VC light question

[aeromed202]

I was playing around to make a dark green VC light option and found nothing changed a bright-as-day VC panel on a Twin Otter. I cannot figure if it being illuminated by a secret light or if it is something buried in the panel or model info. On a similar topic, anybody know what color theme Westland Sea Kings have for their panels? Red? Green? Blue? Does it vary? I have a green motif for Alphasims but wondered if I was on the right track. When I get the Green VC light done I'll add it to a couple different strobe fxs I made and post em.

[OBIO]

aeromed,

Whose Twin Otter are you working with? Where can I find it? Will take a look see and see what I can see.

OBIO

[aeromed202]

It's another PAD gem, the DHC6-400 (dhc6-400_9). I downloaded a fresh copy that still has the bright VC. The 2D panel responds to light changes but the VC is stuck on daytime. I'll probably try porting another PAD panel over because others don't have this issue.

[Milton Shupe]

Why not ask Bob May about this issue? They have always been pretty responsive to fixes.

[aeromed202]

He certainly is and I believe he prowls here regularly so I thought I'd post this first as bait :icon_lol: Hi Bob.

[OBIO]

aeromed

I took a look at the Twotter in question...and it is an odd panel behavior for sure. The rest of the VC goes dark, but the panel itself stays daytime bright...even without any lights on. Definitely something in the model file...but I have no idea what....never seen anything like it before.

OBIO

[Milton Shupe]

Sounds like there may be a panel_L.bmp in teh texture folder with a light gray texture used as self illumination.

Go to the panel folder and find the name of the bmp used as (for example vc01.bmp) attached to vcockpit01 section.

Find that named bmp with an _L in the texture folder.

For example:

[Vcockpit01]
file=vc01.bmp
Background_color=0,0,0
size_mm=1024,1024
visible=0
pixel_size=1024,1024
texture=$vc03

Then in the texture folder find:

vc01_L.bmp

That is your "light map" for that vcockpit section.

That texture is used at night when lights are turned on to act as additive lighting to the panel surface.

Open that texture. If it is solid gray, then that will brighten up all your panel surface and gauges for that section. You can make it darker, say around 50,50,50 or less, and it should be more subtle. FS adds the light values of 50,50,50 to the existing panel at night with lights out to brighten the panel.

If the bmp is a copy of the daytime panel section with gauge holes colored in with light grays, you can darken the panel surface (20,20,20) and simply leave a nice medium to dark gray (50,50,50 or more) in the gauge holes for backlighting the gauges.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: BTW, if you find an upside down panel in that texture, that is correct. You can flip it to work on it if your wish, just flip it back when done.

[OBIO]

Milton

Good thought...but not the answer in this case. There is no _L file associated with the VC panel bmp. It's odd that this plane suffers from this issue as none of the other Twotters do...and they have basically the same texture mapping....none have a _L bmp associated with the VC panels and they all go dark at night.

Tim

[Milton Shupe]

Milton

Good thought...but not the answer in this case. There is no _L file associated with the VC panel bmp. It's odd that this plane suffers from this issue as none of the other Twotters do...and they have basically the same texture mapping....none have a _L bmp associated with the VC panels and they all go dark at night.

Tim

How about posting a screen shot or we all are wondering in the dark.

Did you check the FS9/textures folder for that bmp?

Can you post the header section of vcockpit01 or shall we all go download this aircraft to fix the PAD issue.

The aircraft.cfg Lights section has no entries for the vacinity of the eyepoint values?

[aeromed202]

I can't post any pics for a day or two, but it's also worth noting that I think this panel is unique as it seems none of the other PAD Otters have the same as this one. That's why I was going to port another one over putting the problem aside. Thanks for the interest here. I really want to learn stuff about panels and it's rare to even momentarily stump you guys.:salute:

[Milton Shupe]

I do not mind helping but haven't the time to download and install.


Screen shots and copies of cfg sections help otherwise we are just wasting time guessing.

Meanwhile an email to PAD would have been appropriate.

[aeromed202]

I had time to shoot PAD an email and I'll try to post more info tonight. Thanks all.

