Simviation Forums

I've been simming for a while now, and recently started getting brave enough to mess around with effects and smoke and lights etc.
My question is this, if there are lights on a plane, but those light types and positions aren't in the aircraft.cfg file, how do you get rid of them or can you? I've downloaded tons of freeware planes that have this problem. The lights look like big fuzzy orbs that don't scale down at all with distance, and completely ruin the experience. Please help!


(I'm sorry if this was covered before, but I didn't find any useful info in a search of the forums)

Hi & welcome to Simviation. I suspect the aircraft you're talking about have the lights defined in the MDL file. If this is the case I don't think you can do anything about it.

Thanks for the warm welcome! Well...shoot, I was afraid of that.

That's indeed possible but I have no idea which part of the file to edit. The only way I know would be to have the original source files.
Which aircraft are you having this problem with? It's quite possible there are updated versions of at least some of them.

One of them is the freeware A-6E Intuder by Rick Sasala. But I just realized where the issue may be. This plane is a G-Max model made originally for FS 2002, and CONVERTED to FS9. I'll bet that has something to do with it. I'll have to dig deeper and see if the other models are "converts" too.

There's an A-6E by Mr Ito here. ---> http://www.simviation.com/fs2004military78.htm
I haven't tried it.

That one has 'em too, though not quite as "big and fuzzy". I am seeing a pattern though. It would seem that certain (not all) FS 9 models converted from FS 2002 originals, are showing up with these lights on them. I'm thinking you might right in that the .mdl files are to blame. I guess I'll just have to deal with it.

Another suggestion, is replacement addon light effect packages. I have tried out Sandon Lyon's Halo lighting set, and although mainly for airport lighting, there may be other packs intended specifically for aircraft.  Although the changes are subtle, it might make enough of a difference for you to be able to live with it.

Already tried that too. I'm using some halogen lighting effects as well as Nick's lightfix V2 (both look great by the way!) that I found here at Simv. They have no effect on the problem. It's not a major issue, just one that I'd like to learn how to fix. I've come to learn, that many designers use this technique to keep nav lights attached to the wings, so that when they fold or swing, the lights aren't just hanging out in the middle of nowhere.