[1.12.x] Aviation Lights v4.1.3 (29 January 2023) - available for adoption

[MOARdV]

This is a continuation of @BigNose's Aviation Lights mod.  Instead of making him or a moderator update the title every time I update the mod, I'm (finally) starting a new thread.

The Aviation Lights mod provides aviation lights that may be used for providing standardized markers for airplanes / spaceplanes:

However, this being KSP, you can use them however you see fit.

Version 4.0.0 introduces a very configurable new light from @Stone Blue - you can tweak the housing, the lens style, the light color, the range, and the intensity, using either preset modes or sliders when Advanced Tweakables is enabled.

LICENSE: This mod continues to use the the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).

SOURCE: Source for this mod resides on GitHub.

DOWNLOAD: The official download likewise resides on GitHub.

Edited January 29, 2023 by MOARdV
v4.1.3

[Lisias]

Man, thanks for the symmetry awareness. This will make my life a lot easier. :-)

[Rohaq]

Thanks for confirming that this works, but it looks like v4.0.0 is still marked as 1.3 compatible only on CKAN. Is this something you can fix?

[MOARdV]

1 hour ago, Rohaq said:

Thanks for confirming that this works, but it looks like v4.0.0 is still marked as 1.3 compatible only on CKAN. Is this something you can fix?

Sorry, I don't do CKAN configs.  You'll need to take that up with the CKAN team.

I've release v4.0.1.  This is a minor release - it adds tags to the parts, including a tag compatible with the Community Category Kit's "Lights" category.  There are no changes to the DLL (other than changing the version number and copyright info), so don't feel compelled to update.

[Rohaq]

1 hour ago, MOARdV said:

Sorry, I don't do CKAN configs.  You'll need to take that up with the CKAN team.

I've release v4.0.1.  This is a minor release - it adds tags to the parts, including a tag compatible with the Community Category Kit's "Lights" category.  There are no changes to the DLL (other than changing the version number and copyright info), so don't feel compelled to update.

Fair enough, I think I got it figured, PR sent to NetKAN to up the compatible version number on your behalf: https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/NetKAN/pull/6442

EDIT: Looks like the CKAN guys managed to update it to use your version file correctly, so hopefully there'll be nothing to do in the future beyond keeping that version file updated

Edited April 3, 2018 by Rohaq

[KSPrynk]

@MOARdV,I think there may be one or two cosmetic bugs on the new reconfigurable light.  When changing its state (switch on/off) in flight, the appropriate "off" or "lit" state decal does not switch.  In fact, there's no indication that the light is actually working, unless there is something within its illumination cone, which appears to be less than 180 degrees.  Related to that, there's no "scatter" off the lens, causing a proximity  glow, as with the other aviation lights.  This isn't such a big deal for the navigation markers, but I think it's appropriate for the beacon and strobe modes as reflection off the vessel increases it's visibility at a distance.  Without the self illumination, its effectively just a very wide angle spotlight.

EDIT: If the removal of the scatter glow on the new part was deliberate, then I would suggest adding an additional tweakable control to allow a user defined level of glow, perhaps with zero being "off" to save on pixel light count, if that was the intent.

EDIT 2: On further reflection (pun intended), it occurs to me that a beacon's lighting element would probably be above its reflector, in order to self illuminate.  Perhaps a simpler solution would be a toggleable or slider set illumination cone angle, that allows for a cone greater than 180 degrees.

Edited April 7, 2018 by KSPrynk

[MOARdV]

9 hours ago, KSPrynk said:

I think there may be one or two cosmetic bugs on the new reconfigurable light

Not bugs, but by intent.

To expand: The previous versions of Aviation Lights would create two point lights per aviation light part, one as the main illumination, the other to emulate scatter.  However, instead of using two point lights, I consolidated it to a single light.  I also added the capability to limit the light projection to a spotlight, which the configurable aviation light uses - mainly because I got tired of navigation markers illuminating most of the craft.  The lens portion of that part has an emissive layer which should toggle as the light flashes in the VAB (at least, that was working on my local computer when I released 4.0.0).

To reinstate 360 degree lighting, you can use a module manager patch along the lines of this:

@PART[light_aviation]
{
    @MODULE[ModuleNavLight]
    {
    	%SpotAngle = 0
    }
}

(provided I didn't type that up incorrectly), or, of course, you can use the MM patch that was included in the release to un-hide the old parts, assuming you didn't want the extra configuration options.

I'm not sure if the Unity spotlight allows a cone larger than 180 degrees - it's been a few weeks since I skimmed their documentation.  It might be possible to allow the spotlight cone to be adjusted as well.  I will have to look into it.

[KSPrynk]

2 minutes ago, MOARdV said:

I'm not sure if the Unity spotlight allows a cone larger than 180 degrees - it's been a few weeks since I skimmed their documentation.  It might be possible to allow the spotlight cone to be adjusted as well.  I will have to look into it.

@MOARdVThanks for the detailed response.  I had just posted two GitHub Issues about this only minutes beforehand.  As far as I can tell, the toggling emissive/decal issue on the part is in-flight only - it works fine in the VAB.  At first, I thought the light wasn't changing state at all, until I put something in front of it to illuminate.

Regarding the self illumination functionality, and given your description of Unity's limits on light cones, I would suggest maybe a VAB toggle switch to select between cone and SpotAngle = 0 modes.  Like you, I do in fact find self-illumination to be annoying under certain circumstances, specifically for the navigation markers.  However, for the beacon and strobe modes, I'm actually counting on the surface area of the craft to act as a reflector to increase the light's effective size and visibility at extremely long distance.