[aeromed202]

Heard back from Bob who gives his sincere apologies but can't really do anything about it. As he looked into it the model file was probably responsible but it was created by the late Jean-Pierre and can't access the source files. That may some time be resolved but for the time being it is what it is. For anyone who's wondering what this is about here are some screens; night no lights, night with lights, day time.
578665786557864

[Milton Shupe]

You have two options for this aircraft:

1) scrap it, or

2) Paint the VCpan.bmp in the texture folders a dark gray/near black to change the vc panel to be suitable at night.

One other possibility is that someone can alter the model file if they can find the emissive setting for the vcpan.bmp or $panL, $panR, and $pancenter. If they can turn that off, you can use the vc_lights in the aircraft.cfg.


TESTS
If you eliminate the vcpan.bmp from teh texture folder, you get the 3 big white squares in the picture below.
If you eliminate the panel folder, you get the white panel shaped background.

You can override the designated vcpan.bmp in the panel.cfg (as the modeler chose not to specify one.)
You do that with a statement in each vcockpit section like this:

file=panL.bmp file=panR.bmp
file=pancenter.bmp

Place those 3 bmps in the panel folder.

The textures need to be the shape of the panel in texture named vcpan.bmp and be pure black above the glareshield to hide the tops of the 3 white squares.

[OBIO]

Milton,

Your post above gives me an idea....I will see if I can mod the emissive setting on the VC panel material via MDLmat. Those materials are generally near the bottom of LOD2, and they are always 100% transparent and black. Will see what I can come up with.

OBIO

GOT IT!

Will send the modified MDL file to Bob May so it can be posted on the PAD site.

5794557946

An odd thing...the material in this case was white (255,255,255) and had NO transparency to it at all. First time I have ever seen VC panels in anything other than pure black (0,0,0) with 100% transparency.

[aeromed202]

That's great, although I had no intention of abandoning this wonderful AC anyway, panel or no. I presumed that if the condition was from the model file, trying another panel probably wouldn't have changed anything anyway. Turns out as I was poking around files, there are any number of other AC with the same odd VC affect. Maybe you're onto a serviceable fix for those too.

[Milton Shupe]

You are the man OBIO! Did you adjust the vc_lights fx to compensate for the loss? And do the glass gauges work okay with that emissive background?

[OBIO]

aeromed

What other planes have this issue? PAD planes?

Milton,

I did not adjust the VC light entry in the config....and I did not test the glass gauages.....will give the gauges a test now.

OBIO

[Milton Shupe]

That's great, although I had no intention of abandoning this wonderful AC anyway, panel or no. I presumed that if the condition was from the model file, trying another panel probably wouldn't have changed anything anyway. Turns out as I was poking around files, there are any number of other AC with the same odd VC affect. Maybe you're onto a serviceable fix for those too.

I know the feeling. I cut my FS teeth on Barry Blaisdell's aircraft back in '99 and 2000. Must have 1000's of hours in his C-130s, Dash 7's and dhc-6's.

[OBIO]

Milton

The gauges work just fine...but they are kind of pale....when I modified the emissive level, I took it from pure white to pure black...is there a better level for this.....say 20% or 40% black (50,50,50 or 100,100,100 on the RGB scale)?

The vc light position definitely needs tweaked...and the actual light FX used changed...the stock one is too bright and harsh. I swapped out the PAD specified vc light for the FS9 default fx_vclight file, and it was better, but the position still needs tweaked.

OBIO

[aeromed202]

If I can catch up, I can at least position the VC light. I had some homework to help with first.


Looks like 10.70, 1.00, 2.0 will put it just to the pilot side of the panel face, or 11.80, 1.00, 2.0 will put it just to the nose side of the panel face, whichever, it's a starting point. +/-1 for the lateral should put them about yoke position if two are going in. I was using fx_vclight_deepred instead of the default.

[Milton Shupe]

Milton

The gauges work just fine...but they are kind of pale....when I modified the emissive level, I took it from pure white to pure black...is there a better level for this.....say 20% or 40% black (50,50,50 or 100,100,100 on the RGB scale)?

