Gauges for Combat Flight Simulator

[Ivan]

Right after I finished the Fuel Gauges for the P-47, I was bit encouraged by the fairly rapid progress.
In the next day and a half, I created a full set of bitmaps for a Type B-5 Dual Magneto Gauge.

The programming behind the B-5 Gauge will be a bit more complicated than the others but will be based on a combination of the Hurricane Magneto Switches and the P-51D Magneto Switches that were done earlier.
The issue right now is trying to figure out the optimum set of mouse areas for the gauge.
Note that there are three separate switches on the gauge face of the B-5 Gauge.

The B-6 Gauge appears to be very similar to the B-5 but instead of a ON-OFF Toggle for the Master Switch, it uses a ON-OFF Push-Pull Knob.

- Ivan.

[hubbabubba]

Hello Ivan

I've been trying, twice in fact, to post but, despite my best efforts, SOH keeps logging me out.

So this is kind of a test as well.

Best way to work on any gauge bitmap is to make it large and hope the algorithms of the paint program you use are up to the resizing/aliasing/color depth palette processes. Saint Paint does a pretty decent job most of the time and I'm sure GIMP would be up to the task as well.

I really envy your talents in the dark art of gauge programming...

Hubbabubba

P.S.- It worked!!!

[Ivan]

Hello Hubbabubba,

Actually, I find that working with an image that is radically different in size from that of the final version often causes problems because it tends to be unpredictable about where the compressing happens.
In GIMP, there is the option of None, "Linear", "Cubic" or "Sinc / Lanczos3" when Scaling an Image.
I find when scaling an image smaller, "None" seems to work best because it doesn't introduce new colours that can get changed into something else when trying to fit back into a particular palette. Anything else tends to eliminate hard lines and everything becomes blurry.
When scaling larger, "Linear" seems to work pretty well but it is very seldom that I start with a small image and try to make it larger.
Another problem is sometimes there is an unpredictable loss of symmetry when scaling an image to a different size.

I like to have perfect symmetry because it lets me set a center of rotation for the needle without trying to remove a wobble that sometimes present with the SDK gauges.

All the concern for precision doesn't actually show up on the panel as you can tell by expanding the screenshots I have posted, but I know that they were as good as I could make them.

What I actually know about programming Gauges isn't really all that much. There are still a bunch of issues that I am having with Fuel Selector Gauges but as with designing using AF99, with each new project, I learn a bit more.
About half my time with these last few gauges has been spent going back and making corrections to prior projects.
Some of it was a lack of any standard solutions in the beginning and some was just making a LOT of non-critical errors just by being in a hurry and being sloppy. (Forgetting to change comments when renaming files, etc.)

If you are really interested, I can help you get set up to program your own gauges. For me the hardest part is the bitmaps rather than the actual programming.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

This was the first test of the B-5 Magneto Gauge.
The Mouse Areas appear to work fine.

Some of the logic behind the scenes also needs some debugging.
What happens when the Magneto Switches are moved and the Master Switch is OFF?
What happens when the Master Switch is turned on?

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

A couple hours later, with a few diversions in the middle such as peeling an apple for my Daughter and helping her warm up a snack, the Gauge is done. (At least for Engine1 and Engine2.)

The big ON-OFF Switch will cut all Magnetos if switched off but will not reset the Magneto knob for either engine.
When it is switched on again, it restores the status of the Magneto knobs to each engine.
Perhaps the real gauge works differently. I don't know. I have never actually handled a real one.
If anyone knows that the correct operation is different, please let me know.

The tough part about Gauge Programming is that there is no error checking of the Macros that are expanded to create the C++ code that is compiled to create the Gauge. Thus, if a programmer makes any errors, it may not be so obvious where the actual problem might be, or the error message is very misleading.

Next step is to complete the Gauge for Engine3 and Engine4 to have a pair which is a very simple task.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

The Gauge for Engine 3 and Engine 4 is done. It was pretty trivial and really a matter of find and replace in the code.
A Gauge that was conspicuously missing for testing purposes was Starter Switches for multiple engines.
I could only test the starting of Engine 1 easily.
This set of Gauges seems to be pretty trivial (famous last words).

A B-6 Dual Magneto Gauge should be a pretty easy progression from the B-5 that was just finished but I can't quite figure out how to graphically represent a Push-Pull knob instead of the Toggle Switch.
Attached image shows the B-6 Magneto used on the Douglas DC-3.

