Lazy Eight Mk II

About lights

The RF8 engine is much more limited than RF-X when it comes to lighting.

Historically, lights have only "turned on" (been rendered) when the sun angle drops below 10 degrees. Certain rendering tricks are applied to give them the appearance of a light source, but the reality is they are not. They are not emissive, meaning they do not cast light.

RealFlight Drone presented a new problem. A lot of the multirotors being modeled had LEDs that are always on and which are an important part of the design, both aesthetically and functionally. We needed them to show up during the day as well as at night. We added an "Enable Daytime Lights" property in the editor (which we brought over to RF8 from RFDrone) which forces them to be rendered during the day. It is a vehicle-level property appearing in the Vehicle pane in the editor, and it maps to the .ini entry BrokeDad referenced. So no need to edit the .ini directly. :)

Due to limitations of the RF8 engine, daytime lights only get some of the nighttime treatment. That means they don't look as good or as bright during the day. Also, it's all or nothing; when on, all glow frames on the vehicle will light up, including any on the propeller/rotor blades. The props being used on drones typically don't have lights so that's not much of an issue. It will be more of a problem for planes & helis.

In case anyone's memory needs refreshing: Geometry tagged as ~CS_GLOW only appears when lights are on (at night, or when forced on). It completely disappears when lights are off. On the other hand, ~CS_BULB frames are visible at all times, but whether or not the light portion is on.
 
Oh, and you asked whether it's possible to turn off shadows per object. Setting Shadow Quality to Low turns them off for airport objects, but no, there is no way to more selectively enable/disable them for a vehicle or its parts.

I don't know if toggling Soft Shadows would help with your situation at all. It might be worth trying.
 
Ryan Douglas said:
Oh, and you asked whether it's possible to turn off shadows per object. Setting Shadow Quality to Low turns them off for airport objects, but no, there is no way to more selectively enable/disable them for a vehicle or its parts.

I don't know if toggling Soft Shadows would help with your situation at all. It might be worth trying.
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Thanks Ryan for chiming in on this. I've already tried soft shadows on and off and I didn't see any difference, and didn't expect to. I also didn't expect the ability of turning shadows off per object either but I wanted to make sure my assumption was correct.
 
technoid said:
Actually a picture of the problem doesn't do justice to it because the discolored areas on the dash frame and gauges move and flash in and out as the shadows move and go in and out, but here's two pictures for you. The first is with shadows and you can see some discolored areas on the left side of the dash frame and also discolored areas on the gauges. The second picture is without shadows and what I want it to look like, and if I could disable shadows on objects I could get it to look that way.
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The first pics looks like bad/incomplete smoothing groups, the second looks like good smoothing goups. at least with the frame. I could not get big verisons of the pics I could not see much of the instruments but i am assuming it is the same problem.
 
legoman said:
The first pics looks like bad/incomplete smoothing groups, the second looks like good smoothing goups. at least with the frame. I could not get big verisons of the pics I could not see much of the instruments but i am assuming it is the same problem.
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The pictures are the exact same plane at the same time, the only thing different between them is I turned the shadows OFF in the RF menu for the second picture.
 
The problem with shadows is there's really nothing you can do about them. That goes for RF and the real world. I say let em do their thing. I've looked at your pics closely and I see nothing really that looks "bad". Just something to be expected.
 
technoid said:
The pictures are the exact same plane at the same time, the only thing different between them is I turned the shadows OFF in the RF menu for the second picture.
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I know that was me not saying check the smoothing groups.
 
abaser said:
The problem with shadows is there's really nothing you can do about them. That goes for RF and the real world. I say let em do their thing. I've looked at your pics closely and I see nothing really that looks "bad". Just something to be expected.
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I understand there's nothing that can be done, but we're different.. I think they make the pilot view look bad and would like to be able to fix it. I can't fix it and I'll live with it.. but I don't have to like it. Sorry about that it's just my personal opinion. Also when you're flying they're always moving so it's eye catching and undesirable.
 
I just finished adding servos to the plane here's a few pictures of them in RF. The elevator servos are surfaced mounted to the bottom of the horizontal stabilizer.
 

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legoman said:
I was saying check the groups.
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Okay I understood you correctly then. I checked the smoothing groups and they looked good. After I release it take a look and you'll see what I mean. It looks perfect with shadows off.. so smoothing groups are good, right? The shadows just cast odd patterns on it and move around as you fly. In some cases it looks fine it's just those areas where odd pattern shadows are cast on it. It doesn't seem to get better or worse when changing back and forth from soft shadows either. I'll do one better I'll fire you off a beta right now.
 
Post a shot in max showing the wireframe. I've got a thought. Straight on, from the side, and about 45 degrees.
 
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abaser said:
Post a shot in max showing the wireframe. I've got a thought. Straight on, from the side, and about 45 degrees.
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Here's two shots, straight on and left side. What type of 45 degrees are you wanting?
 

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I'm looking for a shot like you posted from the pilot seat. One showing the model itself with the edges visible. I'm looking for a specific flaw in the area you showed the shadows on the dashboard. I'd like a shot from the left, pilot seat, and a 45 between those two positions so I can see both the side and front of the dashboard. You can hide all other parts of you need to to get those shots. And I guess when I said wireframe I meant to say visible edges so I can look at the polys as well.
 
abaser said:
I'm looking for a shot like you posted from the pilot seat. One showing the model itself with the edges visible. I'm looking for a specific flaw in the area you showed the shadows on the dashboard. I'd like a shot from the left, pilot seat, and a 45 between those two positions so I can see both the side and front of the dashboard. You can hide all other parts of you need to to get those shots. And I guess when I said wireframe I meant to say visible edges so I can look at the polys as well.
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Let me know if this is what you wanted. The dashboard face was cut into 3 sections so I could make the center section large in the CS TGA file.
 

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technoid said:
Okay I understood you correctly then. I checked the smoothing groups and they looked good. After I release it take a look and you'll see what I mean. It looks perfect with shadows off.. so smoothing groups are good, right? The shadows just cast odd patterns on it and move around as you fly. In some cases it looks fine it's just those areas where odd pattern shadows are cast on it. It doesn't seem to get better or worse when changing back and forth from soft shadows either. I'll do one better I'll fire you off a beta right now.
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Yup definitely shadows sorry for doubting you.
 
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