Fixing VC lighting

[Landman]

FSX has a bug that turns all cockpit lighting on or off. It wont let you have just the gauges lit without the cockpit flood lights lit as well. Some of the payware developers have found a way to overcome this bug apparently because their add-ons will let you have just the gauges lit up or both gauges and cockpit flood lights. My question is how to do it. What line in what cfg files do I need to edit or is it something that is hard coded in the gauge files themselves. If so can I unpack the gauge files into a text editor, edit the proper lines, and repack them into their original gauge files? I want to fix this so it wont be so bright in the VC. It is like driving your car at night with the dome light and all the map lights on constantly.

 

[Navy Chief]

FSX has a bug that turns all cockpit lighting on or off. It wont let you have just the gauges lit without the cockpit flood lights lit as well. Some of the payware developers have found a way to overcome this bug apparently because their add-ons will let you have just the gauges lit up or both gauges and cockpit flood lights. My question is how to do it. What line in what cfg files do I need to edit or is it something that is hard coded in the gauge files themselves. If so can I unpack the gauge files into a text editor, edit the proper lines, and repack them into their original gauge files? I want to fix this so it wont be so bright in the VC. It is like driving your car at night with the dome light and all the map lights on constantly.

Very interesting question! I'll be watching this thread! NC

 

[n4gix]

There is no "fix" for the default models, since we do not have the source files for them available. The problem exists in the compiled .mdl files, not any of the gauges.

The only workaround option is to comment out the .fx files in the aircraft.cfg file for the "overhead flood lights," or change their control to another light circuit.

For the record, this is not a "bug in FSX" but more correctly is simply a case of lazy programming/modeling.

 

[Tako_Kichi]

FSX has a bug that turns all cockpit lighting on or off. It wont let you have just the gauges lit without the cockpit flood lights lit as well.

That statement is not strictly true as it's not a bug but the way the system was designed and you can turn the cockpit lights on or off independently very easily.

Go to the 'Settings' menu when you first start FSX and then hit the 'Controls' button followed by the 'Buttons/Keys' tab. Once there select the 'Lights' option from the 'Event category' drop-down menu and all will be revealed.

Key ------------ Action
L ---------------Lights - all (on/off)
CTRL+L -------- Landing lights (on/off)
SHIFT+L --------Panel lights (on/off)

If you hit 'L' all the lights will come on but if you then hit 'SHIFT+L' the dome lights will go out and if the developer of the aircraft in question modelled separate instrument lights (not all do) then you will see them lit if the time of day is correct for them to work as FSX only displays gauge lights at dawn, dusk and night.

EDIT: I see Bill got in before me while I was typing.

 

[Landman]

I have it set up that way already and when I hit shift+L it's either all or none at all. Both the gauges and the dome lights light up or nothing at all. Some aircraft have gauges that will not light up unless you specifically turn them on but at the same time you get the dome light too. I want to be able to light up the gauges without the dome light. What is strange is that when I turn shift+L on I see only the gauges come on first for one second then the dome lights come on one second later so they apparently can be separated some kind of way. I tried commenting out the VC light in the aircraft cfg but then the gauges don't light up either. Sometimes the gauges act differently depending on whether you are in the VC or 2-D cockpit. For example in the MAAM SIM DC-3 I can get only the gauges to light up without the dome light on the 2-D panel if I comment out the dome light in the aircraft cfg. When I switch to the VC in that same plane the VC is totally dark with nothing lit up, not even the same gauges that will light on the 2-D panel, they are dark too in the VC even though they light on the 2-D panel. I am forced to remove the comment slashes in the cfg file so the dome light will come on again so I can read the gauges in the VC.

 

[SkippyBing]

What is strange is that when I turn shift+L on I see only the gauges come on first for one second then the dome lights come on one second later so they apparently can be separated some kind of way.

What's happening here is that the 2D gauges in the VC are lighting up instantaneously, meanwhile the lighting in the 3D part of the VC has to load the self-illumination textures and blend them with the diffuse textures which can take a few seconds. They're both tied to the same switch, it's just one takes longer to enact than the other.
As Bill said it's down to how the model was set up, by default FSX only has one variable for internal lighting to have multiple light switches the developer has to code extra ones and rig the model accordingly.

 

[Landman]

Well blimey, that sucketh. I found where the VC light texture resides in the effects folder and I edited the texture file to make it darker and redder so I can still read the gauges and the whole cockpit wont be so bright.

 

[anthony31]

I think you should be able to achieve what you want with a bit of tinkering.