Another useful visual tool for testing purposes would be a nice 4 Engine Bomber. So far, I have been using my B-25C Mitchell and P-38 Lightning but with two additional invisible engines.
The invisible engines do not make for an easy confirmation that the correct engine is responding to controls.

- Ivan.

[hubbabubba]

Sorry if I do not post more often but, as I was saying, I keep being log-off, especially after long-winded post that take me lots of time for back-checking, loading links and image, that sort of things...

Of course, I would like to know more!!!

Editing while I have a change;
-Edit size of bitmaps to be in proportion to final gauge;
-Master switch on magnetos' pair was a mechanical-only device, made to "block" magneto in position. I know that because it is obvious in some B-17 training videos. If the bar linking both master switches was down, the "bunny ears" of the magnetos' switches couldn't physically rotate, at least in early models.
-Brits simply used a flip cover on theirs "tits type".

[Ivan]

Hello Hubbabubba,

On a regular Magneto Switch, if there is a second Magneto Switch, changing one affects the status of the Engine's L&R magneto status and the other switch will reflect what the current status is of the Engine's actual settings. It is strange looking, but flipping one Magneto Switch will cause the OTHER Magneto Switch to also flip to a different setting.

The problem here is that I was seeing the Master ON-OFF Switch as a master kill switch. Thus if it is off, it does not matter if the other individual Magneto Switches are being moved around. At least I don't think there is unless it is internal to the actual gauge.
The engine's actual magneto status needs to be OFF at that point because otherwise it would be able to run, so if the Master Switch is OFF, magneto status is OFF regardless of the position of the other switches on the gauge.
So unlike other gauges, the Magneto Switches on this Gauge do not pick up the Engine's actual magneto switch settings.

Now what happens when the Master Switch is turned ON?
It should pick up the current position of the Magneto Switches on the gauge of course....... Simple, right?
What happens if some OTHER magneto gauge is also changing the engine magneto status?
I am not sure but at this point, I am simply ignoring that possibility because there should not be multiple magneto gauges controlling the same engine on a single panel.

Details about the Gauges:
In general, I try to stay around a 300 x 300 Background Bitmap.
There isn't a real "Standard" Size though I have a few such as 315 x 315 or 303 x 303.
This is a legacy of the bitmap sizes in the FS 98 SDK that I started with.
Its sample gauges were mostly around that size.

The Background for the P-47 Fuel Gauges is actually only 291 x 291.
This is because I started with the stock bitmaps extracted from the P47.gau Multi-gauge but expanded them to 3X original size so that I could have room for lettering. As it turned out, I kept nothing but general arrangement and only a few colours from the stock bitmap, so it really didn't matter.

The Background round section for the B-5 Magneto is also around 300 x 300 but the actual Background is now 525 x 405 because I needed room for the "Rabbit Ears", and the Master Switch sticking out in various directions.

The P-47 Fuel Gauges are specified to be Width 61 because that is what size of the Stock Gauge was. Stock bitmap is 97 x 98 pixels, so my 3X version originally was 291 x 294 pixels but I corrected that to 291 x 291 because the difference was really just 1 pixel in the original. I replaced EVERYTHING anyway, so I should have increased the size of the bitmaps.
If I had increased to 303 x 303, the letters would not be so cramped on the gauge....

The B-5 Magneto is still Width 100 because that is the default width in the FS 2000 SDK and because I have not yet used it in a real panel to get a feel for what size it should be relative to other instruments.

Development Environment is MS Windows 8.1 Operating System Intel Core I7 4th Generation processor.
Compiler is Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.
I found that Visual Studio 2005 can generate code for Gauges that will run on every Operating System as far back as Windows 98 SR2.
I don't run any flight simulators on my Windows 8.1 Laptop, but I know that programs compiled with Visual Studio 2005 will run there because I compile utility programs using the same compiler.
My Windows 98 Desktop Development Machine only has GNU C and the version of compiler it is using is not object code compatible with Windows 8.1.

Hope that addresses most of what you are interested in.

- Ivan.

[hubbabubba]

Look at the starting procedure at 19:34.

[hubbabubba]

Now look at the cut-off of the engines, starting with #2 and 3 while taxiing at 23:27.

Ignition (all) off at 24:52.

But master only switched-off quite later.

[Ivan]

Hello Hubbabubba,

Keep in mind that the kind of Magneto Switch installed may have varied from one version of the aircraft to another.
What is in the film is one of the earlier B-17s, probably B-17E or B-17F.
There were also several four engine versions (which I am NOT planning to build).
One of them had the Magneto knobs going in all four directions from the gauge.

