strobes

[LouP]

Is it me or are the strobes flashing much more quickly in FSX?

LouP

 

[heywooood]

some of the Carenado planes have ultra rapid strobes...

Shockwave lights is one remedy for unrealistically fast strobe lights

 

[FAC257]

The ultra-strobes were mostly on the earlier FSX Carenados and other FSX ports & half-bakes that are still using FS9 style/dated lighting effects.

On the newer Carenados the strobe lighting looks really good.

Another quick fix would be to edit the aircraft.cfg so that the older aircrat use the newer Carenado effects.

FAC

 

[FAC257]

The question reminded me that I've been wanting to tranquilize the ultra-fast strobes & beacons on the Carenados.

I just went through and dated and catagorized the fleet for editing reference. The date next to the aircraft is the file date of the effects file.

Spastic Lighting: (on crack)
Arrow_2009
Mentor_2008
Mooney_2005
C182RG_2005
C182Q_2005
C206_2005

Calm Lighting: (seem normal)
Archer2_2009
Bonanza_2010
Cherokee_2008
C152_2008
C172_2009
C185_2010

Excellent Lighting: (fancier flash effect than the "good" catagory)
Saratoga_2009
Seneca_2009
C208_2010

FAC

 

[Bjoern]

One could also edit the strobe .fx file.

I've tried it a while ago but it didn't come to any fruitation. My primary objective was making them flash asynchronously though.

 

[LouP]

I've dabbled with the fx files before but was wondering what line had to do with the frequency of flash. I may crack one open and see what I can find

LouP

 

[FAC257]

Out of frustration and just to teach myself something new, I dove into the turbo-flashing strobe problem right after FSX came out. The goal was to learn how to slow down the effect.

I was using the Shockwave B-29 and it's turbo lights as the teaching tool. What I did learn was that it was a fairly consistant percentage of overspeed with each of the lights. Once I created the slowed down files for the B-29, I used those same files on the early Carenados also.

Here's a link to the old post where I posted the "How-To" change the flash rate on the effects files to match the old FS9 rate:
http://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7296
The directions are part way down on the first page.

Overall the "ported" flashers were running not quite 3X the normal rate. The factor I ended up dividing the emitters by was around 2.9.

To keep the asynchronously flashing lower recognition lights I just kept the new rates for those three lights slightly different, 1.07, 1.06, & 1.00. That little bit of difference made them look like the were flashing on a completely random sequencing.

Here are those same old converted and edited original WOP Recognition Lights mounted on the new Accu-simed B-17.

FAC

 

[Bjoern]

Editing the "Rate=" settings of the emitters worked, my strobes now flash asynchronously and slightly slower and (subjectively) more realisitic.

Finally! :d


A short how to:
- Back up strobe.fx and strobeh.fx
- Open the original files with Notepad
- Look for the "Rate=" entries in the [Emitter.x] sections (there should be four in each .fx file)
- Replace the values there (mine were "0.5, 0.5") with "0.4, 0.41"
- Save the modified files
- Restart FSX and check the new strobe effects


A bit more info and text about the procedure itself can be found here:
http://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=63496&sid=d58f2e689c74e53a51eea237bddac654#p63496
This is the direct link to FAC257's aforementioned post at A2A.

Anyways, thanks FAC.
I've spent quite a while trying to figure this out. :d