UPDATE: 717 Immersion goes v5 ready, gets all-new lighting tech!

3 min readMay 7, 2021

by Edson Soriano, Managing Director //42

//42 717 immersion lighting and tfdi 717 aircraft sitting on runway

Built for the TFDi Design 717 and now fully v5 compatible, the effects displayed in 717 Immersion provide an immersive experience that is second to none! This free update is available now, and don’t worry v4 users, you’re still officially supported.

717 Immersion was designed with extreme attention to detail. This passenger jet aircraft’s small size makes every single effect more noticeable, more enjoyable, and above everything, more immersive! All dynamic lighting effects were calibrated to react correctly with PBR or non-PBR textures, materials, and surfaces.

Performance First

As simmers ourselves, performance is near and dear to our hearts. The team of testers in Area 42 is comprised of users with a variety of machine specs. Together we have reached the perfect balance between incredible visual effects, great frame rates, and a low memory footprint.

Volumetric Lighting

The unique lighting setup on the Boeing 717 makes being able to see volumetric lighting quite impressive. This update delivers new Xenon strobes and replacement landing lights in your preference of traditional or LED bulbs. New landing, taxi, flood, nacelle, nav & beacon lights, all dynamic, it’s quite the light show!

Cloud Illumination

Nothing beats floating from one cloud to another and seeing your landing lights illuminate them as you fly thru! Our cloud illumination feature changes the way we fly in our sims, increase realism ten-fold!

Wing Condensation

Wing condensation is a well-known feature of our Immersion product line. Our wing condensation effect, combined with the wing flap’s trailing edge condensation effect, really makes the “Angry Puppy” come alive.

Cold Start

Boeing 717 engines are enormous in relation to the fuselage. As expected, the cold start effect on the 717 is very, very impressive! There is nothing better than watching smoke blowing out of the two engines after ignition on a cold morning!

Contrails

Nothing is more satisfying than seeing the difference between our volumetric contrails and default ones. As such, we made it our priority to make the contrails feel and look as genuine as possible for the Boeing 717. The contrails are not only sharp-looking; they are faithfully representing the actual 717 contrails!

and more…

As with all our immersion packages, 717 Immersion comes with all the other top-quality effects that you have come to love. These include but are definitely not limited to touch down smoke effect, brake dust upon retracting the gear, volumetric rain, wheels spray, and engine wash!

Closing Thoughts…

Prepar3D users, we’re not leaving you! Lockheed Martin Prepar3D continues to be a valid and valuable market for us, just not for our complete portfolio of products. Our Immersion line has new product(s) in the pipeline, further compatibility updates, and 777 Immersion V2 is just around the corner now that post-release updates of the aircraft have stabilized. Oddly enough, this same logic applies to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 where not all products can/will be made available.

Big shoutout to Raul; without him joining our team, we’d have even longer product cycles. So when you don’t hear from us regarding your favorite //42 product, know that we’ve not switched to a new platform or left you behind, we’re just working twice as hard, and that doesn’t always mean faster. 😓//e

//42 717 Immersion is now available: https://parallel42.com/collections/visual-fx