Lockheed Hudson Panel

[braveheart77521]

I am really enjoy the Hudson update by Captmercy. However, I am wondering if a main panel can be made from the VCpanel? Has anyone accomplished this? What do I need to do to accomplish this? My expertize is limited in this area. Any help would be appreciated.

Braveheart

[Mick]

I am really enjoy the Hudson update by Captmercy. However, I am wondering if a main panel can be made from the VCpanel? Has anyone accomplished this? What do I need to do to accomplish this? My expertize is limited in this area. Any help would be appreciated.

Braveheart

I've done this, but not for the Hudson or anything with a panel nearly so complicated. It's simple in concept, but it can be very tedious and time consuming in practice.

First go into VC view, in a situation where the panel is in good light, and take a screen shot. Save it as a regular 24-bit Windows bitmap image.

Crop the image to show the part you want your 2D panel to cover, so it looks just like the VC. Make sure your image is in the same height:width proportions as the original 2D panel background. If you take the screenie in full screen mode with the zoom at the level you like to fly in, you may not have to do any cropping. Save the original 2D background somewhere outside the panel folder and give your new one the same name that the old one had.

Reload the plane and see where your gauges are on the panel. Unless the modeler took the trouble to make the original 2D and VC panels match pretty much perfectly (and if he did, you wouldn't be doing this project!) your gauges will be present but few if any will be in the proper positions on the panel. In fact, you may find that the 2D and VC panels don't even use all the same gauges, so you may have to make some substitutions.

This is where the tedious and time consuming part comes in. Now you have to adjust the locations of all your gauges to match their locations on the VC panel. There is software available to help you do that, but I have not been impressed with the fine details of gauge placement on many of the panels I've seen that were made that way. If you want precision, do the adjustments manually by editing each line entry in the panel.cfg file. Yep, tedious and time consuming! I suppose you could use a panel making program and just take the trouble to be precise with it.

Anyway, if you do it manually, here's an example of a line entry for one gauge:

gauge02=Piper_J3Cub!rpm, 327,281,44,44

You'll see that in the cfg file, the gauges are numbered starting with 00, them 01, 02 etc.

After the = comes the file name of the gauge followed by a comma.

After the comma come three or four numbers. They indicate the number of pixels in from the left side of the image, down from the top of the image, and the gauge's radios in pixels, first width, then (optionally) height.

In the example above, the width and height are the same, meaning that the gauge will have the shape of a circle or a square. You can adjust the shape of the gauge by changing those last two letters. Often, when the gauge is to be perfectly round or square, there will be only three numbers, with the third number indicating both width and height. If you wanted to reshape that gauge so that the width and height were not the same, you would just add a fourth number and fiddle with it.

I have done this with rather simple aircraft with rather simple panels. I would be quite intimidated by the prospect of doing it with a panel as complex as a Hudson. But if you want it badly enough, go to it, and you will surely be happy to have it.

Good luck!

[kdriver]

Here you go. The GPS gauges are for the ETO. You can substitute them with gauges for other theatres.

Kevin

[1150]

Hi Kdriver ,

The panel is really good but I seem to have very few gauges ; so I downloaded and applied to the "Gauges Section " all the ones I had at hand but I still only have about a third in total .

Could you possibly point me in the direction of the gauges ?

Thanks in advance ,

Regards,
1150
P.S.

I have a soft spot for the Lockheed Hudson as my old man was an Air frame fitter on the Hudson , Catalina and even worked on the Dutch Dornier Do-24"s that escaped to Broome in 1942 . But he loved the Hudson and the Catalina most of all and quite often flew as Rear Gunner or Waist Gunner on both of them mainly because he loved flying plus as a RAF Corporal he got extra Flight Pay !!!!

[kdriver]

Hi 1150,

I can't remember where I got the panel and gauges, but here they are.

My dad worked on both Hudsons and Catalinas as well. He was stationed at Milne Bay in 1942-1943. Hudsons of 6 Squadron were located there, along with 100 Squadron Beauforts and 75/76 Squadrons Kittyhawks. Following that he was posted to Townsville then Rathmines, working on Catalinas at both of those stations.

Let me know if you need any other gauges.

Kevin

[1150]

Hi Kdriver,

Thanks for the gauges; it all works fine now , I appreciate your efforts on my behalf .

My Dad was at Rathmines as well for a while ---I think 12 months or more .

I was going to say that with the Dutch Do-24's --- one of the Dutch pilots ran one of the Dorniers up on the beach at Broome and the old man spent 7 days repairing the tears in the hull and one of the three motors.

The pilot was apparently related to the Dutch Royal Family and treated everyone as an underling and servant .

He was still whingeing about it 50 years later!!!!

He was obviously not impressed at all .

Thanks again ,
Regards,
1150

[braveheart77521]

MicK; I would like to try your advice for the VCPanel. but I have been unable to use screenshot in Windows 10 and I cannot find any upgrade to fix it. Does anyone have a solution to this problem or is Windows 10 just a piece of crap!

Thanks Kevin for your panel and gauges.


Braveheart (Mack)

[braveheart77521]

Last night Mircosoft undated and fixed the screenshot function in my Windows 10. I successfully converted the Hudson VC panel into a workable main panel. I am now working on the gauge file to include with this panel. If anyone is interested, please let me know?

Braveheart (Mack)

[captmercy]

I think the origional had a nice 2d panel might be able to find it here

http://www.virtualwings.org/hudson/index.htm

Heres one of my better 2d projects from about 10 years ago

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/local_links.php?catid=55&linkid=530

[braveheart77521]

For members who are interested:

This is my Hudson panel made from Dave Carroll's Lockheed Hudson VC panel. I used one of his original aircraft, however, one of CaptMercy's Hudson conversions will do. I have included gauges, and two BmP files as well as two panel dps. One is clean and one shows the gauges (bmp panel). My Windows 10 doesn't like the Sperry autopilot so I used the another one. I also used the Mosquito bombsight, by personal preference. Feel free to adjust or replace gauges to suit your personal preference.

Braveheart (Mack)

[captmercy]

Yup I think the problem had something to do with the Sperry being in the 2d cockpit and clickable after I removed the 2d cockpit the problem was gone as the Sperry and other gauges and switches aren't clickable in the 3d VC cockpit found it works real nice as a passive repeater for the props auto pilot in the F9 window now