off the Has Nightmaps option while exporting the file via MakeMDL.exe...

[JMEppright 2]

Bill,Thanks for the tip. It worked once. I thought I'd made it to Heaven. Unfortunatley, not. I cranked up MakeMDL and went to options and checked the Nightmaps option. It worked once. Then back to square one. To summarize and air problem, I create a simple box, create a material to cover box. OK so far. Then I select one polygon to afix a BMP file to with diffuse. OK so far. It seems to be problematic when I check night illumination and afix a XXX_LM file to that. Ideas are GREATLY appreciated.

[JMEppright 2]

Another sidebar to previous message. MadeMDL was locking up. I went back into material editor and changed the night illumination file to match the diffuse file. Now it compiles but sign does not show up at night. :-(

[JMEppright 2]

Thanks for the help. It had been awhile since I had done the night lighting thing. I got crossed up on the material editor. Once I settled in that the basic file was the diffuse and the night time file went with the Ambient material and ended with _LM then it all works fine. I am still sketchy on what the night illumination button is for if ambient works.