Here is an example of the lights section from a plane I am working on at the moment in which the cabin and panel lights are switched separately:

[LIGHTS]
//Types: 1=beacon, 2=strobe, 3=navigation, 4=cockpit, 5=landing
light.1 = 1, -5.42, 0.00, 1.96, Ants_aa12_beacon
light.2 = 2, -7.4, -11.6, -0.18, fx_strobe
light.3 = 2, -7.4, 11.6, -0.18, fx_strobe
light.4 = 10, 3.62, 0.00, 1.31, Ants_aa12_vclight
light.5 = 7, -13.5, 0.00, 0.00, Ants_aa12_engineexhaust

Light.4 is the cabin lighting, = 10 makes it the cabin lights and attaches it to the cabin lighting circuit.

Compare to this code from the default 737:

[LIGHTS]
//Types: 1=beacon, 2=strobe, 3=navigation, 4=cockpit, 5=landing
light.0 = 3, -24.20, -56.60, 3.90, fx_navredm ,
light.1 = 3, -24.20, 56.60, 3.90, fx_navgrem ,
light.2 = 2, -71.32, 0.00, 5.92, fx_strobeh ,
light.3 = 2, -25.00, -57.20, 4.20, fx_strobe ,
light.4 = 2, -25.00, 57.20, 4.20, fx_strobe ,
light.5 = 2, -7.55, 0.00, -5.50, fx_beaconb ,
light.6 = 1, 2.00, 0.00, 8.70, fx_beaconh ,
light.7 = 4, 47.60, 0.00, 3.00, fx_vclighth ,
light.8 = 3, -29.50, -56.60, 3.70, fx_navwhih ,
light.9 = 3, -29.50, 56.60, 3.70, fx_navwhih ,

Light.7 is the cabin light and = 4 attaches it to the panel light circuit.

Now, developers must use the panel light circuit to get gauges in the virtual cockpit to light up, it is just the only the materials work and there is not a lot the developer can do (unless they want to try some really tricky tricks). So, for most aircraft out there turning on the panel lights will also turn on the gauge light.

But, most aircraft are also setup so the virtual cockpit floodlight (ie fx_vclighth) will turn on with the panel lights.

You can change this.

Using the 737 example above if you change
light.7 = 4, 47.60, 0.00, 3.00, fx_vclighth ,
to
light.7 = 10, 47.60, 0.00, 3.00, fx_vclighth ,

Then the light effect will now be on the cabin lighting circuit.

Now when you turn on the panel lights the gauge lights will come on but the overhead light won't.

So how do you turn on the overhead lights. Well, the default 737 doesn't have a switch for this (at least on that works) and you can't assign a key command to cabin lights like you can with panel lights. Or can you?

This little trick I learnt from Bill so credit to him.

If you manually edit the this file:
Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\Controls\Standard.XML
You can add in an entry to toggle on/off the cabin lights.

Drop something like the following into the standard.xml (I don't think the place matters but you can put it next to the Panel_Lights_Toggle entry if you like)

(Entry)
(Key)SHIFT+P(/Key)
(Down)TOGGLE_CABIN_LIGHTS(/Down)
(/Entry)

You will have to replace each ( with < and each ) with > as this forum isn't letting me show the code (even if I put code quotes around it).

 < Entry >
< Key >SHIFT+P< /Key 
<entry>< Down >TOGGLE_CABIN_LIGHTS< /Down >
< /Entry ><entry>

So it looks something like the above. I've had to put spaces where they shouldn't be to get the code to display on the forum. Once you open up standard.xml you should be able to figure out how it should look.
</entry></entry>

 

[Felixthreeone]

Now that...Is a thing of awesomeness!!! :salute: Thank you for the tip!!!

 

[anthony31]

Whoops!

I had put in TOGGLE_NAV_LIGHTS in my post above when I should have put in TOGGLE_CABIN_LIGHTS (that's what happens when you cut and paste things around, obviously I use Shift+P to toggle my nav lights). I've made the edit to the original post but just in case anyone read the post before my edit I thought I'd clear that up.

 

[Landman]

Gonna try this on a few aircraft. What would cause the gauges to light up on the 2-D panel only and not in the VC even if they are the same gauge names in the panel.cfg? I tried changing the line that says noluminous=0 in the panel cfg file but it makes no difference if it is 1 or 0.

 

[anthony31]

That would be down to the material properties for the VC texture and so is next to impossible for the end user to adjust.

If a 2D gauge is being used in the virtual cockpit then the developer creates a dummy texture with their 2D gauges placed onto it. They can then use this dummy texture and map it onto the parts of the aircraft where they want the gauges to appear. At its simplest level this is the panel. At a more complex level you can have bits and pieces everywhere.

If the illumination of the 3D VC material is not setup properly though then the gauge will not light up like it does on the 2D gauge. It can actually be rather difficult to get things lighting up in the VC how they should but again there are lots of little tricks a developer can use.

I usually use about 3 or 4 different material properties for the VC just to get things lighting up how they should be. Takes a lot of preplanning.