landing lights

[Gnome]

How do I make landing lights in GMAX?  I want actual beams that show on the ground.

TIA

[Travis]

Go to the FFDS site (www.freeflightdesign.com) and look in the tutorials section.  There will be a tute on this very issue.

[Gnome]

That did the trick.  Excellent, thanks.
However, playing around in the dark has revealed another problem, my lovely metal textures turn transparent when I switch the lights on!  :-(

Help!

[Milton]

If you export with HasReflectMap =On, then for your xxx_t.bmp textures, you will need a corresponding xxx_L.bmp texture.

This texture can be an 8-bit, small black 64X64 color swatch.  

Example:  fuse_t.bmp = 1024X1024  and fuse_L = 64X64

[Gnome]

OK, I did that and it has prevented my metal textures from going transparent.  Now they glow in the dark, slightly, when I put the landing lights on.  Not really noticeable on the engine cowlings as these would be bathed in the lights anyway, but the nosecone (this is an airship BTW) glows too and this looks silly.  :-)  With just the navigation lights it's fine.  Is this something I'm going to have to live with?

Almost ready for upload, apart from this....

[Milton]

In FS2004, pure black (0,0,0) should be used (a bit lighter is okay but keep below 25 or so).

[Gnome]

Ah, that explains it.  I have FS2002.  Darn, I'll have to upload an alternative texture file as well as an alternative Aircraft.cfg file.  Grrr.  :-)

Thanks Milton.  What wouild we do without you?  :-)

[Gnome]

 Ah, turns out that it's black for FS2002 as well and my black wasn't black enough!  Now, if that doesn't mean you accidentally transposed FS2002 and FS9 and it really is black for both then I'm ready to upload as soon as a m8 has flight tested in FS9.

Thanks for your help.