whiskeyportal Posted December 13, 2011 Report Posted December 13, 2011 It's on the list of things to add, as is regional water colors. In time! I'm sure it will be worth the wait Quote
OlaHaldor Posted January 2, 2012 Report Posted January 2, 2012 (edited) X: X direction vector of the spotlightY: Y direction vector of the spotlightZ: Z direction vector of the spotlightB: (a bit complex to explain...make it 1.0 and you'll be fine)T: Throw of the light...bigger numbers = longer throw. 100 = big tarmac light.....10 = light over doorS: The width of the spotlight beam. 0 = 180 degrees.....1 = 0 degrees. S: The size of the halo.....I think.Finally, you need to have HDR enabled in order to see the lights in sim.LIGHT_PARAM sodium_flood_XYZBTSS 0.0109 12.7033 -0.1128 0.0 -0.707 -0.707 1.0 35 0.5 8I'm having a hard time understanding the numbers there. There's more groups with numbers than you've mentioned. Or.. ?How do I determine what number to use for the XYZ settings? Doesn't seem too logical to me at the moment. Would love to put these kind of features into the Muchamiel Scenery and ship it asap when the last models are done.EDIT: I've figured it out. The six first groups are in fact only three. X, Y and Z. I'm slowly figuring out what attribute does what.Is there any list of other light types? I see you mention "sodium_flood". What others are there, or is there a list of these I can find in the x-Plane installation? Edited January 2, 2012 by OlaHaldor Quote
Simmo W Posted January 2, 2012 Report Posted January 2, 2012 Ola, the full list of 10s lights is in the resources folder, in bitmaps folder, not at pc right now but if u search for lights.txt I think you'll find it.Ive tried fiddling with some of the lights, but couldn't get say Tom's lights to play onto my buildings' vertical surfaces. Tom, can you aim the light? One of the parameters is for Width of beam, but what if the light is not facing the wall? I could get your sodium lights visible but no illumination of wall, like it was facing away. Do u just rotate it?Yes, the global lighting has lots of potential! I put a couple of obs_red_night on my towers, they even light up the support beams. Quote
Simmo W Posted January 2, 2012 Report Posted January 2, 2012 And I just found this, suddenly it makes sense, sort of- so the directional vectors determine the aim of the light, I think!http://wiki.x-plane.com/Category:LightingCustom and named lights are the best bits. Named is still best for performance Tom? Quote
OlaHaldor Posted January 2, 2012 Report Posted January 2, 2012 (edited) Thanks. I found only two lights with XYZBTSS parameters. The 'Merc' didn't throw a cone on the ground with the same settings as with 'sodium flood'. I'll have to investigate that later.I placed a few 'sodium_flood' inside and outside a hangar. Looks really cool when the plane is taxiing. Lights on.. Lights off..I also added the light to a light post I made for the ENOL scenery.The forum is compressing the image too much! Edited January 2, 2012 by OlaHaldor Quote
Simmo W Posted January 3, 2012 Report Posted January 3, 2012 Yay, I finally found time to explore lights too. Talk about a heap of options, a lot of experimenting required. But only those elite pc users with HDR ON will see such pleasures...Whoops, I stuffed the halo here, but spectacular!Uplights are nice:Very subtle on larger buildings: Quote
Gjalp Posted January 3, 2012 Report Posted January 3, 2012 Cricket Simmo, you would have a field day with Las Vegas!!!!!! This is looking fantastic, can't wait to see more pickiest Slainte,AndyNZCH Quote
Simmo W Posted January 3, 2012 Report Posted January 3, 2012 ??Cricket??? Well we are doing well against the indians at the test series! Too many cities, not enough time. Quote
OlaHaldor Posted January 3, 2012 Report Posted January 3, 2012 Did you figure out the groups of numbers, Simmo?So far I've investigated and found thatX = Position X and YY = Position Z and HeadingZ = Pitch and bankB = unknownT = Just as Tom said, how intense the light isS = Just like Tom said, width of the beamS = Halo sizeI might be completely off course. So if you discovered something else, please let me know. Quote
Simmo W Posted January 3, 2012 Report Posted January 3, 2012 I think you're almost there Ola. As ever, Tom is always right :-) The first 3 numbers shouldn't need entry if generated by blender or your 3d software- they're just the coordinates of where the light is situated. The next 3 are the direction vectors. At first I found it confusing, but after awhile it's alllllmmmoooosst second nature! Middle no. Was my problem- its the angle of the light up or down-eg 0 is no angle upwards or downwards, best for wall illumination say. But then not, as it doesnt spread as nice. Just a lot of experimenting with the different light types and positioning is required. Eg for the building lights, putting the light too close to the wall causes the spill to be too small. It's only early days, I'm just gonna try a few named lights to see their effects, good fun but time consuming. Hmm, It might be quicker to copy an object and light 50 times and just copy as many light types from the lights.txt file as possible to the generated obj file for a quick comparison! I might try that tomorrow and post a screenie. But so far, I'm thinking that for general subtle building exterior illumination, good use of photoshop is 90% as good as the global lighting. I think mixing a few hdrs in will give a great mixed effect. Street lights, for ground illumination, well u can't beat the hdr look!So we should both keep experimenting and show everyone the results, be the innovators. What I'd really love to do is hang a big spill light on top of some of my sky scrapers, and modify the rgb colours so I can get a nice natural roof lighting feel. Those who've seen Sydney's skyline will know what I mean. So if u work that one out, let me know! Like a powerful obs_red_night but with colours and throw variable. Grrr, I can already guess it'll have to be a 'custom' light.This is amazing stuff though. Seeing a building lit naturally, knowing I got the coding and position right- wow! U don't see these effects in fsx - hell, in very few games! I went through the city at ground level, with the buildings in good position, you get a real feel of GTA or need for speed! Quote
