VC flood lights

DagR

Charter Member
Hello,

I am having a strange problem in my Prepar3d v4 installation. No matter what I do, I cannot get the VC floodlighting to work in the SSW F-104S and Tornado. I have tried all I can think of including using other fx. Are there anyone else having this problem? And yes, I have reported it to the developers at SSW but they cannot help me.

Best
Dag
 
Will dynamic lighting make a difference? It may be just those aircraft are incompatible? I assume you have checked other aircraft? If the lights work in them, it isn't dynamic lighting. I flew the PC-12 the other night and the lights worked for me just fine. I do have dynamic lighting turned on.
 
Will dynamic lighting make a difference? It may be just those aircraft are incompatible? I assume you have checked other aircraft? If the lights work in them, it isn't dynamic lighting. I flew the PC-12 the other night and the lights worked for me just fine. I do have dynamic lighting turned on.



I have tested all aircraft with and without dynamic lighting, no difference. Also tested with other fx, no difference. I ran the interior model of the Tornado through MCX and exported as a V4 mdl and noticed that I lost animation on the control knobs for the VC flood lights but not the panel/instrument lights. Strange stuff.
 
Dag,
look in the effects folder for ssw.vclight.fx Edit these numbers in the [particle0] section to look like this....

[Particle.0]
Lifetime=0.00, 0.00
Type=19
X Scale=1.50, 1.50
Y Scale=1.50, 1.50
That got the VC lights working in the F104S and Tornado for me. I notice the 3D land and taxi lights aren't displaying correctly on the ssw F104, but haven't worked out how to correct that yet. P3Dv4 appears to need particles in some effects re-sizing.

/Russell.
 
Additionally you might be able to get a proven vc flood light fx and swap it out

Ive done that in the past with other models, i dont have those 2 but its worked for me in the past on others
 
Mmm, the way I described above works, but no good if you still run P3Dv3 as well. A better way is to make a copy of ssw_vclight.fx paste it outside the effects folder and rename it ssw_vclight4.fx Make the changes as in my last post before putting it back in the effects folder. Open the aircraft.cfg in both the F104 and Tornado and alter the ssw_vclight in the LIGHTS section to ssw_vclight4 Never noticed this before as I rarely fly at night.

/Russell
 
Mmm, the way I described above works, but no good if you still run P3Dv3 as well. A better way is to make a copy of ssw_vclight.fx paste it outside the effects folder and rename it ssw_vclight4.fx Make the changes as in my last post before putting it back in the effects folder. Open the aircraft.cfg in both the F104 and Tornado and alter the ssw_vclight in the LIGHTS section to ssw_vclight4 Never noticed this before as I rarely fly at night.

/Russell



I am V4 only, ditched V3 the day I installed V4. I will try your mods on the fx when I get home, next wednsday. Many thanks all of you ?

Dag
 
Russel,
unfortunately could not replicate, we and Dag have the same effect file, the same card setting, works for me (and almost all others in VAAFSE just to mention a few) not for him.
I'm running out of ideas.
/Mario
 
Russel,
unfortunately could not replicate, we and Dag have the same effect file, the same card setting, works for me (and almost all others in VAAFSE just to mention a few) not for him.
I'm running out of ideas.
/Mario



So now it works for "almost all", LOL. I am going to try Russel's suggestion when I have the time :)
 
So now it works for "almost all", LOL. I am going to try Russel's suggestion when I have the time :)

Same effect file, same card setting, here our result
attachment.php

attachment.php

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about one hundred users in F-104S in P3d v4 without any report of such flaw, about 25 VAAFSE users for whom we have direct knowledge that flood lights work perfectly, it's really hard correct a bug that almost nobody report except one.
But for Dag it has no or little importance, If anything goes wrong with him it 's like for everyone..
Sometime it's very difficult support such users, but we will continue to try.
/SSW
 

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But for Dag it has no or little importance, If anything goes wrong with him it 's like for everyone..
Sometime it's very difficult support such users, but we will continue to try.
/SSW


Many thanks for that crap Mario :) I did not post the issue here to have your opinion on the matter. That I have had more than enough of on your help desk
Looking forward to testing Russell's settings :-D

Best regards Dag
 
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Dag,
look in the effects folder for ssw.vclight.fx Edit these numbers in the [particle0] section to look like this....

[Particle.0]
Lifetime=0.00, 0.00
Type=19
X Scale=1.50, 1.50
Y Scale=1.50, 1.50
That got the VC lights working in the F104S and Tornado for me. I notice the 3D land and taxi lights aren't displaying correctly on the ssw F104, but haven't worked out how to correct that yet. P3Dv4 appears to need particles in some effects re-sizing.

/Russell.

Tested and I am sorry to report that the lights still don't work for me.
I am running the sim in UHD (3840x2160) on a 40" monitor, could that make a difference?

Thanks anyway
Dag
 
After learning a bit more, I was expecting you to say that Dag. I assumed (wrongly) that you had the same .fx file as me. I later found that on installing the ssw Tornado, it had overwritten the ssw.vclight.fx and the ssw.Land_Light_Beam.fx with different ones which wouldn't work with the F104S. you already had the correct ssw.vclight.fx, so why it doesn't work has nothing to do (like mine) with the .fx file. That file really does work for everyone else, which, though no comfort to you, seems to point to something specific to your installation. When you can't reproduce it, it's almost impossible to pinpoint the cause. No idea Dag, I've no way of running at that resolution, sorry.

/Russell.
 
After learning a bit more, I was expecting you to say that Dag. I assumed (wrongly) that you had the same .fx file as me. I later found that on installing the ssw Tornado, it had overwritten the ssw.vclight.fx and the ssw.Land_Light_Beam.fx with different ones which wouldn't work with the F104S. you already had the correct ssw.vclight.fx, so why it doesn't work has nothing to do (like mine) with the .fx file. That file really does work for everyone else, which, though no comfort to you, seems to point to something specific to your installation. When you can't reproduce it, it's almost impossible to pinpoint the cause. No idea Dag, I've no way of running at that resolution, sorry.

/Russell.



I will try a reinstall of everything and see what I get. Thanks anyway ;-)

Dag
 
Hi,

Today I reinstalled all my current SSW products (core files) to see if I could get my VC lights working.

First I installed the F-84F, then proceeded to install the F-104S. Guess what, the VC lights and landing lights worked superbly in the F-104S.
I then installed the Tornado, no VC light in either the F-104S or the Tornado and the landing lights on the F-104S looked horrible.
I figured there must be something wrong with the fx in the Tornado installer I have so I reinstalled the F-104S once more. Guess what, the VC lights and landing lights all works as advertised in both the Tornado and F-104S.
I noticed there were differences in file size on the VC light fx from the two aircraft and also the Particle.0 values were different.

I am now a very happy camper and if you have the same problems as me, and owning both the 104S and Tonka, install the 104S last :jump:
Thanks to the SOH community for pointing me in the right direction :applause:

Best
Dag
 
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