Guage editing problem

[Bone]

I have re-guaged a number of port overs with great results, but now I've hit a snag. I've got the freeware FSD T-38A flying around in FSX Accell, except I can't seem to get it to take the new guages. I've edited the new guage names into the CFG virtual cockpit header, but none of the guages show up when I fly...only a static image of the panel will show. I've experimented with some coordinate changes hoping to get a guage to peak out from behind the bitmap image, but no dice.

Any ideas?

[Brett_Henderson]

I'll assume you know which gauges will and will not work.. and how a "cookie cutter" VC panel works..

So.. if NO gauges show at all; no matter what you do with coordinates; it sounds like a syntax error that renders a big part of the panel.cfg void.

[Bone]

I've used these same guages in other PO's, and they work great. The panel image in the T38A doesn't have the black holes where a missing guage is, like the other PO's I've done. It's just an image of the entire panel.

What sort of syntax error do you have in mind? I've gone over the cfg and compared it to others, but nothing seems to be different.

[Brett_Henderson]

The black holes aren't really telling. They can make for a more realistic looking panel background.. but those details can be the gauges themselves. The bitmap for the panel itself IS the background. Then.. the gauges are actual, individual polygons... with the gauges "mapped" to them, inside of the modeling program. That's where the coordinate system gets thrown out the window. The gauges are mapped onto the polygons form a big "sheet" of gauges (a bitmap that isn't even needed after the mapping), and then that "sheet" is "cookie-cut" onto all of the individual (otherwise invisible) polygons.

For example.. if you try to move a gauge to the right (by coordinates).. it will partially disappear from THAT polygon, and most likely START to appear on one of the other polygons.. with no real rhyme or reason to it. Once a gauge is mapped to its polygon.. THEN the modeler need only move that polygon where he needs it to be. THat lends itself well to multiple panels at multiple angles (like overheads or center consoles).

I'd have to see copies of the panel.cfg files, before speculating on syntax.. else we just might trade a dozen posts trying to debug it.