answered No Vector Lights on Major Roads

[Deacon Blue]

Hey all,

I just installed FTX Vector , in preparation for OLC NA

 

At first, I was not getting any Vector road lights.  Then I remembered to check Vector lights in FTX Central 2.1

 

 

Relaunched FSX:SE - Still not vector lights

Remembered about the 3D Global Light configuration setting in FTX Central  - enabled this.

Relaunched FSX:SE - now I have vector lights (some).....but not on the major roads or highways - see below

 

 

Before installing FTX Vector, I did uninstall UTX2, and even rebuilt the terrain.cfg just to make sure UTX entries were removed from there as well

Can someone that has Vector installed go to:  N38 58.50'  W104 47.93'  - ((this should put you over the I-25/ Academy Blvd mousetrap area by the Air Force Academy  (KAFF)) and tell me if it shows vector lights or not on I-25, etc....

 

BTW, When I go back into 3D Global Light configuration setting page in FTX Central 2.1, it is blank again

 

Thanks a bunch!

Sorry for the long post  - just trying to get this figured out before adding OLC NA.

(Running FSX Steam, DX10, FTX Global Base, FTX Vector, and various ORBX full fat regions)

[Deacon Blue]

Hello all,

 

I think I found a workaround after reading through the forums...Have a gander....

 

I have vector lights on major roads again

 

I had to Uncheck "ORBX!Vector_EXX" in the Scenery library to get some or all the vector lights to show

up again

 

Question is....what does unchecking ORBX!Vector_EXX" do? What other problems does this introduce?  Should I have to uncheck ORBX!Vector_EXX" to begin with?

 

Let me know if this is correct or not.

 

Thanks

-DB

[rsvette12]

Be interested in this also - beautiful skies by the way 

[Bermuda425]

Yep, quite interesting to follow. The lighting looks stellar now that it works.

[Stewart Hobson]

16 hours ago, Deacon Blue said:

Hello all,

 

I think I found a workaround after reading through the forums...Have a gander....

 

I have vector lights on major roads again

 

I had to Uncheck "ORBX!Vector_EXX" in the Scenery library to get some or all the vector lights to show

up again

 

Question is....what does unchecking ORBX!Vector_EXX" do? What other problems does this introduce?  Should I have to uncheck ORBX!Vector_EXX" to begin with?

 

Let me know if this is correct or not.

 

Thanks

-DB

It is not advisable to uncheck any of the Vector entries.  Doing so introduces all sorts of other problems that are more trouble than it's worth.  Holger has spoken about this elsewhere, but I can't find the reference atm, sorry.

[Deacon Blue]

46 minutes ago, Stewart Hobson said:

It is not advisable to uncheck any of the Vector entries.  Doing so introduces all sorts of other problems that are more trouble than it's worth.  Holger has spoken about this elsewhere, but I can't find the reference atm, sorry.

 

Stew - Thanks for the info!  I did read that this might be an issue with the 1.40 version of Vector ( I might be wrong) - so, should I revert back to the 1.35 version?? I Appreciate the help btw!!

 

1 hour ago, Bermuda425 said:

Yep, quite interesting to follow. The lighting looks stellar now that it works.

 

Thanks Bermuda!  I thought so too! I gotta have my lights!!!!!

 

1 hour ago, rsvette12 said:

Be interested in this also - beautiful skies by the way 

 

Thanks rsvette!  The skies are from a free texture set over at AVSIM  - "Navid's Sky texture set 2016".  I'm always searching for the best sky colors!

[rsvette12]

38 minutes ago, Deacon Blue said:

 

Stew - Thanks for the info!  I did read that this might be an issue with the 1.40 version of Vector ( I might be wrong) - so, should I revert back to the 1.35 version?? I Appreciate the help btw!!

 

 

Thanks Bermuda!  I thought so too! I gotta have my lights!!!!!

 

 

Thanks rsvette!  The skies are from a free texture set over at AVSIM  - "Navid's Sky texture set 2016".  I'm always searching for the best sky colors!

 

Thanks Buddy well aware of it but finding REX4  is looking very nice with PTA

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi guys,

 

the ORBX!Vector_EXX entry contains  the exclude files that remove the default (or third-party) landscape elements that are being replaced by Vector. Thus, deactivating that entries means you'll globally see duplicate shorelines, roads and railroads, etc. Not a good idea...

 

Something to keep in mind is that only urban roads and major intersections have night lighting in Vector, as is the case in the real world (in most countries). Without knowing the location in Deacon Blue's first screenshot the vector lighting actually looks correct to me; if anything some of the smaller roads with 3D light points reach out too far from the urban area.

 

As for the question regarding the "3D Global Light configuration" menu being blank. Since the tool can store configurations for several platforms (FSX, P3Dv2, P3Dv3) you first need to select the simulator in submenu 1. before the rest of the fields get populated with your current set of choices for that particular platform.