The real potential killer as I see it from a gauge programming standpoint will be the fuel selector setup with crossfeed as found on the P-38 series. I still have not figured out a few issues with fuel selectors for some of the non-FS 98 tanks yet. It obviously CAN be done but *I* don't know how to do certain things.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

One of the things that has bothered me for a while is that there was no "Reasonably Appropriate" Fuel Gauge for the A6M Series panels that I had been working on. The A6M2 had about 145Liters in its Fuselage Tank and 195 Liters in its Wing Tanks but the only stock metric gauges were from the Bf 109E (400 Liters) or FW 190A which was also in the same range.

I had programmed a gauge for the BV 141B-0 which was of 550 Liter capacity.
I figured that redoing the gauge for around 200 Liters capacity (actually 220 Liter limit) would be pretty easy.
The later model A6M3 Model 32 had 205 Liter Wing Tanks and even later versions had combined Wing and Aux tanks of a bit larger capacity which I may address later or not address at all. (Some of these tanks may not have had gauges installed.)

As usual, the Bitmaps (Only the Background this time) was the hardest part.
The tick marks took a couple of tries because I apparently cannot do simply math properly at times.
In about two hours from the start (with some corrections to the original 550L Gauge for default size), I had a working gauge suitable for the A6M2.

Attached are screenshots of the Panel before and after. The Fuel Quantity Gauge is in the Upper Row left side of the panel.
The original gauge is from the stock FW 190A.
The panel isn't really entirely accurate. The actual GaugeS are on the left console and have separate gauges for each tank.
The position occupied by the Fuel Quantity Gauge was actually used for a EGT gauge for fine tuning mixture for best fuel consumption.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

A couple days ago, I decided I would finish up the "Hurricane-Style" Fuel Selector I had been working on.
The last thing that was really difficult was the pointer. I decided to model my version after the one used on other Hawker aircraft such as the Typhoon / Tempest series.

Folks might be wondering: Why create what is essentially a duplicate of the stock Hurricane Mk.I Fuel Selector?
Reasons are the following:
1. I don't know if others have the same problem, but I have trouble seeing the direction the selector is pointing on the stock gauge.
2. The Hurricane_1 Gauge cycles in one direction. This is a knob that only rotates in one direction and one has to possibly pass through other positions to get to the intended position.
3. The markings do not make sense. There is a "Reserve" position marked but it is not selectable. The British would not have shown a "Center" Tank. Their spelling would have been "Centre".
4. As typical of the stock gauges, the graphics are quite poor quality. They are perhaps sufficient for the scale of the typical panel, but up close, they are a mess.

This is a simple three-position fuel selector, so I was VERY surprised when I literally had a stray pointer as shown by the first screenshot. Note that although the gauge is located properly in the A6M panel, the Pointer seems to have escaped and is hiding at the upper left corner of the screen.
The interesting thing is that the point reflects the status of the selection on the gauge and the gauge responds to mouse clicks.

I did a line-by-line code comparison of the broken gauge with the original it was copied from that was presumably working and could not find any obvious problems in the areas I checked. I also compared the code against the L-R Two Tank selector that was done for the Airacobra which I KNEW was working and could still find no obvious problems.
Eventually, I just scrapped the code and started over with the Airacobra Fuel Selector.
The second try worked without a problem.

There are actually very few files involved, so at some point, I will go back and do a comparison between the current working version and the broken version. In theory they should be the same though obviously they are not.
(Besides the Makefile used to drive the program compile, there are only about 4 source files besides the bitmaps.)
The second screenshot shows the new working gauge.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

Recently after resuming a bit of Gauge Programming to create a Russian Magneto Switch for the Lavochkin fighters, I discovered that I could not locate the build directories for a couple P-47 Fuel Gauges I had done VERY recently.
I almost got to the point where I was considering building them again until I went through this thread and found how recently they had been done (March 2020).
It seems that with those two Gauges, my naming convention was a bit inconsistent and they just were not where I expected them.

For duplicate CFS Gauges such as the P51D Coolant Temp Gauge, the hierarchy is CFS-Aircraft-GaugeType.
For my own newly created Gauges, the hierarchy is KPW-GaugeType-Specifics where specifics may be Aircraft, Nationality, or something else uniquely identifying. The point is that All Fuel Gauges were expected to be in a group and these were not.
I still need to go back and correct that.

