Funny wing lights?

[Barbr]

Hi everyone!

I'm not sure what I installed recently (maybe one of those "lights" freeware downloads?), but my wing lights and beacon lights are these big ugly squares! As far as I can tell it's only on the Bombardier, and not the 747 or 777....



Any ideas what I might have done to this? How can I fix it?

Thanks!
-Barb

[ShaneG_old]

Replace your lights section in your aircraft.cfg with this one. This is the default section and all the lights work as normal.

[LIGHTS]
//Types: 1=beacon, 2=strobe, 3=navigation, 4=cockpit, 5=landing
light.0 = 3,  -39.00, -23.6,  -0.25, fx_navredm ,
light.1 = 3,  -39.00,  23.6,  -0.25, fx_navgrem ,
light.2 = 3,  -63.63,   0.00,  9.20, fx_navwhih ,
light.3 = 1,  -37.00,   0.00, -2.59, fx_beaconb ,
light.4 = 2,  -36.97,   0.00, -2.62, fx_strobeh ,
light.5 = 1,  -63.05,   0.00,  9.75, fx_beaconh ,
light.6 = 5,  -29.7,   -1.3,  -1.71, fx_landing ,
light.7 = 5,  -29.7,    1.3,  -1.71, fx_landing ,
light.8 = 4,  -26.00,   0.00,  2.00, fx_vclighth,
light.9 = 4,  -14.00,   0.00,  1.90, fx_vclighth,


Edit: The problem seems to be caused by the removal of the letter "h" at the end of the light effects name. I have discovered this problem on several of my planes now, and by simply adding the letter "h" to the end of the fx name it is fine again.

[Fr. Bill]

[color=#000000]The "h" at the end of the name is simply pointing to the "large" version of the same effect file.  Every .fx file has at least one "Emitter," in which the "Particle" section defines the X, Y and Z scales of the "light" (size).  The first "Emitter" specifies the largest "ball of light", with successively smaller "balls of light" in the following "Emitter" definitions.

You can open any .fx file with Notepad.exe and look at the specifications as it's nothing but a text file!

For example:
[code]
fx_navgre.fx

[ShaneG_old]

That's wierd, but helpful, I thought it was just installing a different light effect somehow, or maybe even using the same name as a default fx that had been overwritten.

Why is it though that adding the "h" to the end seems to fix the problem with the strobes?If an added file or somthing affects one version of the fx would it not affect them all if they share the same bitmap?  I don't really know much about how the fx work on the tech side, but this has worked for every plane in my hanger that had this problem. I got the entry by looking at the A321's light section and comparing it to others, and that one letter seemed to be the only difference, so I tried it and it worked.

[garymbuska]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news changing or replacing those lines in the aircraft will not do you any good if the file the lines reefer to has been changed. Now if the lines were just replaced then this will work but usually when you add a new aircraft if there are any changes made it will be in the effect file which is where the files that those lines point to. 8-)

[ShaneG_old]

Not sure I understand, :-/. When I started, all of my strobes on just about all except a couple of the default aircraft showed up as blinking white boxes, and after looking at the lights section of a plane that did not have this problem, and making the "corrupted" fx entry the same, it apparently fixed the problem as none of my lights appear as white boxes anymore.
 Are you just saying that this will probably only work for me and noone else?

[ShaneG_old]

This is what the strobes looked like without the "h" added to them:



And this what they look like now with the "h" added:

[Barbr]

Hi guys:

Thanks for all the detailed responses, but I'm not sure I understand the details of all that you are referring to

[Alejandro Rhodes]

don't like those changes either

Here is as it came by default

[Meck]

Just a quick side-question since it seems there are some .fx-pros here: is there a way to change the default fx_smoke_w to blue smoke? I have a red one but haven't found any blue smoke yet. And since I now know that it's as simple as opening teh .fx with notepad, I guess there's a way to modify some lines to get another color. I had a look at it (searching for some sort of RGB) but the file is huge and I don't exactly where to start...

[Fr. Bill]

Just a quick side-question since it seems there are some .fx-pros here: is there a way to change the default fx_smoke_w to blue smoke? I have a red one but haven't found any blue smoke yet. And since I now know that it's as simple as opening teh .fx with notepad, I guess there's a way to modify some lines to get another color. I had a look at it (searching for some sort of RGB) but the file is huge and I don't exactly where to start...

[glow=yellow,2,300]First of all, never modify a "stock" .fx file. That's where so many problems begin...[/glow]

[Fr. Bill]

That's wierd, but helpful, I thought it was just installing a different light effect somehow, or maybe even using the same name as a default fx that had been overwritten.

Why is it though that adding the "h" to the end seems to fix the problem with the strobes?

Shane, adding the "h" to the filename is causing FSX to load a different .fx file entirely.

All this means is that "someone" has altered your stock .fx file somewhere along the line.

[garymbuska]

The wing tip and other navigation lights on any aircraft come from the effects file and use a file that has a fx prefix to it. What usually happens when you add a aircraft that has a effect file when you go to copy it to the main fs effect file you will get a warning that there is a file with the same name already there if you over write the original file you could create a problem 8-)
It is usually advised that you do not ever over write the original files with out making a backup first. That is how problems like yours start. AND what ever you do [glow=yellow,2,300]NEVER NEVER unzip or download directly int FS Bad things can happen if you do[/glow]