General Question Light source objects

[misha.physics]

Hi,
what could be a (simple or not) way to make light sources (like spotlights placed on the ground or on poles) that will illuminate a runway (or just a surface area) at night? Maybe there are already some addons/tools for this? Sorry for my ignorance

 

[N_Molson]

Hello, you have to make texture mask files in Textures/Earth/Mask.

The alpha channel is for specularity ("water" effect), full transparency mean full specularity. D3D9 adds the "waves" automatically, you have nothing to do.

The .dds format should be DTX5. The RGB channel is for lighting. Full black = no lights. You can use colors.

There is an excellent tutorial here : http://orbiter.dansteph.com/forum/index.php?topic=14669.50

The author is @jacquesmomo (ça cafte ! ). It is in french, and not easy french (lot of humor, which is pleasant to read but might be a problem for Google Translate). The pictures alone can help though.

 

[misha.physics]

@N_Molson, thank you. I've already carefully studied @jacquesmomo's tutorial. Although a runway defined as an object is black at night, and the mask tiles don't illuminate it. Or maybe I've broken something (I really don't remember if this happened before):



It would be nice to illuminate a runway by the static light as the DG's landing light does:

 

[LadyCroussette]

@N_Molson, thank you. I've already carefully studied @jacquesmomo's tutorial. Although a runway defined as an object is black at night, and the mask tiles don't illuminate it. Or maybe I've broken something (I really don't remember if this happened before):

View attachment 34696

It would be nice to illuminate a runway by the static light as the DG's landing light does:

View attachment 34697

Mask tiles don't illuminate anything. They are just different textures for the ground that load up at night. Unfortunately, actual lights can't be added to bases by themselves. You need a vessel to do so. I know @jacquesmomo made some light poles that have actual lights with VesselBuilder. Unfortunately, while cool, it would only be available in specific scenarios - or if you spawn the light yourself. Otherwise, in any other case, there would be no light.

 

[misha.physics]

Also I have an adea to make a runway texture like a Land Pad. It glows at night (or rather only numbers on it). But I don't know how to do it yet, and how it would look.

 

[N_Molson]

As @LordCroussette wrote, you can add "props" vessels to your base as spotlights. There are a couple of addons that do that for illuminating launchpads. The "vessel" is only a directional light and should be defined as "forced landed". There are a lot of parameters you can tweak to adjust the light intensity, focus, color... to your needs. You can also code a switch for those lights.

 

[LadyCroussette]

And anyway, I don't really see the point of putting spotlights on a runway. It isn't like it would be realist, since runways IRL don't exactly have them. After all, where would you put the light poles? They need to be close enough to light up the runway, but the required distance could cause some airplanes to clip their wings on them. Further away, the light wouldn't be powerful enough to illuminate the runway. And a runway is long. Having lights on its entire length would cost a whole lot of money to install and maintain. And what about multiple runways?

It would make sense for only the tarmac around terminals and hangars (and I do mean tarmac, not taxiways) and for roads to be illuminated. That's how it is in real life. And that, thankfully, can be handled with the mask tiles. Here for example, Jean-Lesage International Airport from my WIP Quebec City add-on. It can look very nice!


EDIT: Alternatively, what you can do is make the runway transparent and then light up the runway on the mask tiles. That's what is done in vanilla Cape Canaveral.

If I remember correctly, to turn a runway transparent, you need to change this value to zero. So: NRWSEG 0
I might be wrong though, so I suggest making a back-up or just remembering the original value and put it back if it causes problems.

 

[misha.physics]

@N_Molson, hope someday I'll start learning how to make a vessel...
@LordCroussette, yes, you're right. Your airport with masks looks nice.

Alternatively, what you can do is make the runway transparent and then light up the runway on the mask tiles. That's what is done in vanilla Cape Canaveral.

Is the runway (in Cape Canaveral) on your screenshot just a part of a surface tile? If we can do this for an object-like runway (I mean Runway2.dds) then it could be a pretty good way.

NRWSEG

It's a number of runway segments. Setting it to zero leads to Orbiter crash (in my case).

 

[misha.physics]

Is the runway (in Cape Canaveral) on your screenshot just a part of a surface tile?

I've just tried a fresh Orbiter 2016 install and this is so. Sadly it doesn't work with Runway2.dds yet.

 

[LadyCroussette]

@N_Molson, hope someday I'll start learning how to make a vessel...
@LordCroussette, yes, you're right. Your airport with masks looks nice.

Is the runway (in Cape Canaveral) on your screenshot just a part of a surface tile? If we can do this for an object-like runway (I mean Runway2.dds) then it could be a pretty good way.

It's a number of runway segments. Setting it to zero leads to Orbiter crash (in my case).

Cape Canaveral by default has its runway transparent. And its NRWSEG value is at 0.
And it is strange it crashes your game. It does work on my end. Unfortunately, I couldn't begin to guess why it doesn't work for you. Strange.

 

[gattispilot]

Also for adding lights. I believe the limit is 8 total

 

[misha.physics]

Cape Canaveral by default has its runway transparent. And its NRWSEG value is at 0.
And it is strange it crashes your game. It does work on my end. Unfortunately, I couldn't begin to guess why it doesn't work for you. Strange.

It seems the runway on your screenshot is just a surface tile:



And so it could be mask by mask tiles. Setting NRWSEG to 0 just disables a highly detailed object-runway (Runway2.dds):



But the Runway2.dds is black (when NRWSEG isn't set to 0):

Also for adding lights. I believe the limit is 8 total

What kind of lights do you mean?

 

[misha.physics]

Well, I've done this. As far as Landing Pads have the day and night textures I've just made it for the Runway2.dds. Just copied it, renamed to be Runway2_n.dds and reduced the brightness in Photoshop. Now it's:



Maybe I should reduce the brightness even more.

 

[DaveS]

Just so you know: The night lights for the Cape Canaveral area are very wrong in that areas that should be dark such as the SLF and the Crawlerway are lit. Same goes for the various Launch Complexes. The only time the SLF has any lights shining down it was during shuttle landings and the direction depended on which end was going to be used (IE, if the landing was going down 33, then the lights would shine it same direction so as to avoid blinding the crew). And the lighting was turned off shortly after wheel stop. And lights only illuminated the first few thousand feet of the runway.

Two screengrabs fromn the landing coverage of STS-135 showing the SLF runway illumination, the first one is from the Pilot Point Of View (PPOV AKA "HUD camera") camera onboard during final approach, the second one is of the SLF as seen from the North-West roof camera of the VAB.

 

[misha.physics]

Thank you, I really didn't know that runways are black at night:



I reduced the brightness more, it looks better now:

 

[N_Molson]

That last pic looks good to me ! In real life ambient light at night depends of many things, clouds can diffuse city lights, and a clear full Moon can even cast shadows, I've seen that a couple of times.

 

[Max-Q]

I have never seen a runway where anything other than the lights are visible until I get low enough for the landing light to light things up.
Certainly, you would never be able to see pavement or paint markings.

 

[misha.physics]

Also for adding lights. I believe the limit is 8 total

Looks like you mean the "Local lights" limit in D3D9 Client where the maximum is "8x Full".

 

[gattispilot]

Looks like you mean the "Local lights" limit in D3D9 Client where the maximum is "8x Full".

Yes.