The Russian Magneto Switch isn't quite as straightforward as a direct copy of code from the CFS P51D Magneto I had done earlier. The ordering of the switch positions is different.
Now that it is done, its code seems to be directly compatible with a Japanese Magneto Switch.
I just need to find some clear images of what the markings are on the face of that Gauge.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

The positions on the Russian Magneto appeared to be the same as those for the Japanese A6M.
Yesterday was spent trying to find the markings to put on the face of the Japanese Magneto.
This turned out to be a much more difficult task than anticipated.
Most images of the Gauge are so small that the writing is unreadable.

Eventually I found a reasonable photograph which is attached.
Anna Honey helped me translate the markings so that I could get them lettered properly on the Gauge face.
Although the originals are rotated to match the switch alignment, I found that rotating the Kanji made it pretty much unreadable, so that is a detail I will not try to reproduce.

The programming changes were not particularly complicated but I finished up so late that I did not have a chance to test and get screenshots. I will post screenshots when I can.

-------

The next Gauge project will be a fairly simple one. It will be a set of multi engine Starter Switches.
The question is what appearance the switches should take.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

Just finished updating the panel on a "Throw-away" A6M3 Test Aircraft.
This is the same aircraft that was used to test the vertical CoG change a few months ago.
It is a "Throw-away" because although its visual appears correct inside the simulator, its entire model was moved via SCASM edits and will not show up correctly in programs such as DPEdit that read the actual MDL code.

Three Gauges have been replaced in the panel since it was last edited.
The Fuel Gauge was from the stock FW 190A and is now a custom 250 Liter Gauge.
The Fuel Selector was from the stock Hurricane Mk.I. The new Gauge has a similar appearance but allows the knob to turn left or right instead of forcing a cycle through all three positions.
The Magneto Switch is new and at this point only Engine1 has been tested here.

Of the three Gauges, I am really satisfied with only one: the 250 Liter Fuel Gauge.
The other two have no functional, but do have slight appearance issues that I believe need addressing.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

Recently I have been trying to update my La 5FN that was originally built back in 2003.
At the time I worked on that project, I wasn't very concerned with setting up a proper panel.

The main objective was to build a nice looking visual model without significant bleeds.
I also didn't know much about flight modelling at the time so all I really tried to do was get the basic geometry of the airframe and engine correct and try to tune for maximum speed.

When NoDice wanted to host some of my projects at his site, I had no objection. I was also not surprised to see that he chose to substitute Panels and Gauges by MoparMike because all I had done was to alias the La 5FN panel to that of the stock P-47D.
Recently I decided to actually look at what the replacement panel looked like and I am amazed.
It isn't perfect, but it is much better than anything I am likely to achieve any time soon.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

Attached is a screenshot of the updated panel for the A6M3 Test Aircraft.
It now incorporates all the current gauges I have for the A6M series.
The newest gauge is a Japanese Magneto Switch.
The Japanese MP gauge replaces the CHT gauge which is moved to the right side.
The difference between versions of this panel the fuel gauge because of the different fuel capacities between different models of the A6M.

The only thing really conspicuously missing at this point is a proper Air Speed Indicator.
The one on the A6M should read in Knots instead of KPH.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

About a month ago, I was looking through the Gauges Directory of my Development Machine.
I was looking at a downloaded aircraft that seemed to have an incomplete set of gauges and I did not actually find the gauge that was missing from the PANEL.CFG of that aircraft.

In looking through the directory, I found quite a few gauges that might be useful, but I also found many partial sets of gauges in which there was instrumentation for three engines but not four or just two engines when a full set of four would have been quite useful.

With single gauges these were obviously FS98 types, but I still can't imagine an author not spending the additional half hour necessary to create a full set for four engine aircraft even if he doesn't need it. I just wonder what may have happened to the others in the set.

With the FS2000 SDK that I am currently using, EVERYTHING is a library or SET of Gauges.
The question is just what the designer (in this case, Me) chooses to put into the set.

Some folks (notably M$) choose to put in all the gauges related to a particular aircraft.
I am not sure how well that works when there may be several variant of an aircraft such as with the Mustang or Thunderbolt. Both had different configurations of fuel tanks depending on the model and a fuel selector or fuel quantity gauge for one model may not be appropriate for another.
Early Mustangs did not have a fuselage fuel tank and Thunderbolt fuel tanks varied in size.
Even with the FW 190A, some models had three fuel tanks and some only had two with a MW50 tank.

So far, my choice has been with most non-engine gauges has been to do singles even in a library.
With engine gauges, where it makes sense and where I didn't get too lazy, I have been doing full sets for four engines even though I haven't work on anything with more than two engines.

