modding headlights

[llewelyn]

One thing I've noticed with all the SCS games (well, Haulin', ALH and ETS: I've not played any others) is that the headlights are rubbish.

Dip beam lights look too feeble and hardly give any light, and main beam seem to be the same light only brighter - they don't, as real ones do, aim higher to illuminate further up the road. In Haulin', the main beams look to me like dip beams should, i.e. a bright light but aimed downwards so it only shines about 40-50 yards. That ain't useful for driving on unlit roads in the dark at 60+.

Anyone know if there's anything can be done about this? I'm quite happy to try my hand at modding it, but if anyone has pointers to where and how the light pattern is defined, that'd be very useful. I've had a quick looksee around the base.scs files, but I don't really know what I'm lookin' for. I've got zmodeler 2, licensed so I can import, if that's needed.

[Phantom 359]

you will find the .dds files for the headlights in the material\decal folder (beam_hi.dds and beam_lo.dds)...you will need DXT-Bmp to open them...

[llewelyn]

Thanx. I love the way stuff is in such logically named directories...

[llewelyn]

well, It kind-of works.

regardless of the scale of the DDS, the headlights seem to go the same distance, so you can change the pattern, but not the lenght of beam. If you run the beam pattern off the end of the DDS, the beam goes a longer way, beyond that distance - but it seems only to go a few map/road segments ahead. If the road segments are quite long, you get to see a long way, but if they're short then the beam gets truncated. Then it jumps to the next section as you drive forwards.

I don't know if that behaviour can be altered.

[Phantom 359]

probably not...

and speaking of road sections, you may have noticed that while in the cinematic camera view, the view of the truck changes as it crosses road sections...

something to keep in mind if you're editing the map and adding new roads...

[dallas111]

glad i found this thread. kinda gave me an idea how to edit the traffic light beam of light that reflects on the pavement (/material/decal/trlight3.dds), and traffic light colors on the traffic light object itself (/model/traffic_light/city1.dds). the only thing i cant figure out is how to edit/change color of the traffic light glow.

[dallas111]

ive figured out where the glow from lights is to edit (/model/flare/flare.tga). this is the glow off of traffic lights, headlights, taillights, streetlamps and lights from traffic cones(orange)