HTAI C-130's-messed up taxi light polygons

[MIKE JG]

Has anyone ever noticed that the polygons for the taxi lights for Henry's C-130s are way off from where they should be?


During Taxi:



During Takeoff:

[btaylo24]

Never noticed that (and my lord I have watched enough Herks taxi over the last few years)


Mike, I love your Sig with the NBAI F4 nice shot

Barry

[VulcanDriver]

I've not seen that either. Mind you I seldom do night flying.

John

[MIKE JG]

I wish we could get a hold of him somehow.

[Graham King]

I have just painted C-130B & C-130H for the Greek Air Force. They do not have wing tanks fitted which cannot be modelled on the C-130E.

I am now getting to the stage where I try and check the lights on each air force. Wing Nav lights are in a slightly different place than Henry's original and the C-130H upper beacon is on top of the fuselage rather than the top of the tail for the Greek Air Force.

The USAF seem to use a white beacon rather than an orange one.

All this necessitates me sending [Lights] for the aircraft.cfg with each set of paints. This is fine for those who install automatically but for those who do it manually and add the paints to existing models, they will lose the correct lights. Is it something we should warn people about?

[MIKE JG]

Yea probably something we should be pointing out in the Readme's. Not that anyone reads them though....

[Firebird]

Speaking as somebody who doesn't install the packages as they are produced, I think that we have to make a choice here.

Either we continue to deliver the C-130s in the way that HT set them up, or we go as accurate as we can for each package. I am happy with either decision.

We must go along the lines of the majority, i.e. those that install the package as it comes. The people that know enough to mess around with cfg files, just need the info to make a choice for themselves. So I would suggest just an info in the Docs containing the accurate settings for an advanced install option.

This should keep the majority happy for the minimum amount of work. This of course pre-supposes that accuracy is chosen, over default.

The only downside of the accuracy option, that I can see, is that we might get people asking for updates of older packages.

[VulcanDriver]

Or we produce our own C-130s with the MAIW bells and whistles...

[BadPvtDan]

I say leave them.

[MIKE JG]

Or we produce our own C-130s with the MAIW bells and whistles...

Well you did just get FSDS..........

Maybe we could make a concerted effort to contact Henry T. and try to obtain his source files. The models are great as is, but they could use a bit of updating for sure.

MAIW has a bit more clout these days than we used to. Might be possible to find him through some back channels.

[Firebird]

Maybe we could make a concerted effort to contact Henry T. and try to obtain his source files. The models are great as is, but they could use a bit of updating for sure.

Agreed, it would be great to update the F-16s to include the various lumpy versions that are about.

[Weescotty]

Maybe we could make a concerted effort to contact Henry T. and try to obtain his source files. The models are great as is, but they could use a bit of updating for sure.

Agreed, it would be great to update the F-16s to include the various lumpy versions that are about.

Yeah, suggested this a while ago, but no-one could find him .

Wanted to add the MAIW trademark blanks, warning flags etc.

[reconmercs]

Maybe we could make a concerted effort to contact Henry T. and try to obtain his source files. The models are great as is, but they could use a bit of updating for sure.

Agreed, it would be great to update the F-16s to include the various lumpy versions that are about.

Yeah, suggested this a while ago, but no-one could find him .

Wanted to add the MAIW trademark blanks, warning flags etc.

its possible Henry has left the FS business, he hasn't updated his own site in months

[Graham King]

If we go for accuracy, my vote, then I think I can write some visual basic code to update the aircraft.cfg once the lights are sorted out. The problem will be the WOAI packages. All the aircraft were installed to the same folder i.e. several air forces in the same folder. We would have to create several new folders, one for each air force, and move the textures there before amending the lights. Again I think I can do that with visual basic.

Or we could go for accuracy from this point forward.

[MIKE JG]

I vote accuracy from this point forward. What I'm finding out from adding these Shockwave light effects to our models is that we haven't been paying very much attention to detail when it comes to the light settings. I've found several of our models where the tail nav is either non existent on the model, or it's burried inside the fuselage of the model. I've also found light effects that are just floating in 3d space and are not really attached to the model. Also I've seen contact points that needed tweaking etc.

From now on, I am willing to take personal responsibility for any new package's models to assure the accuracy of the light/smoke effects and the contact points.

Admittedly we don't do too much AI watching at night, so it's easy to understand how this has been overlooked.

[Firebird]

I understand what you are saying, Mike. I still remember the saga over the P-3 lighting and I never noticed it during the Portuguese pack testing.

If you get overrun or need a second opinion, i will lend a hand.

[Graham King]

I would like to start getting some of this correct and I cannot always get it off photographs, not many taken at night

Is it OK if I take this to the public forums starting with the USAF C-130's. I would word it in such a way that this is a personal request until we see what the effect on package structure might be. I do not want people to expect this to happen on packages in case we cannot deliver.

I also learned something from Mike's tutorial in the public forum. If we have a taxi light to use can this be utilised as the nav lights for aircraft with folding wings. Then as the aircraft enters the runway and unfolds the wings transfer the nav lights to type 3, strobes. The nav lights would only be in the wrong place for the time the wings unfold and the lights, I feel, are always better from the effects folder than built into the model.

[reconmercs]

and the public it goes

[Graham King]

Well, if you have read the whole topic you can see we have been discussing the accuracy of the light setup and what we would like to do about it.

I would like to kick off with a request for accurate information for all marks of the C-130 operated by the USAF. We would like to know what the lights are nav, beacon, strobe, landing, taxi, ice inspection, etc. and what colour they are.

If you have information you can post it here or PM me.

[Bell 209]

There are:

Ice inspection lights either side of the fuselage on all C-130s, just forward of the wing leading edges (white);

Taxi lights in MLG wheel wells (white, all models, although possibly not in the wheel wells on LC-130s?);

Wingtip taxi lights (white, Some C-130E, most C-130H, all C-130J);

Anti-collision beacons (red rotating, on fin tip and lower forward fuse behind nose gear rear door. Some C-130s have strobe lights which are fitted in the same location underneath but the upper one can be fitted on the spine, just behind the rear spar. The strobes are usually selectable red or white. Variations on this also exist);

Nav lights (Late models have two rear white lights on the "beaver" tail next to each other, early models just the one. Green and red on the wingtips);

Some aircraft are fitted with electro-luminescent lighting strips on teh fuselage sides (green); and

There are variations for tankers, as well as a myriad of specially-configured models!

I think the lights are hard-coded to the model, though. When I make lights, I add a polygon which faces where I want th light to shine. The photo of the wingtip lights makes me think Henry shrank the model in GMax or FSDS after trialling the air file but missed the light polys (I've done this myself!).

Hope this helps someone...