Anyone care to give their thoughts as to whether this idea makes sense or is there a better one?
(Still refining best practices.....)

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

Gauge Backgrounds are almost always the worst part of constructing a new gauge.
That is why about a half dozen gauges I have programmed thus far have used either the stock Microsoft Gauge images or slightly modified versions of them.

With the Backgrounds and Pointers already completed, the task of programming to complete the Gauge doesn't seem quite as daunting and gets done faster. This time, I am taking a slightly different approach.
The Background and other images for the "3 in 1 Engine Gauge" are quite small and poor quality. I magnified each image to be approximately the size of the image I would use if I were starting from scratch and just made corrections by hand. The results are not great, but good enough and the sizes are such that there will be minimal code changes when I create better images to use for a new gauge.

The original unmodified gauge is shown in the upper right in the attached screenshot.
The multi engine gauges show that at least some of the coding should not be difficult.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

Here was a minor diversion from the last project.
The Bitmaps took a day or so after I figured out it wasn't such a great idea to actually copy the tick marks on the original gauge which are arranged in a somewhat odd pattern. The gauge is installed on the lower right of my "Corsair" panel.

The first image is one of the actual gauge.
The Second is the installation in the panel of a F4U-1A (With outboard wing tanks) which explains the fuel selector.

Note that the Fuel Selector is mine rather than the one from the P51D.

The Third screenshot is just the -1A Corsair which could use a few updates.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

One of the amusing things about panels for Navy fighters for Combat Flight Simulator is that the ones I have encountered tend mostly to have Air Speed Indicators calibrated in MPH instead of Knots. Since I don't happen to have a ASI reading in Knots, I thought I would try to address this issue.

This is the result for a first attempt. There are still some issues that need to be addressed.
The background is derived from the stock P51D Airspeed Gauge and the result did not turn out as good as I had hoped.
Now that the programming behind the scenes is mostly done, creating a new Background seems to be less of a chore.
It is more a case of instant gratification once it is done rather than having more tasks after that.

For now, this Gauge will do until I can finish a replacement.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

This morning I decided to update the panel for my P-40N by replacing the FW190A fuel selector with the one programmed specifically for the P-40N.
I don't know that the appearance is improved, but the gauge looks more like the real thing.
The other gauge that is not a stock gauge is the Radiator gauge. This one actually works like it should.
The P-40N is awaiting new propeller tables before a re-release. At the moment, there are no extra technicians available to work in that area.

The reason why this Fuel Selector is specific to the P-40N is that although just about every model of P-40 had the same three internal fuel tanks, the naming of the tanks between models was not consistent and markings on the Fuel Selector would have been different.

The reason for this slight diversion is that I am currently working on a Fuel Selector for the FW 190D and from a logic standpoint, a lot of the code will be lifted from what I did for the P-40N Fuel Selector. This is often how it works with gauge programming. Two gauges that have nearly no resemblance to each other are quite similar from a programming standpoint.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

Attached is a screenshot showing the new two position FW 190 style Fuel Selector.
This functionality was already available in the stock P47D Fuel Selector but the appearance wasn't quite right for a FW 190D.
There is also a three position version in the same set just for completeness.

None of these recent Fuel Selectors that extend beyond the FS98 Fuel Tanks is completely correct but they are good enough to get the projects that need them moving. They will be improved whenever I learn how to do it.

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

The Bitmaps for this Gauge set were pretty typical and took a couple days to create.
The programming for the gauges took well over a week which is pretty unusual for a set of fuel gauges.
There were two basic problems. One was very poor and incomplete documentation in the SDK. The other was that I managed to goof very very slightly when copying the code for the Main Fuel Gauge to the Reserve Fuel Gauge.

The Reserve Fuel Gauge kept indicating the same as the Main and that did not make sense.
All the variable declarations looked correct but the gauge still did not behave correctly.
I finally decided to comment out the code for the Main gauge to see what would happen.
The compile failed with an undeclared reference in the Reserve gauge code..... It was undeclared because it was using a variable from the Main gauge code which was no longer being included.

The attached screenshot shows the gauges being tested in a twin engine aircraft with fuel tanks configured the same as on the typical P-38 without tip tanks.

The fuel for the Left Aux tank (which represents the Lightning's Left Main) has been dumped.
The Left Main tank (which represents the Lightning's Left Reserve) obviously has fuel being drawn as does the Right Aux tank which represents the Lightning's Right Main.
Without a fuel selector, this is the best configuration to use because the default fuel usage will be the recommended order.

- Ivan.