This is my Stits Playboy (yes, that old FS2000 model reprocessed for FS-X)_ sporting an attached landing light on the right spat (and it moves with the landing gear compression!)
Here's the Air Creation ultra-light on my squished 6-sided die. It now sports a concrete hard surface onto which I rolled the AC.
All made with FSDS 3.5.1 and tagging things correctly.
As to the how:
It is my solemn duty
to obfuscate and
confuse.
Posts: 3442
Re: Landing lights
Reply #4 - Yesterday at 7:59pm Quote Modify Split Remove With the help and guidance of both Louis and Fr. Bill,....
create a small (or large, it shouldn't matter since the "attach point" generates no geometry) point for the effect to attach to.
In this case, I placed a small triangle just ahead of the part, and tagged "attachpt_landing_1" (note that per the FS-X SDK this NEEDS a unique name so that if you want a second landing light, you can name it "attachpt_landing_2" and add another blurb)
Then the following attachpoint xml blurb is added to a PartDataDefs.txt file in your main FSDS 3.5 folder:
attachpt_landing_1
THERE MUST BE AT LEAST ONE ANIMATION IN YOUR MODEL. My first attempt, on a basic cylnder and attached light were not working. Note that the visibility condition is "general light" which is a part in the modeldef.xml file, therefore, if there is no animation, an *.xanim file is not there for xtomdl.exe to parse through the modeldef.xml file and you get a "fixed" light that doesn't respond to the "L" and "CTRL-L" keyboard commands.
To get the light "spread" I went whole hog and assigned the attachpt_landing_1 part a material that had all channels (sorry for the gmaxspeak) 255 and a specular of 40. With just the default material, you get a tiny point light.
I "aimed" the light with the Y axis. I rotated the part in x so as to point the Y axis opposite - to the rear of the plane -
IF you want a second landing light, it appears that you have to create a new attachpoint tag (attachpt_landing_2) and add a modified blurb to the PartDataDefs.txt file.
You would also have to add to the modeldef.xml file the appropriate visibility condition if it isn't already there, such as a taxi light
(The following is courtesy of Fr. Bill:
Add to the PartDataDefs.txt file:
attachpt_taxi_1
To the modeldef.xml file:
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OF course I repeat my thanks to Louis and Fr. Bill, you don't think I can make all of this up myself, eh?
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the PartDataDefs.txt file is a straight text file placed in the main FSDS35 folder and will hold the attach point XML blurbs that FSDS will parse into the x file, and then process with xtomdl.
You should be able to add a scenery type xml blurb (Create the platform polygon, add the blurb to tell it its concrete or whatever) and have a hard surface. etc. I haven't tried the scenery aspect of it yet.
All thanks to Fr. Bill and Louis Sinclair who clarified the how to....
