The A2A Simulations Community

I would like to ask a few questions regarding this product.
First of all this works very well in fs9.1 I was amazed at the difference it made to the lighting on the aircraft!!
Ok the rest may sound negative, its not meant to be I just found the manual uninformative..


1:I will start off by asking what does this product do to the other lighting in FS9.1 ( non-aircraft) I noted the "halo.bmp" has been changed but I could not find any other files it added or replaced?? Bar the Fx files AND 2 FX texture files.

2: Why do you have to add lines to the panel.cfg what does this do, the manual is poor and explains little.
I have many add-on aircraft that do not have a VC so there is no VC line in the panel.cfg how does this affect the product?

3: Your product auto installs to the standard FS9.1 aircraft but not the add-ons, not many people fly the originals as they are not up to the quality of freeware and payware aircraft in many instances, so this seems to
be a bit of a waste of time?

4: As a payware product I am dismayed that you expect the end user to add all the lines to every add-on plane fiddling about checking if they need adjusting etc. I would expect that an auto-installer would check what aircraft you have and at least install to a list of aircraft that are most popular. Unless you are used to editing CFG files you will struggle and be left with default aircraft working only? It does not seem an "out of the box" product..

5. Would it have not been possible to replace the standard lights FX's with Shockwave ones , i.e. backing up the original ones then replacing them with yours? that way that would negate time spent editing and fiddling around with cfg's?

This may all sound negative but I am struggling to see the upside to all this as the sales blub does not mention
you are going to have to mess about installing everything yourself to get it to work, its a bit like buying a new
car from the showroom and finding you have to build the roads for it to drive on!
Just a few thoughts.. Ok flame me now

QUOTE:
First of all this works very well in fs9.1 I was amazed at the difference it made to the lighting on the aircraft!!

Ok the rest may sound negative, its not meant to be I just found the manual uninformative..
Don't worry about being negative. Our whole group is free to criticise products in beta, and believe me, there is plenty of that to go around. Our painting artist, Martin, is quoted as saying, "I must tell you, I love criticism." He is the finest painter out there as a result of constantly listening and growing. We all take this attitude. If you can't handle criticism, you wouldn't last a day at Shockwave.


1:I will start off by asking what does this product do to the other lighting in FS9.1 ( non-aircraft) I noted the "halo.bmp" has been changed but I could not find any other files it added or replaced?? Bar the Fx files AND 2 FX texture files.
It is mainly about changing the lighting on all the aircraft. Beyond this it changes the texture (halo) that is used for many environment lights, such as those found on the airfields.


2: Why do you have to add lines to the panel.cfg what does this do, the manual is poor and explains little.
I have many add-on aircraft that do not have a VC so there is no VC line in the panel.cfg how does this affect the product?
This triggers and controls the light, whether it shows, or turns off when the gear is retracted.

3: Your product auto installs to the standard FS9.1 aircraft but not the add-ons, not many people fly the originals as they are not up to the quality of freeware and payware aircraft in many instances, so this seems to be a bit of a waste of time?
The Microsoft aircraft are all over the FS world. One of my personal favorite needs this package fills is a new night sky, where you can just watch aircraft fly and they look real. As for addons, if there was a way we could do it, we would, but every addon company uses a different format. However, many have posted their light configs for their aircraft here, so you have a good chance of finding your aircraft here by doing a forum search.

4: As a payware product I am dismayed that you expect the end user to add all the lines to every add-on plane fiddling about checking if they need adjusting etc. I would expect that an auto-installer would check what aircraft you have and at least install to a list of aircraft that are most popular. Unless you are used to editing CFG files you will struggle and be left with default aircraft working only? It does not seem an "out of the box" product..
Download 5 3rd party aircraft and see if you can find some logic to the naming conventions developers use. The LAST thing we want is to pork someone else's work (I would not want another developer mucking with my aircraft.cfg with some automated routine) or have something go in that is not checked by a human. We would certainly like to make a community installer as we are always about making the customer's life easier, but every automated programmed action brings risk. We must also always proceed with caution and make sure we don't make any changes to another devs aircraft they may or may not like, so it's not just a simple solution.

5. Would it have not been possible to replace the standard lights FX's with Shockwave ones , i.e. backing up the original ones then replacing them with yours? that way that would negate time spent editing and fiddling around with cfg's?
We talked about this too and decided to take the conservative route and not muck things up. We've been making installers, software for years and we've learned the hard way how to make good, safe, reliable packages that must withstand the test of time. This is a difficult to impossible task to do, but our 3d lights installer has been quite successful. We don't have a single mucked installation and the backup / restore is transparent. Right now the package goes in and is qute modular


The above points were discussed and decided on during development, and I know it sounds a bit like a sales line, but the most important thing to all of us are happy customers. That is always first and foremost the clear goal, and this includes everything from the experience with the installer to the package to the support. We felt strongly about this during development and it's great to see the same enthusiasm from the community. So now we continue to listen and thing of new, inventive ways to improve flight simulator

Scott.

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A2A Simulations Inc.

