Light Effects Question...

[rdaniell]

....I'm trying to get a more realistic night light effect for some of my buildings. Problem is that I can not find a suitable light effect. Roger Wilco has helped me develop a hanger light that works great on hangers with an open door but, nothing I've tried so far gives the appearance of light through the windows.
Well, that's not completely correct as I know how to put night light effects on the windows. I also can get a fairly realistic look by placing a second interior wall and using sheetrock texture with a sheetrock texture_LM for night. Problem with that is all the work that is necessary to get that interior wall in the right place.

Here's my question, finally....Do any of you'll have an effect that can simply be attached to the inside ceiling that will light up the interior? I thought I could use a cockpit vc light effect but, after many, many, failures, I've abandoned that idea.

Any help, suggestions, etc. will be greatly appreciated.

RD

[roger-wilco-66]

Randy, as far as my knowledge goes there is no "real" light in FSX, at least not from artificial light sources of custom scenery objects. If you want to lighten up the inside of a room, visible through a window, you need to build _LM textures for the interior. These will be visible as bright textures through the alpha-channeled window.
I don't know much about Sketchup, which I suppose you are using, but in GMAX / 3DSMax that's fairly easy. I'd make a 2D plane element facing the window and texture it with a daytime and a _LM texture on that side and insert that into the building. This would look like part of an illuminated room at night. Depending on the building and/or size of the window I'd make that plane element multi-segmented so I can angle the outer segments towards the window wall in order to avoid visible transparency issues of the inner walls when facing the window through extreme angles. I know that textures can be made double sided but I try to avoid using that method by principle, expecially in such a scenario.

HTH,
Mark

[rdaniell]

Randy, as far as my knowledge goes there is no "real" light in FSX, at least not from artificial light sources of custom scenery objects. If you want to lighten up the inside of a room, visible through a window, you need to build _LM textures for the interior. These will be visible as bright textures through the alpha-channeled window. I don't know much about Sketchup, which I suppose you are using, but in GMAX / 3DSMax that's fairly easy. I'd make a 2D plane element facing the window and texture it with a daytime and a _LM texture on that side and insert that into the building. This would look like part of an illuminated room at night. Depending on the building and/or size of the window I'd make that plane element multi-segmented so I can angle the outer segments towards the window wall in order to avoid visible transparency issues of the inner walls when facing the window through extreme angles. I know that textures can be made double sided but I try to avoid using that method by principle, expecially in such a scenario. HTH, Mark

I was just "hoping" that there was a way around that option. I've tried simply texturing both sides of the wall....brick, e.g., on the outside and sheetrock on the inside with a sheetrock_LM for night time. Works really great at night. But as you pointed out above, in the daytime when looking through the window from the outside, the far wall simply dissapears as you can see right through it. I've had some success with texturing the ceiling with sheetrock and using sheetrock_LM night texture. If you use light colored walls, there is some illumination on them at night from the ceiling LM texture.

And as you know from the screen shots I sent you, the "hanger light" that you did for me works really good giving the illusion of light on the floor when viewed through an open door. I plan to experiment with building the inside walls first and then building the rest of the structure around them. That way I won't have to be working with cut-away views which are kinda difficult to manage.

Of course I could just be happy with what I have and get back to enjoying flying....Now that's a good idea...LOL.

RD

[Dimus]

But as you pointed out above, in the daytime when looking through the window from the outside, the far wall simply dissapears as you can see right through it.
RD

Randy, I had that sometimes but if I make sure that I texture all of the internal surfaces of the building and also apply the glass texture on both sides of the glass the far wall does not disappear. Check how the Tifton terminal is done.