 

Cheers, Holger

[Deacon Blue]

Holger,

 

Thanks for answering  - I appreciate it very much!

 

4 hours ago, Holger Sandmann said:

Something to keep in mind is that only urban roads and major intersections have night lighting in Vector, as is the case in the real world (in most countries).

 

The road in the first post (the section w/o vector lights) is a major intertsate (I-25) that runs north and south in Colorado - it's the main highway artery for the state.(besides I-70)  That's why I figured it would have the vector lights for sure.

 

4 hours ago, Holger Sandmann said:

 Without knowing the location in Deacon Blue's first screenshot the vector lighting actually looks correct to me; if anything some of the smaller roads with 3D light points reach out too far from the urban area.

 

  .....N38 58.50'  W104 47.93'  - ((this should put you over the I-25/ Academy Blvd mousetrap area by the Air Force Academy  (KAFF)) and tell me if it shows vector lights or not on I-25, etc....   Holger, can you go to this location and see if you have the lights on I-25 with ORBX!Vector_EXX enabled? Just curious if I have a bad install then , etc....

 

4 hours ago, Holger Sandmann said:

As for the question regarding the "3D Global Light configuration" menu being blank. Since the tool can store configurations for several platforms (FSX, P3Dv2, P3Dv3) you first need to select the simulator in submenu 1. before the rest of the fields get populated with your current set of choices for that particular platform.

 

Cheers, Holger

 

I did pick MS FSX in the first drop down, then made my selections below, then apply.  But when I exit out of FTX central and then go back into FTX Central, my settings are blank again in 3D Global Light configuration menu. Not sure why....

 

Again, thanks for taking the time to answer. I just wanted to square this issue away before adding OLC NA.  Should I revert back to 1.35 ?

 

-DB

[Stewart Hobson]

Deacon,  I believe you must save the profile/configuration in order to see the boxes filled with your choices.  Otherwise, your selections have indeed been saved by the sim, but your selection page is blank, which allows you to reload your saved profile and make changes.

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi again,

 

I can confirm that I-25 in the KAFF area does not have night lighting (it looks the same on my PC as in DB's screenshot) so it's not a Vector installation issue. From what I can tell on Bing Maps the real I-25 does have lightposts past the airport north to about where the two opposing lanes split into a wide meridian. However, that specific information isn't generally available in the public domain source data and thus the Vector developers would probably have used data on urban extent to decide between lit and unlit road vectors.

 

FYI, with openLC NA and its new lighting system installed Colorado Springs and the I-25 corridor look quite a bit different though that section of I-25 east of the airport isn't lit either.

 

I'm pretty sure that those entries in the Global Lights configurator are always blank when you first start up the interface; once a sim is selected they fill in.

 

Cheers, Holger

[Deacon Blue]

On 8/5/2016 at 9:03 PM, Stewart Hobson said:

Deacon,  I believe you must save the profile/configuration in order to see the boxes filled with your choices.  Otherwise, your selections have indeed been saved by the sim, but your selection page is blank, which allows you to reload your saved profile and make changes.

 

Thanks Stew - That makes sense now!  Much Appreciated!

 

23 hours ago, Holger Sandmann said:

Hi again,

 

I can confirm that I-25 in the KAFF area does not have night lighting (it looks the same on my PC as in DB's screenshot) so it's not a Vector installation issue. From what I can tell on Bing Maps the real I-25 does have lightposts past the airport north to about where the two opposing lanes split into a wide meridian. However, that specific information isn't generally available in the public domain source data and thus the Vector developers would probably have used data on urban extent to decide between lit and unlit road vectors.

 

FYI, with openLC NA and its new lighting system installed Colorado Springs and the I-25 corridor look quite a bit different though that section of I-25 east of the airport isn't lit either.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Holger!  That's all I needed to know that mine looks like yours w/ regards to that section of road! I wasn't aware that it all comes down to the source data provided -  Whew! 

 

Onward to OLC NA!

 

Mods, this thread can be closed as resolved!

 

Thanks again!

 

-DB

 

 

 

 

 

[Bernd Podhradsky]

On 8/6/2016 at 7:51 PM, Holger Sandmann said:

Hi again,

 

I can confirm that I-25 in the KAFF area does not have night lighting (it looks the same on my PC as in DB's screenshot) so it's not a Vector installation issue. From what I can tell on Bing Maps the real I-25 does have lightposts past the airport north to about where the two opposing lanes split into a wide meridian. However, that specific information isn't generally available in the public domain source data and thus the Vector developers would probably have used data on urban extent to decide between lit and unlit road vectors.

 

 

Hi!

 

That is exactly the case - we do not have any data available about whether a specific road segment has lightposts or not - we have a generic algorithm (based on urban areas etc) that we use to create lights.

 

Bernd