I gotta say that editing the aircraft.cfg isn't a big deal. It's easy to grasp, and once you get the hang of it, you can retrofit any aircraft with new lights in mere minutes. Considering how many add-on aircraft are out here, I see no easy way automating the procedure.

And suppose shockwave would have added CFGs for some Add-On aircraft: I guarantee you, that there would be a flood of posts on the forum why this or that aircraft wasn't included in the CFG-collection. That's why I think that everything is just fine the way it is. And the most important aircraft were already covered in the first few days and posted in the config-thread, anyway. It doesn't get much easier than that.

Thanks Scott for taking the time to reply to my question, I understand alot more now having read the reply.
Ok armed with notepad how easy or are there tutorials to add lights to aircraft I wanted to look at the HJG set up of classic jets where do I start, I notice in a lot of them there are no light references at all?
thanks again for your help

I wrote a lengthy 'how to' in this thread....

http://shockwaveproductions.com/forum/v ... ght=#93237

...Does that help?

If the original .cfg file does not have entries for strobes, beacons, nav lights etc. you can add them just like adding the landing lights but you will have to move each new Shockwave light into position manually by trial and error.

_________________
Larry
E8400 Core2Duo 3 Ghz, 4 Gb DDR2 PC6400 RAM, GTX460 (1 Gb), Realtek HD O/B audio, XP Pro (SP3)
Saitek X52 HOTAS, Saitek Yoke/Throttle, Saitek Rudder Pedals, TIR 5 Pro, LG 22" WS LCD, B-K Gamer

Thanks for the tips I will have aread, so if a plane has no light set up in the cfg I have to guesstimate and trial and error restarting the sim until its right I assume?

Unfortunately yes.

There is no magic wand we can wave to make the lights fit every plane automatically, if we could we would.

Regarding the 'restarting the sim' comment you don't have to restart the sim at all after starting it for the first time.

Start the sim and if you go to the controls section of either FS9 or FSX there is an unassigned command that will allow you to reload just the aircraft which takes just a few seconds compared to the time it takes to restart the sim, pick the plane, field, time, etc. etc. The steps to assign a command to this function for each version are below:

FS9

1. Click on <Settings>.
2. In the 'Controls' box click on <Assignments>.
3. Scroll down the assignment list until you find the line that reads 'Reload User Aircraft'.
4. Click on the <Change Assignment> button and assign a key combination (I use <CTRL+SHIFT+R> as nothing else uses that and I can relate the 'R' to 'Reload').
5. Click on <OK> to save the changes.
6. Click on <OK> again to close the settings window.

FSX

1. Click on <Settings>.
2. In the 'Other Settings' box click on <Controls>.
3. Click on the <Buttons/Keys> tab.
4. Scroll down the assignment list until you find the line that reads 'Aircraft (reload)'.
5. Click on the <Change Assignment> button and assign a key combination (I use <CTRL+SHIFT+R> as nothing else uses that and I can relate the 'R' to 'Reload').
6. Click on <OK> to save the changes.
7. Click on <OK> again to close the settings window.

Now set up a flight with the aircraft you want to put lights on (don't forget to set the time to night) and start the flight. Once it has loaded into 3D make sure you are in 'windowed' mode and not 'full screen' and then use <ALT-TAB> to switch to 'Windows Explorer' or 'My Computer' (whichever you prefer to use). Locate the particular aircraft.cfg file you want to edit and open it in 'Notepad' or another similar text editor. When you have edited the file save it (but DO NOT close it) and then hit <ALT-TAB> to get back to the sim and hit the key combination you just created to reload just the aircraft.

The aircraft should reload in a few seconds and you can see what needs moving to where. Hit <ALT-TAB> again to switch to the .cfg file and make any changes required, save but DO NOT close the .cfg file and hit <ALT-TAB> to return to the sim. Hit the reload key(s) to reload the aircraft and check the light positions again. Repeat this action until you have the lights positioned correctly.

By setting up the aircraft 'reload' function you can substantially cut down on the time required to set up the lights.

HTH

_________________
Larry
E8400 Core2Duo 3 Ghz, 4 Gb DDR2 PC6400 RAM, GTX460 (1 Gb), Realtek HD O/B audio, XP Pro (SP3)
Saitek X52 HOTAS, Saitek Yoke/Throttle, Saitek Rudder Pedals, TIR 5 Pro, LG 22" WS LCD, B-K Gamer

thats great news many thanks for your help, what a cracking forum this is

When reloading aircraft it seems to make it faster by sliding your traffic down to 0.

John

Also, try to temporary move the aircraft's CAB file with gauges to some safe place. You will earn the time required to unpack the CAB during aircraft reloading.

regards
ROB

_________________
A2A Simulations Inc.

Great tip Rob, I wasn't aware of that one!

_________________
Larry
E8400 Core2Duo 3 Ghz, 4 Gb DDR2 PC6400 RAM, GTX460 (1 Gb), Realtek HD O/B audio, XP Pro (SP3)
Saitek X52 HOTAS, Saitek Yoke/Throttle, Saitek Rudder Pedals, TIR 5 Pro, LG 22" WS LCD, B-K Gamer