Lightning, ambient 'pit lighting in X-PLane

[RayS]

The DMX RGB project continues...

Using an RGB Light bar, a Teensy, and an RS-485 converter, I'm able to extract sky color, and also simulate lightning in stormy conditions.

No more dark 'pit when flying in broad daylight.

No video yet, but should have something available in the next few days...

[bernard S]

Looking fwd to seeing more of this

[RayS]

I put together some lightning profiles last night on the Teensy board. 16 different types of lightning strikes, on top of creating ambient lighting inside the pit..

I'll put it in the sim tonight and do a quick video.

[bernard S]

Okay i will be the one to ask ... ambient lighting, I assumed was the actual flight deck lighting in all conditions ..by way of example daylight dawn dusk etc... but what you are saying (doing ) is ambient  lighting from external sources such lightening .. thus it if there is'a'strike say on aft qtr  window thid'will reflect on the deck as it would in real world ..do I understand this correctly ? This being the case this project if yours is well cool and worthy or a single malt :-)

[RayS]

I fly X-Plane and X-PLane outputs 2 different types of lighting in terms of RGB coloration: Sky color & Cockpit color.

Both sets translate nicely to Ambient lighting inside the pit and the 2 RGB groups aren't really much different in terms of values.

I extract those values into a Teensy card, convert it internally into a DMX-compatible serial output, feed that teensy output into a TTL-to-RS485 converter, then feed THAT signal into a DMX RGB controller, which then controls an RGB LED Light bar. (Whew!)

When this project started I was hoping that "Ambient Lighting" also included X-Plane lightning strikes. I never saw that they do, which left me to model various types of strikes myself inside Teensy, then collect weather info on the basis that if there's severe weather in the flying area, there's probably lightning strikes.

One thing I thought of just now, is that I have a delay built into the Teensy of 1 second. That may be causing the teensy to miss the strikes entirely. I'll have to play more with that.

But for now, I'll put together that quick video tonight. :-)