New Lighting Project for default vehicles

[William Stapleford]

After steam decided to ruin my original work with the latest 1.3 patch and had me under the false assumption that all my work would be saved.  I have now started working on yet another lighting mod.  Please again remember that I am by no means a good/perfect modder.  I also am not trying to take away anything from the other lighting mod project reality lights.  I think his mod is awesome I could never get it to work and decided to strike out on my own.  I can say I have learned a ton of things as things have gone by and also found many shortfalls to 16tons programming.  If anyone can offer any tips for how to fix these flaws I am all ears but for now I can only work with what I have got.  Some of the faults i have found

 

Lighting synchronization - lighting will eventually find its way out of sync and it becomes clear if a screenshot is taken

Lighting viewing angle - these seemed ,to be hard coded and I can change the values in WB all i want and never see a change.  This makes the lights in the front of the car still shine through to the rear etc.  Look closely at the default prefabs and you will see it too

Lighting shines through vehicle - goes with the above but even tail lights at times are seen from the front of the vehicle or side lights shine through to other side

Rotating lights - these seem to get lost at certain viewing angles.  If you zoom out from my test map I can see the rotator beacons stop working until zoomed back in.  this is with very little cpu usage, 

Material light animation - these have almost caused me to throw my computer across the room, I have found the blue "lens" effect and turned it off, saved the prefab as a new one, placed the new one back into the map and the animation (blue lens flare) is back on.  I have deleted it from the model and still can't get rid of it for good.

 

Finally is that no matter what I can only see my vehicles in the prefab list and never loaded into the game.  I don't honestly know what to do to package it for testing so if anyone has ideas I will gladly listen and try them.  

 

Major changes to most prefabs to include

 

EMT / DR vehicle - all lights changed to strobes, added wig wag headlights, changed light bar, added yellow traffic director, added rear tail brake strobes

AMB - all lights changed to strobes / random patterns, added rear red brake strobes and yellow marker strobes, top strobe lights on rear, traffic dir yellow light bar above rear door, yellow/red flashing mini strobes on side marker lights, wig wag head lights

Tow Truck - Changed the blue light bar to red and yellow, added side marker / turn strobes, rear red brake light strobes, white light to rear cargo area, side marker flashing strobes

Police Station wagon - Changes lights to strobe effect, added red , yellow to light bar, added red brake strobes, headlamps strobe, front proj beam effects for blue strobes on front, side proj beams on left and right to simulate side strobes on light bar

Helicopters - this one really bugged me because the aircraft are federally regulated and not a single aircraft has tail and position lights as found in this game.  Currently working on getting the NAV, POS, and strobes corrected so that it is true to real life and the aircraft manuf.

 

I will be posting screenshots later and if I can figure out how to post a video then a video.  I will be looking for some people to try and run this or atleast let me know what they think.  This again is to suit my taste and get a more realistic feeling for what I see around the USA.  The patterns and lighting positions are fictional and are by no means accurate.  Also I suggest STRONG caution when viewing multiple vehicles as the strobe effect could possible trigger seizures.

 

Anyone around the US can agree that when an accident occurs the the police and fire strobes are very attention grabbing and sometimes can cause accidents because people will get fixated on them.  This is my attempt to give that feeling similar to EM4.

 

Thank you and stay tuned for screenshots and more vehicles to come.  Anyone working on any MESH models please let me know.

 

 

Bill

Delaware USA 

[Truck81]

Hey Bill,

 

I look forward to seeing your work, like the other light mods.  I know there arn't too many people modding 5 anymore but if you need a tester or something for your mod let me know.

 

Also are you making the lights red and blue?

[TheNorthernAlex]

This sounds ambitious and I sure hope you'll succeed. EM5 has potential as they are realizing what needs to be fixed and patch it out. Good luck sir and if you want a Video showcase feel free to contact me.

[William Stapleford]

I will try and make a couple fixes to the front and rear patterns and hopefully get a few screenshots up later today. I downloaded a program to show videos as well. Does anyone know how to get the new prefabs to show up in game?

All I can do is show them in the world builder and create a test scene like I did before.

Thanks for the encouragement too.

Bill

Truck81 yes I have changed some of the lights to red and blue or added red to already configured blue lights. The problem is the effect for Material light animation keeps the "plastic lens effect" blue so it creates a purple light. Same goes for changing to yellow the blue will create a green glow. Have yet to find a solution for this. So I added red lights and changed some of the effects to suite what I see more over here in the US.

[C.F.D]

Good luck bud, I look forward to see what you can introduce to the community

[William Stapleford]

Better late then never but here are a few shots of the WIP (work in progress)  The DR / EMT Station wagon is near complete still trying to work out a few lighting issues but here are a few shots of what I have so far.  Remember that this is the default model with many changes and additions to the lighting of the vehicle.

 

 

The daytime shot, changed the lightbar and lighting effects and timing.  Vehicle now has Wig-Wag strobe (LED) headlights, and rear pattern strobe brake lights.  I have been working on creating different patterns.  The photos really don't do justice to the patterns and the lighting effects.  

 

 

Nightime shot from overhead showing the lighting effects of the wig wag strobes and tail lights,  I have tried to tweak the values to keep from over lighting night and daytime.  Lens flare is still an issue depending on the angle it is viewed at but this may be an EM5 bug.

