ALS landing lights - how to implement?

[St.Michel]

The newsletter says:

The lights are property-controlled via /sim/rendering/als-secondary-lights/. ... Aircraft developers who want to equip their models with ALS-capable landing lights need to implement the logic for which view which light should be shown themselves.

The second part would not be the problem (I hope)... But I don't have the entry "/sim/rendering/als-secondary-lights/ ".
Is it enough to simple create them like described here http://forum.flightgear.org/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=24226&start=15#p220083 and than " implement the logic for which view which light should be shown"?

Michel

[f-ojac]

The ALS landing light feature is post-3.2 release. So either you try to use the development version of FG, or it will be available in 3.4.

[Hyde]

Sorry for the intrusion but I have same question so let me participate here.

I'm currently trying to replace 777 landing lights to this ALS landing lights.
Of cause I'm using the GIT version of FG and it's always the latest.
I changed all the following properties to the default true in the preferences.xml
use-searchlight
use-landing-light
use-alt-landing-light
But no light's robe appears.

What else do I need to change or add in the aircraft side?
I tried 777 and ufo.
Is there any model which has been already implemented as the reference?

Thanks a lot.

[wlbragg]

I changed all the following properties to the default true in the preferences.xml

First you will only want use-landing-light
and if you want double landing lights then you also want use-alt-landing-light
The spotlight is if you want a "spotlight".

I'm currently trying to replace 777 landing lights to this ALS landing lights

.
You may not want to turn them on in preferences but instead add a toggle switch to the aircraft for the landing lights, or reassign the existing light switch.

I'm pretty sure the c172p in GIT has ALS Landing lights added to it.

https://gitorious.org/fg/fgdata/commit/c7140b8aa6df92e7bdc885006e41d70266d92415

[Thorsten]

All requires GIT to work. The C172p and the Piper Seneca so far have the ALS lights implemented. If you don't run GIT, you can still set the properties - it won't hurt, and the aircraft light will work for anyone running GIT.

Aircraft-side really all you have to do is set the properties according to the landing light switch state and set the angular offsets. You can check for any aircraft using the property browser by simply flicking the properties to true runtime. The whole implementation is quite independent of the aircraft and you can still user-side use the landing lights from property browser even if they are not configured aircraft-side - of course, if a cockpit switch should work, this needs to be set aircraft-side.

Note that the for the lights to be rendered, shader quality level needs to be high enough - on runway and airport keep lights are rendered as soon as the runway and airfield effect are used, on the rest of the terrain only at highest quality (I assumed you wouldn't normally try to do low level flying at night by landing lights...). For shader quality level to effects please see ALS technical notes.

[Hyde]

Thank you. It works.
I needed to increas landmass > 3 or transition >2 to get effect.

777 has actually 3 landing lights (L,C,R). Can you add one more alternate landing light if it's easy.

Thanks again for your effort and help.

[Thorsten]

Can you add one more alternate landing light if it's easy.

The feature is meant as a generic thing (and I suspect every option added takes some performance even if it's not actually used by an aircraft), so there's a limit to which I will account for differences individual aircraft (where do we stop - in principle we could also configure light cone radius and intensity, color,...) . I understand that you want to make the 777 as realistic as possible, but I think a two light pattern might be quite acceptable for the majority of users who won't even notice that a third light is missing.

[Hyde]

Understood.

Thank you for your reply.

[wlbragg]

All requires GIT to work

FYI:
For anyone that want's to use this feature in 3.2, if you replace the 3.2 Shaders and Effects folders with current GIT (I recommend backing up the original 3.2 shaders and effects folders) it appears to work with no ill effects. You also have to add the appropriate lines to the 3.2 preferences.xml.