beacon and strobe lights casting shadows

[delta_lima]

Odd topic - I'll explain ...

Recently, I've noticed that beacon and strobe lights, specifically those baked in/modeled to the model (as opposed to a simple .fx) cast shadows. Hard to capture in a screenshot, but if the light is say, a rectangular tip light on a wingtip (eg: Razbam A-7) that flashes, it'll cast a quick rectangular shadow upon the wing, in time with the timing of the flash. This is also the case with the Razbam Harriers, Ant's T-28, and Virtavia's A-4, though I've seen it on most of the higher-end, newer FSX native models. It's a visual anomaly that I could simply ignore when looking at the spot view, but often this shadow gets cast into the VC whilst flying, and that's really annoying.

Ironically, it doesn't happen when lights are done the old fashioned "stuck on" in a .cfg / fx style"....

So any ideas from the gurus?

Am using the latest NVIDIA drivers, and the latest updated DX10 Scenery Fixer (payware) from Steve ....

thanks,

[Stevefx]

These are all legacy aircraft I believe. I have seen the same issue but I am not sure it can be fixed, I was looking at it recently to see if I could find a workaround, but so far everything I have tried causes other worse issues.

[delta_lima]

These are all legacy aircraft I believe. I have seen the same issue but I am not sure it can be fixed, I was looking at it recently to see if I could find a workaround, but so far everything I have tried causes other worse issues.

Hi Steve - and thanks for the reply. A big thanks for making your first post on our forum the answering of this question. And if you're "Steve the creator of the Fixer, Steve" - than an even bigger thanks for a super little tool that has enabled the enjoyment of so many otherwise "dead" FS9 aircraft so fully and near-flawlessly.

Thanks also for trying to address the issue. If worse tradeoffs are the only way to fix this, than I accept that, and simply live with it. That said, all the aircraft mentioned are native FSX, and in some cases (Ant's T-28) very recent (1 year or so?) so am a bit confused in them being labeled "legacy". I'm more inclined to think I've done something in my setup, and will probe further. Am curious if other DX10ers have this issue or not ...

Anyway - thanks Steve - much appreciate your insight.

dl

[heywooood]

These are all legacy aircraft I believe. I have seen the same issue but I am not sure it can be fixed, I was looking at it recently to see if I could find a workaround, but so far everything I have tried causes other worse issues.

I have noticed this anomaly as well, and I have to say I'm not surprised that you are already looking for a solution.
the DX10 Fixer is FSXI as far as I'm concerned, if we consider FSX to be a finished product...so anything you can do will be appreciated and even if it is unsolvable, thats ok too
because we are miles ahead of where we were with FSX as it was before you fixed so much of it.

[Adamski_NZ]

That said, all the aircraft mentioned are native FSX, and in some cases (Ant's T-28) very recent (1 year or so?) so am a bit confused in them being labeled "legacy". I'm more inclined to think I've done something in my setup, and will probe further. Am curious if other DX10ers have this issue or not ...

By total coincidence, I fired up my Ant's Trojan yesterday to take some screenshots (it's such a stunning aircraft). I didn't get the wingtip lights problem, but I did get an ugly looking square at the top of the instrument panel (when viewed from outside). However - I fired it up today (same plane, but different variant) and had no issues whatsoever.

So ... work your way through all the T-28 variants and see what happens with each. It could be that there's a 3D model glitch in one or two of them. If we can find out which ones they are, maybe we can get Ant to fix them. He's usually pretty friendly/co-operative.

I really don't think it's a Fixer issue.

Adam.

UPDATE: I workled my way through all the T-28 models - here's what I found:

1. All work OK in 1024 resolution.
2. In 4096 resolution, all the *attack* models appear to have a missing texture (or a property incorrectly set) - for the gunsight reflector - which produces a black square in external view.
3. All wingtip lights seem to work OK throughout.