 

Another low light show showing the different lights lighting up, hope to get a video up soon so everyone can see the patterns, this show also shows the timing of some of the effects becoming out of sync.  One thing I have noticed is that if anyone decides to mod lights or effects in EM5 make sure that you SAVE and reload the prefab.  If not the lighting will never go into the patterns that you are trying to make.  The reason is that with every change made to the lighting or effect of the flare it will start the timing all over.  So in order to get it perfect I recommend saving the effect, deleting it and then putting it back on.  This FORCES everything to be in time, they way it should show in game.

 

More to come as time allows, also for anyone that knows how to package this so others can try it let me know.  i'm have yet to test it in game.  Currently this vehicle has approx 50+ different lights and effects.

 

Have a great night everyone

 

Bill

[William Stapleford]

Here is one vehicle that has driven me nuts over most of the EM series and one they should have gotten correct as this is requirement by the FAA.   Oh well now my little rant is done.  I have corrected the helicopters POS lighting and NAV lighting.  I have changed the lighting to the correct strobe pattern for the sides and tail as well.  Added some flare to the ground and the body of the helicopter.  The photos again do not show much but the change in the NAV lighting on the tail.  The lighting and strobe patterns are copied from real life videos of the actual EC-135P.  This is a finished model and no further changes should be needed.

 

 

 

More to come

 

Bill

[TheNorthernAlex]

This looks really good, keep them coming

[William Stapleford]

Happy Easter for all that celebrate this Holiday.  Here is a quick preview of another helicopter with corrected lighting issues.  The cool thing is that I learned alot about the helicopter when I researched the proper lighting for this particular helicopter.  I learned that this is one of the few helicopters that have no tail rotor and uses inductive fans to control it.  It really was cool to learn some new stuff about helicopter.  

 

Anyways here is a list of changes.  The nav lighting has been corrected.  A top 2x flashing red strobe was added to the center of the tail fin assembly, a second 2x-1x combo red strobe was added to the lower portion of the tail.  A combo nav/white strobe was added to the left and right tailfin. Each will flash a correct pattern and they should not sync up.  Added the corrected lighting effects for each strobe and customized the range and brightness.  I have also figured that the game has limits on how far a light can been seen.  Technically the aircraft lighting should be able to be seen far away but after zooming out it will eventually stop.  The front white, pos light has been changed to a solid light and adjusted the lighting.  Please note that the lighting for this aircraft is taken from photos and videos found online.  It is realistic but some of the aircraft found do have other forms of FAA lighting.  

 

Anyways here are some of the shots.  Hope to get a video soon as screen shots do this no justice again.  Still looking to get these changed models into the game so please someone help me.

 

 

 

Have a great day/ night everyone

 

Bill

Delaware/ USA

[William Stapleford]

Ok one final vehicle before calling it a night here on the East coast.  This is the default police station wagon.  Changes to the vehicle include but are not limited to the following. Changed patterns and lighting for the default blue light bar, edited the pattern.  Added wig wag strobe headlights and effects, Added red light LED strobes to the top light bar. Added yellow caution / traffic lights to the light bar, Added rear strobes to the brake lights.  All patterns for the strobes are somewhat based on realistic strobe patterns found in code 3 devices.  I'm learning more and more about the actual patterns and binary code used to create them.  I find it so much easier to write the patterns in notepad and copy them into the editor.

 

 

 

 

 

Hopefully have some time soon to get a video online and actually show some of the lighting effects and patterns.  The newest things I have been working on include the larger ambulance and also the police Swat equiv, helicopter.

 

Have a great night / day everyone hope to get these into the game soon and see how it will look.

 

Bill

Delaware, USA

[C.F.D]

Get a video done soon ! LOL use bandicam, mate. Keep up the good work, it's nice to see someone other than myself who aims for realistic lights.

[William Stapleford]

First attempt to get a video up on you tube failed I will try again later.

[William Stapleford]

Currently hit a HUGE snag with EM5 and lost alot of work due to simply trying to get the mods in game for a test.  Sorry 

When I get it back up again I will try and post some screens and info.

 

Bill

[Rivan]

Keep up the good work, bro!

[William Stapleford]

Ok after many many many problems with the way I started my mod and project files I FINALLY got some in game screenshots, this means that YES you can in fact change and Mod this game.  I'm so happy to finally make a breakthrough.  I have found several problems with the new models and one that annoys me is.  When returning to base the front Wig Wag headlights and a couple effects remain on.  I will have to work and see if this makes a difference if I change the light type.  I lost all Sirens as well but this seems to be a steam problem.

 

In this photo I have shut down the road using several vehicles to set up a landing zone for a medical evacuation.

 

It was very foggy that is why the screenshot is so white.

 

Hopefully get a video up soon showing off the vehicles.  At least I'm starting to get somewhere with this.  I also think I have figured out a few tips and trips and may start up a new forum topic for those as well.

 

Have a great night.

 

Bill

[Vicky Fox]

oh wow, I really hope this work out for you!

obviously 1 step at a time though.

[William Stapleford]

I have one of the models, The Heavy Rescue truck available in the MOD section.  Also a link to the video for that unit in on there.  I lost most of the models listed above and had to start over.