In any case, I do appreciate the work you and @Stone Blue put into this.

[MOARdV]

...And AL 4.0.2 is now available.

Fixed the problem with emissives not updating correctly in flight, and added a toggle switch to tweakable spot lights (the configurable aviation light) that can switch between spot and point lights.

... and I just realized that I didn't extend that toggle to work for symmetry parts, so I guess 4.0.3 will be out very shortly. 

 

[MOARdV]

... And AL 4.0.3 is now up.

[MikeO89]

Dunno if I'm doing something wrong but I set the lights to flash in the VAB but then during flight they flash for awhile and then switch to flickering really fast, I think after coming out of warp. The only option at that point is to toggle flash to turn them off. If I toggle them back on, it repeats, flashing for awhile and then goes to really fast flickering again. If I set the lights in VAB to just be on, no issues. On 1.4.2 btw.

Edited April 9, 2018 by MikeO89

[MOARdV]

7 hours ago, MikeO89 said:

Dunno if I'm doing something wrong but I set the lights to flash in the VAB but then during flight they flash for awhile and then switch to flickering really fast, I think after coming out of warp. The only option at that point is to toggle flash to turn them off. If I toggle them back on, it repeats, flashing for awhile and then goes to really fast flickering again. If I set the lights in VAB to just be on, no issues. On 1.4.2 btw.

No, that's a bug.  I knew exactly what it was as soon as you described it.  I'll see about a fix in the next day or so.

[MOARdV]

AL 4.0.4 is now live on GitHub.  Fixed the flash-after-warp bug @MikeO89 reported.  Thank you for the bug report.

EDIT: The original release did not have an updated .version file.  It's now been updated.  Thanks to GitHub user MaximeBrean who reported it.

Edited April 9, 2018 by MOARdV
Re-release v4.0.4 with correct version file

[MikeO89]

I tried to update this through Ckan and got an error about something not matching.

Edit: Tried it later and it worked. I do really like that you can see the effect you want in the VAB now instead of having to wait for it to be on the launch pad to see it. Though the one thing I do miss from the previous version (unless I'm not seeing something right) was the ability to change modes in flight. Now once it's set in VAB, that's what you get for the flight. Before in flight you could still change it from say blinking to steady on or interval or double flash. Wish that feature was back cause sometimes you change your mind in flight from what you set it in VAB. Just thoughts from a user. Great mod.

Edited April 10, 2018 by MikeO89

[BigNose]

Just put a pointer to this thread in the old one, and marked it as deprecated.

Really liking your work on this mod MOARdV, many thanks and may your motivation last longer than mine!

Edited April 12, 2018 by BigNose

[JH4C]

I am deeply, passionately in love with this mod. Low power drain, high brightness, variable flash patterns, multiple skins of lens and lens holders, and lens colours that reflect the colour of the light that they emit? Gorgeous. Utterly gorgeous. Really help my immersion. Thank you!

[MikeO89]

I'm having a little issue with these lights. If you are in the VAB and experimenting with the different lights on the craft, you can see the reflection of the lights on the side wall of the VAB depending on how you set the lights. Problem is I can see this same reflection against a planet when orbiting (sometimes seeing big squares). The only way I can get rid of this "planet bounce" light it to turn the camera away from the planet (towards the craft), or turn the lights on the craft completely off. Hope I'm missing something here cause I don't like that effect at all. I can see it would be natural to see light reflecting off the VAB wall a few feet away but it surely shouldn't be reflecting off a planet 100 meters up. It looks like the lights are treating the planet like it's just a few feet away.

Edited May 5, 2018 by MikeO89

[MOARdV]

10 hours ago, MikeO89 said:

I'm having a little issue with these lights. If you are in the VAB and experimenting with the different lights on the craft, you can see the reflection of the lights on the side wall of the VAB depending on how you set the lights. Problem is I can see this same reflection against a planet when orbiting (sometimes seeing big squares). The only way I can get rid of this "planet bounce" light it to turn the camera away from the planet (towards the craft), or turn the lights on the craft completely off. Hope I'm missing something here cause I don't like that effect at all. I can see it would be natural to see light reflecting off the VAB wall a few feet away but it surely shouldn't be reflecting off a planet 100 meters up. It looks like the lights are treating the planet like it's just a few feet away.

That *shouldn't* be happening, obviously.  Most of the lights should have a range of a few meters.  I'll try to figure out what's going on.

[MikeO89]

Here's what I'm talking about.

[Beetlecat]

This used to happen all the time... I can't remember what the cause/fix was though.

[Stone Blue]

@MOARdV yes, that was an old bug... IIRC, introduced in the Unity 5.+ update... not specific to this mod, of course, but affected *all* light parts...
weird that youre seeing it again... vOv

EDIT: maybe this will help:

EDIT2: I just tried to fix this in Unity, but it seems I have an issue with my current install of Unity...
Trying to sort it out now... wil post back shortly

Edited May 6, 2018 by Stone Blue

[MOARdV]

2 hours ago, Stone Blue said:

IIRC, introduced in the Unity 5.+ update... not specific to this mod, of course, but affected *all* light parts...
weird that youre seeing it again... vOv

I might have gotten carried away with changes to the plugin in AL v4.0.  You shouldn't need to fix this in Unity, since I add the light in the plugin.  Which also means I need to fix it in the plugin, too.

Hopefully later today.

[MOARdV]

... and done.

Aviation Lights v4.0.5 is now out.  This update prevents aviation lights from providing planetary surface illumination from orbit.  Thanks to @MikeO89 for reporting it.

[maja]

 

[MikeO89]

The update did the trick dude! Thank you. No more planet bounce.