The latest SDK build removed “Dev Mode - Tools - User Lights” and merged them under "Dev Mode - Debug - Aircraft - Lights’
The issue I’m having with this is that I’m a HUGE aircraft light nerd and have been doing lighting mods since the very early days of 2020 both 3rd party and marketplace addons. I’m NO longer able to access the "user lights’ sections on encrypted aircraft. I used to be able to do this no problem with the older dev mode sdk version.
Is there any way how to bring back the old dev mode version to allow me to see all aircraft user lights encrypted or not?
Accessing the User Lights for encrypted aircraft now is impossible. All it shows is “container is encrypted” This is very upsetting and I’m kind of heartbroken over this.
Attached are two photos of what I used to be able to see vs. now.
Unfortunately for you, it looks like they found a leak that wasn’t supposed to be there and they fixed it. Asobo is pretty locked down on making 3rd party aircraft data inaccessible. And the third party devs love this. They don’t like to see content they developed reused by others. So I doubt it’s going to change for you.
Can’t you just learn how to create your own lights? I don’t know what you’re doing, so I don’t know if that’s a dumb question.
Not sure how something like that is possible with simply viewing the aircraft lights. Where did you get that info from?
Info that you were accessing data that is now encrypted? You. You said you were accessing 3rd party data. They encrypted it. They did that on purpose. They may not have realized the data was accessible, and therefore chose to encrypt it. Technically you’re not supposed to be using/copying other people’s copywritten code without their permission. That’s been a long standing developer complaint forever for many authors for whom creating FS content is their livelihood.
As another workaround since you don’t seem to be open to learning how to create the data yourself, you could ask the authors of the packages you’d like to use if they would share their information with you. Plenty of authors have been happy to do this in the past and to this day.
I’m not arguing the ins and outs of the legality and so on of whether or not 3rd party data should be encrypted or not. It’s a fact that Microsoft has chosen to support the authors in this. That’s all there is.
BTW, I still don’t understand how user lights are “ruined” by this. I was just explaining that it’s not likely they’ll change their minds on the encryption. Can’t you create your own lights? I don’t really understand what you were doing or why you’re stopped by this.
Well I never said there was a leak. The user lights section has been accessible since day 1 back when 2020 released. The whole point of me brining this up is that they now merged this section to another part of dev mode and now they are completely blocked. That is what i’m trying to figure out on why and if they can make them accessible again. Nothing that I do alters license data or “steals” from developers. My light mods have over 65k downloads on flightsim.to AND a couple of very well know devs USE MY LIGHT MODS in their products. I’m on a few different beta teams just to help with the lighting.
Also, not once did I say I was not open to learning how to create the data myself. ALL I do is literally edit the light .fx files and that is it. There are tons of mods out there that change flight models, systems, etc. I do NOT do any of that. Simple just the light .fx files.
The only thing I was accessing was the “effects” folder and the .fx files inside which most of the time are just the default Asobo lighting files. What I would do is create a new folder with those effects and tweak the .fx files to match the aircraft lights in real life. I would simply make my own community folder with the changes and fly. Nothing I was doing was bad.
user lights are “ruined” because they are now inaccesbile and myself and a few other lighting mod developers are saddened by this. I hope this makes sense.
Ok, I didn’t know what you were doing.
I’m sorry you’re saddened. 2024 made freeware development harder for everybody. I hate the new file format for liveries and the fact it’s proprietary and they won’t release the specifics, and we have to go through all kinds of rigamorole to just repaint a plane. Something that used to be so simple.
We’re all going to have to learn new ways of doing things if we want to continue doing our hobbies with this sim. There’s always X-plane…
But I will say, you do realize you’re using data somebody else spent time creating, right? And they make their livelihood doing that. Some people like to share. Some don’t. It’s all about the money, unfortunately.
“But I will say, you do realize you’re using data somebody else spent time creating, right? And they make their livelihood doing that. Some people like to share. Some don’t. It’s all about the money, unfortunately.”
I don’t agree with this statement. Yes I do edit the files but at the same time they are most likely using the default lights that come with the sim, and even if they have their own custom .fx files all I’m doing is making a few changes in the text editor. This to me sounds like you are saying I’m stealing from them when in reality I’m just helping make their product a bit more realistic. I can’t tell you how many comments and messages I get from devs and customers thanking me. Anyways, I think I will leave it at that. I just hope that the user lights section will be available again because at the end of the day I’m here for the long run and want nothing but the best for our community. If it wasn’t for community mods some 3rd party devs would be toast.
I hope this clears some things up for you. We can continue on in a DM if you’d like.
