Question Re lighting and exportation

I finally got to testing this. I had to reformat my hard drive in order to revert to version 6.5.0.2.

Everything worked fine for me when I followed the tutorial instructions.

Richard

Hi all,

Just a quick one, which is more a question of what I may suddenly be doing wrong. With my latest model , A small diesel shunter, the lights export OK and show in the engine file, however they will not work in the sim. I press the light switch and nothing. I did make sure that they were in the hierarchy in the correct location.

Anybody else have this problem before ?
I know I could do all this manually, but I like the easy way. <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>

Lights aren’t objects in MSTS. You define where they are in the ENG or WAG file. I usually create a small cube and move it to where I want each light to be. Then I write down the coordinates and those are the positions that I use in my text file.

What color are the lights? Try white lights to see if that makes a difference.

Richard

pwillard, you think old-school like I do <!– s:D –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!– s:D –>. I think later versions of the MSTS exporter create the .eng and .wag files for you, including positioning lights. I could be wrong though, since I don’t really use it, but I’m pretty sure it does that now.

Yes troub that is correct: [img:1sh7zmj2]http&#58;//www&#46;amabilisplus&#46;com/3DCDocumentation/tutorialmstslighting&#46;htm[/img:1sh7zmj2]
Lighting Tutorial

Richard

[BLOCKQUOTE class=’ip-ubbcode-quote’][font size=’-1′]quote:[/font][HR]Originally posted by Amabilis Support:
What color are the lights? Try white lights to see if that makes a difference.

Richard[HR][/BLOCKQUOTE]

Yes, they are white. I’ll experiment with another colour and see if I get that to make any difference. If it works OK I’ll just change the colour within the engine file.

[BLOCKQUOTE class=’ip-ubbcode-quote’][font size=’-1′]quote:[/font][HR]Originally posted by pwillard:
Lights aren’t objects in MSTS. You define where they are in the ENG or WAG file. I usually create a small cube and move it to where I want each light to be. Then I write down the coordinates and those are the positions that I use in my text file.[HR][/BLOCKQUOTE]

Hi Pete,

If I can’t get the wizard to export the lights, I’ll give your method a go. Seems much better than just winging it with constant postion changes in the eng file and reloading the model into the sim.

Well, I tend to adopt methods that ‘work’ more than once… I understood the lighting tutorial…but I realized that there were some limitations. By that I mean… it seemed just as much or more work than hand editing lights…

Taking that into account, I decided it was just easier to adopt the method I mentioned. It has put me within centimeters of where I really want to be… everytime. When you need to place walkway lights, ditchlights, headlights, beacons… etc… it’s pretty easy to work from a coordinate list.

I didn’t mean to sound like I ‘disapprove’ of the tutorial…

Pete

[BLOCKQUOTE class=’ip-ubbcode-quote’][font size=’-1′]quote:[/font][HR]Originally posted by pwillard:
Well, I tend to adopt methods that ‘work’ more than once… I understood the lighting tutorial…but I realized that there were some limitations. By that I mean… it seemed just as much or more work than hand editing lights…

Taking that into account, I decided it was just easier to adopt the method I mentioned. It has put me within centimeters of where I really want to be… everytime. When you need to place walkway lights, ditchlights, headlights, beacons… etc… it’s pretty easy to work from a coordinate list.

I didn’t mean to sound like I ‘disapprove’ of the tutorial…

Pete[HR][/BLOCKQUOTE]

Didn’t sound like that to me at all. I’m here to learn as much as possible and welcome input from all sources about what does or doesn’t work for them. I’ve just used your method of co-odinate positions for the engine’s walkway running lights. <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>

Vulcan,

If you are still having problems send me the model (<!– e –><a href="mailto:support@amabilis.com">support@amabilis.com</a><!– e –>) and I can have a look.

Pete,

I prefer to do as much as I can in 3DC. I could have everyone manually set the positions and directions of objects in the S file manually, but it makes more sense to me that 3DC do it automatically. The same goes for lights. Why manually set positions/orientations that 3DC can do for you automatically? Sure there are limitations, but what is produced from 3DC is an excellent starting point. And they do work ‘more than once’.

Richard

[This message was edited by Amabilis Support on Thu November 27 2003 at 10:03 AM.]