OlaHaldor Posted January 3, 2012 Report Posted January 3, 2012 I'm using LightWave, and don't know (or care) crap about Blender, so placing lights isn't something I know how to do there.So what I've done so far is a LOT of messing with the text file, rebooting the sim and see where the light went.I've found the angles aren't real world angles. Say, 0 is straight forward. adding 0.5 would rotate 45 degrees up. Or something like that. Quote
Simmo W Posted January 3, 2012 Report Posted January 3, 2012 Too right, those parameters are rather awkward! A GUI to assist matters would be much better. A blender script one day? Drop down selections of lights? COUGH, ben? Tom? COUGH!I never thought I'd be saying this, but...I love blender now, it's so quick and good for repetitive actions. Well, v2.6 is anyway. Nice price too :-) and to think, I almost bought AC3D... Quote
Redfisher Posted January 3, 2012 Report Posted January 3, 2012 I suspect before too long we'll have what we need. I'd love to see a "render engine preview" plug-in/program that would allow you to preview your objetcs without having to boot the sim. Imagine the time saved. Quote
Simmo W Posted January 4, 2012 Report Posted January 4, 2012 Ok, spent another hr trying different lights. I couldn't get a custom light to work, what is really needed is some examples for us to follow.Named lights are dead easy, no parameters to enter, just name correctly and position in BLENDER and they export well. The image shows effect of having 3 -4 parameter lights around the top of a building,'full_custom_halo' type.I tried and tried but could not use the rgb variables to change the colours. Really stumped me, as I was pleased to at least get green! Again, some egs would be good, I'll certainly do some once it sinks in.If one of these is between 2 buildings, both receive the light, nice. I just need to vary the colours.. Quote
Simmo W Posted January 5, 2012 Report Posted January 5, 2012 Finally, I think I've nutted out the logic. Identified all the param lights via a simple search. The no to the left of each defines how many params are needed.I used The full_custom_halo_ ...that last _ was the key! Then change the rgb no's and u can get things like this! But a min of 2 lights near each object. Quote
sgabriel Posted January 6, 2012 Report Posted January 6, 2012 HI everyone,Can someone tell me which of the parameters in the lites.txt file affects the windsock red and white lights? 1 Quote
Simmo W Posted January 6, 2012 Report Posted January 6, 2012 You need to find the object for this, at the bottom of its .obj you should see what light is used. Pretty sure it's a named light (flashing?), so you can't change that light's params. Quote
Baber20 Posted January 6, 2012 Report Posted January 6, 2012 Amazing work Simmo ! Just a request.. Can you alter the city lights with a mixture of red and white along with the sodium with a bit more spill? Like just take a small area with a couple of houses and light poles and do some testing. Only if you have time. Thanks ! Quote
Simmo W Posted January 6, 2012 Report Posted January 6, 2012 Of course! Would you like curtain shadows too? or animated moths casting shadows on ground? Too many parameters to try! What do you mean by the city lights? you mean the autogen ones near the streets? No can do, not this puppy anyway. I could try just adding a couple of lights as you say. Just have to add it to the long list of tests.But I will be experimenting soon with varied groundspill lighting, esp where you'd expect shopfronts to be. Magical stuff. I AM TRYING TO KILL YOUR GPU, BUT FAILING! Quote
Baber20 Posted January 6, 2012 Report Posted January 6, 2012 LOL ! Will be patiently waiting for the shots of that varied ground spill lighting.P.S - I'd love animated moths casting shadows on ground running on their dedicated flight models !!! Quote
Simmo W Posted January 7, 2012 Report Posted January 7, 2012 Just posted an update on lighting to the blog. Quote
sgabriel Posted January 7, 2012 Report Posted January 7, 2012 (edited) You need to find the object for this, at the bottom of its .obj you should see what light is used. Pretty sure it's a named light (flashing?), so you can't change that light's params.Hmmm. I'd been hoping I could tinker with it as easily as with runway and taxiway lighting. I've been fooling around with the lights.txt file to adjust the relative brightness of airport lights for better realism (in my opinion, at least). For example, the default overwhelming brightness of blue taxiway lights versus runway edge lights is just silly!The red and white lights on the default windsock are at least as bright and as visible as the airport beacon, also silly! Edited January 14, 2012 by sgabriel Quote
arskal Posted January 20, 2012 Report Posted January 20, 2012 Is it possible to use in Blender, lamps IES/Photometric data and export object to XPhttp://sitelighting.com/ProductIES.cfm?Style=DF12&Brand=gar&ProLine=dflIf so, then you get correct illumination of lamp. 1 Quote
Baber20 Posted January 20, 2012 Report Posted January 20, 2012 Is it possible to use in Blender, lamps IES/Photometric data and export object to XPhttp://sitelighting....gar&ProLine=dflIf so, then you get correct illumination of lamp.A really interesting question and find !!! That should give the correct illumination of lamp..Would like a detailed explanation on this. Anyone ? Quote
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