Landing Light Dimness

[PrivateSimPilot]

Searching this forum I notice people are saying the landing lights light up the ground fine. I landed the Islander in pitch blackness for the first time last night and couldn't see anything with the landing lights on, but for a bit of the edge paint on the runway. Are the real Islander landing lights like this? I have my Visual Effects set to Maximum (HDR+SSAO).

I did a comparison between the Islander and a plane with a similar size, the Carenado King Air 200 (or at least a similar place on my X-Plane aircraft selector) and took some pre-dawn screen shots. I use the MisterX6 texture library, which has somewhat darker runways than default.

Unless real Islanders have very dim landing lights (enough that I had trouble figuring out where the taxiway exit was even with the blue taxi lights), would brightening their effect on the ground be called for?

[Ch.Cole]

I think I have read that the landing lights will be adjusted. In the meantime, you can edit them via text editor.

[airwar]

Hi to All

You could increase Landing Lights brightens by yourself with Notepad++ simply increasing numbers.

 

[PrivateSimPilot]

Whoa, I didn't know you could do that. So I looked into the "how" of it and got (possibly overdone):

If others want to do this, I opened object/airplane_wing.obj and looked for LIGHT_PARAM and then any of them with airplane_landing_<something.>. Then the numbers on those lines with 0.725 0.896 1.000 I changed to 5.725 5.896 6.000 and now I can see! Not sure you have to do this change to all the variants of airplane_landing_<something> or not.

Thanks for the hints @Ch.Cole and @airwar!

[airwar]

9 minutes ago, PrivateSimPilot said:

Whoa, I didn't know you could do that. So I looked into the "how" of it and got (possibly overdone):

If others want to do this, I opened object/airplane_wing.obj and looked for LIGHT_PARAM and then any of them with airplane_landing_<something.>. Then the numbers on those lines with 0.725 0.896 1.000 I changed to 5.725 5.896 6.000 and now I can see! Not sure you have to do this change to all the variants of airplane_landing_<something> or not.

Thanks for the hints @Ch.Cole and @airwar!

The correct way to increase brightness, for instance 5 times, you should multiply each number to 5:

0.725 x 5 = 3.625

0.896 x 5 = 4.480

1.000 x 5 = 5.000

and you have       3.625   4.480    5.000

Edited May 1, 2020 by airwar

[PrivateSimPilot]

@airwar Do you know what those three numbers mean? The description I saw said it probably had something to do with color (RGB?) but they weren't sure.

[PrivateSimPilot]

...or I could have just looked it up:

https://developer.x-plane.com/2013/04/customizing-spill-lights-two-ways/

Thanks again!

[airwar]

Yes, RGB colors!

Make    1.000    0.000    0.000    and you have RED color!

And    10.000   0.000   0.000      will be RED 10 times brighter.

Edited May 1, 2020 by airwar

[Ch.Cole]

I've chanded the landing lights as well, and I noticed that the _core and _flare had their verctors point in the wrong direction. I changend the following lines (bold means changed):

LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_flare 0 -0.00000003 -0.00000004 0 0 -1.000  0    2

LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_flare 0 -0.00000003 -0.00000004 0 0 -1.000  1    2       

LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_glow 0 -0.00000003 -0.00000004 0 0 -1.000  0    2

LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_glow 0 -0.00000003 -0.00000004 0 0 -1.000  1    2

LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_sp 0 -0.00000003 -0.00000004 6 6 5    0    340    0.94

LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_sp 0 -0.00000003 -0.00000004 6 6 5    1    340    0.94

[0zz]

Nice one Cole! That was driving me crazy

[airwar]

On 5/4/2020 at 2:24 PM, Ch.Cole said:

I've chanded the landing lights as well, and I noticed that the _core and _flare had their verctors point in the wrong direction. I changend the following lines (bold means changed):

LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_flare 0 -0.00000003 -0.00000004 0 0 -1.000  0    2

LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_flare 0 -0.00000003 -0.00000004 0 0 -1.000  1    2       

LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_glow 0 -0.00000003 -0.00000004 0 0 -1.000  0    2

LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_glow 0 -0.00000003 -0.00000004 0 0 -1.000  1    2

LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_sp 0 -0.00000003 -0.00000004 6 6 5    0    340    0.94

LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_sp 0 -0.00000003 -0.00000004 6 6 5    1    340    0.94

 

Thanks to Ch.Cole for Rotating Beacon and Landing Lights Mod!

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by airwar

[Ch.Cole]

I fiddeled a bit more and came up with this: note the doubled up flare and core, as we have dtwin lights on either side. I also adjusted the position.

        LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_core -0.04 -0.005 0 0 0 -1  0    .6
        LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_core  0.04 -0.005 0 0 0 -1  0    .6

        LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_core -0.04 -0.005 0 0 0 -1  1    .6
        LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_core  0.04 -0.005 0 0 0 -1  1    .6

        LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_flare -0.04 -0.005 0 0 0 -1  0    3
        LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_flare  0.04 -0.005 0 0 0 -1  0    3

        LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_flare -0.04 -0.005 0 0 0 -1  1    3
        LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_flare  0.04 -0.005 0 0 0 -1  1    3

explanation: LIGHT_PARAM    airplane_landing_core -0.04 -0.005 0 0 0 -1  0    .6

-0.04 -0.005 0 coordinates of the light, -0.04 (and 0.04) to separate the lights, -0.005 to slightly adjust the height, I found the lights to be slightly too low.
0 0 -1light vector, in these cases straight ahead. I was too lazy to research the actual angle of the lights...

0 (or 1) 0 means left light triggers it, 1 means right light

.6 is the size (as is 3).

Now you know what you can edit to make the light as you want. Feel free to ask if you have any questions.

[Ch.Cole]

Hi,

so most of the issues are fixed with the new patch. I still think the lights aren't strong enough, so I adjusted the values to 5 5 3.