VC Pit Upgrade to FSX

[strikehawk]

Okay, I'll keep this short and to the point, I want to get the VC pit in a couple of planes updated to FSX standards. I understand that the gauges are placed to this this line entry....

texture=$vc1

I need to know where in the textures is this file located, I did find one that looked like the one so, here's the next question

If the texture I found is correct what can I do to get it to show in Panel Studio? In some of my older FS9 and FS8 panels there were these textures in the panel folder and that helped me to replace and add gauges to the VC.

My, and by extension the MFC's, problem is that a bird we would like to add to our inventory has a 2d panel that looks okay and that can be updated easily, the VC is in dire need of a rework. Most of the gauges are not sized right or for example the fuel gauge needs to display fuel in pounds as we need to know the weight of the A/C for a trap. The gauge reads like an auto's gas gauge, full/ half/ empty, and is of no use to us. Other items such as the MFD's are too small for some reason and are unreadable. So you see my problem I need to replace, that's easy, as well as resize and add things like radar or other diplays, harder because I have know real way of seeing where the gauge is during an edit. Any help or a kick in the right direction will be appreciated greatly.

[Firekitten]

Typically anything with the $ sign is a construction texture, not really one that exists to utilise.

Unfortunately, a lot of fsx aircraft have the panel set up in weird and wonderful ways, so other than to visually see the gauges, panel studio can be next to useless. Grab notepad, and go practice your manual swappery ninja skills. Sometimes simple is better, even if it does take longer. Without causing some problems there's really no way to get the panel to appear in the studio unless it was a textured 2d layer to start with (like some of Mlton's old aircraft) as you describe.

Fraid to the best of my knowledge, you may be doing it the hard way, And with more modern models using panel masks... restricted in what can go where...
sorry :S

[stansdds]

MicroSoft's (and some payware designers) make their VC panels so that the gauges are projected into holes in the panel. You cannot do much other than swap the positions of gauges as these holes cannot be altered.

[falcon409]

I'll be gone all day, so can't look into it until this evening, but what airplane are you talking about? Correctly stated, anything VC Panel related that has a "$" as part of the file name is a "placeholder", used in the modeling process to indicate where the VC panel will exist. Most times there is either a panel texture or VC texture in the texture folders for each livery, also, sometimes those textures are located in the panel folder (some of Milton's are like that). It's always nice when you can find panels that actually show up in FSPanel Studio, but some, like Tim Conrad's, are simply a full sheet of gauges that you can't move or replace because of the way they display in FSPS. Other times, the designer has made it so that even though the gauges aren't displayed on the actual panel (in FSPS) they are still arranged as they would be in the cockpit and it's relatively simple to move them around/replace them, although it takes a bit of work. . .almost nothing is impossible, just depends on how they display in FSPS and as for the panel itself. . . . .whether there's actually a panel that you can manipulate. . .sometimes they can be part of the model which makes changing them impossible.

[Milton Shupe]

Guys and Gals, this is not rocket science. You do not have to manually edit those pesky vcockpit sections manually.

Here is how I do it.

And by the way, the $vc01 is used by the sim to find the coordinates of the background upon which the gauges are displayed. There is no texture; its just a pointer for the sim.

To get FSPS to open and edit your vcockpit sections, follow this procedure:

1. make copies of your panel.cfg, one for each vcockpit section you have.
2. Now personalize each so that they have only the vcockpit section in it you wish to edit. So, panelvc01.cfg would only have vcockpit01 section in it. Panelvc02.cfg would only have vcockpit02 data in it... etc.
3. Now change the panel cfg headers info to make it look like a 2D panel cfg as I show in the attachment.
4. Keep the vcockpitnn header data like pixel_size, file=vc01 but add the necessary 2D stuff to keep FSPS happy.
5. Now open FSPS and browse to open your panelvc01.cfg and edit just as you would a 2D panelcfg.
6. When done, copy the new gauge data from your panelvc01.cfg to your main panel.cfg putting the new data in the vcockpit01 section.

There you have it. Works great if the gauges are not part of the model. Hope this helps.

[falcon409]

Great info Milton.....thanks.

[strikehawk]

That's exactly what I was looking for, Milton you are a true genius and all around good guy. Many thanks.

[Milton Shupe]

Thanks to Tom Gibson for this heads-up.

I just downloaded an upgrade to my version of FSPS and lo-and-behold .... you can edit vcockpit sections directly.

Makes life a bit easier. :-)

[jojohnson9]

Thanks to Tom Gibson for this heads-up.

I just downloaded an upgrade to my version of FSPS and lo-and-behold .... you can edit vcockpit sections directly.

Makes life a bit easier. :-)
I've had my current version of FSPS for a long time and never knew I could edit the VC directly. I have spent many hours fooling with VCs and most of the time have settled for poor results. Now I'll be spending the rest of this cold Maine winter fixing and changing some of the hundreds of panels I have. Oh, and flying some, too. Many thanks to Milton and Tom for all you do for this great hobby.

[n4gix]

Gosh Milton, FSPS has been able to open and edit the [VCockpitnn] entries for several years now. What it still doesn't do though is allow you to create a [VCockpitnn] entry directly. We still have to do that via notepad or other simple text editor, then load it into FSPS for completion...

FSPS still doesn't support 16:9 resolution 2d panels or sub-panels either, darn it! :blind:

[Milton Shupe]

I've had my current version of FSPS for a long time and never knew I could edit the VC directly. I have spent many hours fooling with VCs and most of the time have settled for poor results. Now I'll be spending the rest of this cold Maine winter fixing and changing some of the hundreds of panels I have. Oh, and flying some, too. Many thanks to Milton and Tom for all you do for this great hobby.

I have had my FSPS for 6-8 months I guess but, what I did not know is that what you get on a CD is a bit outdated and you need to go and download the latest updates to get current. :-/


Gosh Milton, FSPS has been able to open and edit the [VCockpitnn] entries for several years now. What it still doesn't do though is allow you to create a [VCockpitnn] entry directly. We still have to do that via notepad or other simple text editor, then load it into FSPS for completion...

FSPS still doesn't support 16:9 resolution 2d panels or sub-panels either, darn it! :blind:

Oh how I know that Fr. Bill. :-) That's what I have.