Locomotive lighting

I don't like how MSTS locomotives behave in daylight. I like the brightness of the headlights, but is there a way to have bright headlights that don't light up the scenery in daytime?

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RE: Locomotive lighting, krswen, Oct-17-04, 08:27 AM, (1) RE: Locomotive lighting, krswen, Oct-17-04, 08:34 AM, (2) RE: Locomotive lighting, CumbresEngineer, Oct-17-04, 06:16 PM, (3) RE: Locomotive lighting, KnightTrain, Oct-18-04, 02:21 AM, (4) RE: Locomotive lighting, krswen, Oct-18-04, 07:37 PM, (5) RE: Locomotive lighting, GaryG, Oct-18-04, 11:40 PM, (6) RE: Locomotive lighting, krswen, Oct-19-04, 05:51 PM, (7) RE: Locomotive lighting, CMO, Oct-20-04, 08:09 PM, (8) RE: Locomotive lighting, James, Oct-20-04, 10:19 PM, (9) RE: Locomotive lighting, KnightTrain, Oct-22-04, 02:57 AM, (10) RE: Locomotive lighting, UP6767, Oct-22-04, 09:08 PM, (11) RE: Locomotive lighting, SouthwestChief, Oct-26-04, 04:29 PM, (12) RE: Locomotive lighting, charlie, Oct-26-04, 05:08 PM, (13)

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I would think you could go into the locomotive ".eng" (I've just added quotes for clarity, they do not exist in the code) file, scroll down to the "lights" section, find the "type (1)" entries (these are for "sphere of light" illumination), and in the "conditions (" section add a line: "TimeOfDay ( 2 )". This will only turn illumination on at night.I'll try it to see if it works.krswen

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LAST EDITED ON Oct-17-04 AT 08:51 AM (EDT)

Yes it did. Here's an example from the Cascade route GP60: Lights( 14
Light (
comment( Sphere of light )
Type ( 1 )
Conditions (
Headlight ( 3 )
Unit ( 2 )
TimeOfDay ( 2 )
)
Cycle ( 0 )
FadeIn ( 0.5 )
FadeOut ( 0.5 )
States ( 1
State (
Duration ( 0.0 )
LightColour ( FFFFFFCA )
Position ( 0.0 3.5 6 )
Transition ( 0 )
Radius ( 300.0 )
Angle ( 45.0 )
)
)
)
krswenI forgot to add, find ALL instances of sphere of light, not just the first. They are generally the first two in the lighting section.Also, if you have used Kosmos to change some of your environments, and for example have JBStormyWeather loaded for one of your rain scenarios, MSTS is too dumb to know that it is quite dark even during the day. That environment is very gloomy and having the headlights illuminiate surrounding would be helpful, but the sim only knows time of day.krswen

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How can I change the color? The K-36's have real bad headlight colors. It's like a fluorescent light...pretty bad...it should be orange or yellow...more dark yellow.Is that just a texture thing?Kevin Bush,

I will have my hand on the throttle of a K-36 very soon Mon Freunds!

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Yes you can change the color of the headlights. This is how the coding works. Light (
comment( Head Light )
Type ( 0 )
Conditions (
Headlight ( 3 )
Unit ( 2 )
)
FadeIn ( 0.5 )
FadeOut ( 0.5 )
Cycle ( 0 )
States ( 1
State (
Duration ( 0.0 )
LightColour ( eef9ec95 )
Position ( 0.0 1.522886 9.017302 )
Azimuth ( 0.0 0.0 0.0 )
Transition ( 0 )
Radius ( 0.40 )
Elevation ( 0 0 0 )
)
)
)The light color is in hex notation (highlighted in bold above), with the first 6 digits (red) used to describe the light colors in terms of their RGB values and the last two digits (blue) describing the brightness (intensity/translucency) of the color.So for example, bright white light is RGB 255 255 255 or in hexidecimal FF FF FF. Full brightness is also 255 or FF. Therefore in the light specs the LightColor value should read: FFFFFFFF. In the example above (eef9ec95) the color is a weak yellowish color which I specified to descibe the type of tungsten lighting used on early UK DMUs.The way I figure the correct color to use is to use my graphics program color adjustment tool. Using that I figure out the exact shade I want to use and since it also gives me the color values in hexidecimal I just transcribe that into the light specs and then add the brightness value. You can adjust not only the colors and intensity of the lamps themselves, but also that of the "sphere" of light cone. Factor in also the radius values of the lamp glow, with brighter lights using larger radius light glows and you can basically emulate almost any type of (exterior) lighting effect found on trains.Hope this helps.

Sean Lim
(TRACKDANCER)
http://www.cham-ministry.org/msts/index.html

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Also be aware that most .eng files have the "angle ( 11 )" set WAAAAYYY to high. The Cascade GP60 above uses 45! It lights up half the world.I checked the GE light bulb spec and the correct angle should be 11 degrees (as above).I also took particular effort to notice when I was running a real AC4400 a while back and the illuminated field of view is indeed quite narrow. For all the candlepower locomotive headlights have, they're not that great.I also use 800 for the high beam "radius ( )" and 350 for the low beam "radius ( )".

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HiRemember the Ditch lights normally don't point straight ahead so they would widen the field probably by at least five to ten degrees on each side giving a total width of 21 to 31 degrees or even more. The 45 degrees may not be that far from reality.GaryG

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When properly adjusted the ditch lights are actually supposed to cross each other about 800ft ahead of the locomotive at track level. They are not meant to significantly widen the field of view from the cab, but rather add to the locomotive conspicuity for motorists at grade crossings.krswen

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Sean,
I believe this sentence in your explanation is incorrect: "The light color is in hex notation (highlighted in bold above), with the first 6 digits (red) used to describe the light colors in terms of their RGB values and the last two digits (blue) describing the brightness (intensity/translucency) of the color."
Of the 8 digits, the first two are the transparency or brightness, and the last 6 digits are the color, in hex notation, being red, green, and blue respectively.
Paul

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I'm making a Trona Railway SD45-2 #3002 and would like to know how to make a Flashing light like DRGW did.VMRS (Pittsburgh Division) Locomotive Painter
A BNSF Manifest gets the Highball at Pine Bluff,Arkansas.

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LAST EDITED ON Oct-22-04 AT 03:03 AM (EDT)

Yup - per the tech docs you're right - it would seem that I got it backwards.However:Per the tech docs: First 2 digits controls the alpha and the last 6 the RGB valuesBut in practice: the first 6 digits controls the RGB value and the last 2 digits controls the alpha

Sean Lim
(TRACKDANCER)
http://www.cham-ministry.org/msts/index.html

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say.. what is the site you find the light color codes?

Shawn.
Guilford Rail System
SD70ACe_GM73@yahoo.com
Korn's # 1 FAN!!

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I like the color chart on this site;
http://www.hypersolutions.org/pages/rgbhex.html
Matt Doti

http://pages.sbcglobal.net/fdoti/index.html

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Since MSTS uses both html and hexadecimal codes in various places, here's both:http://www.users.interport.net/~giant/COLOR/1ColorSpecifier.htmlcharlie

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