The vc light position definitely needs tweaked...and the actual light FX used changed...the stock one is too bright and harsh. I swapped out the PAD specified vc light for the FS9 default fx_vclight file, and it was better, but the position still needs tweaked.

OBIO


For normal emissive, 50,50,50 should be fine. Not sure of those gauges will require more. More would of course brighten the panel background even more.

[OBIO]

The PAD planes that I spend the most time in are the Twin Otters...and I just checked their VC panels at night...the panel itself is dark, but the gauges are lit up like high noon! Even with all the power off! This is not really a problem for me, since I don't do much night flying. But...to enhance the PAD planes and as a tribute to the late Jean-Pierre and his contributions to the sim community, I will see what I can do to rectify the night VC panels on ALL of the FS9 PAD planes. Each tweak is simple and only takes a minute or two....the time consuming part will be making sure I label each tweaked MDL file to correspond to the correct PAD download package.


Milton,

Will give 50,50,50 a try to see how that works for the panel. Pure black just seems to be too far to that extreme.

OBIO

[aeromed202]

It's only on certain panels. Most are of them have VC panels that as you say have black faces with lighter gauges and the whole sits very low on the screen. But these are easy enough to use at night and aren't as distracting as the other I posted screens of.

[expat]

Sorry I don't have an alternative solution but just wish to add that I am a great PAD fan and their DHC6 - 400 model is one of my favorite turboprops. Sound files merit a particular mention.

Also, the team effort here to gang tackle this request is impressive and indicative of why the SOH is a great group of helpful people.

expat

[Milton Shupe]

The PAD planes that I spend the most time in are the Twin Otters...and I just checked their VC panels at night...the panel itself is dark, but the gauges are lit up like high noon! Even with all the power off! This is not really a problem for me, since I don't do much night flying. But...to enhance the PAD planes and as a tribute to the late Jean-Pierre and his contributions to the sim community, I will see what I can do to rectify the night VC panels on ALL of the FS9 PAD planes. Each tweak is simple and only takes a minute or two....the time consuming part will be making sure I label each tweaked MDL file to correspond to the correct PAD download package.


Milton,

Will give 50,50,50 a try to see how that works for the panel. Pure black just seems to be too far to that extreme.

OBIO



Not sure why he used this method to do the gauge backlighting.
Normally, I assign a light map to the panel texture (emissive texture-in the case, it would be for the vcpan.bmp in the texture folder) and darken the panel to near black and put a medium dark gray in the gauge holes (or use more sophisticated amber lighting for eyebrow lights) to backlight the gauges. This gives you control over every area to highlight or darken. An example light map in this case would be vcpan_L.bmp. But I tried that in my investigation of the issue and it did not work. Also, the fact that this panel texture is near white makes it harder to deal with on a general basis.

[bobmay]

Not sure why he used this method to do the gauge backlighting.
Normally, I assign a light map to the panel texture (emissive texture-in the case, it would be for the vcpan.bmp in the texture folder) and darken the panel to near black and put a medium dark gray in the gauge holes (or use more sophisticated amber lighting for eyebrow lights) to backlight the gauges. This gives you control over every area to highlight or darken. An example light map in this case would be vcpan_L.bmp. But I tried that in my investigation of the issue and it did not work. Also, the fact that this panel texture is near white makes it harder to deal with on a general basis.

Thanks to Milton, OBIO, et al for spending time on this.
The VC panel lighting on the DHC-6-400 seems to be a rare mistake by Jean-Pierre. And it's my mistake too, if I had noticed it during test flying and brought it to J-P's attention he would have fixed it right away. Like OBIO, I don't do much night flying. :-(

Bob
PAD

[OBIO]

Bob

Even with the odd night lighting on the VCs, the DHC6-400 is a wonderful package. Jean-Pierre and the PAD crew blessed us with so many great planes to enjoy. I would never want anyone to think that I was belittling the work that Jean-Pierre put into his work......the man was a great developer....there is no doubt about that. I enjoy the Twin Otters, the Seabee and the Shorts S330 and S360 greatly. I presently have the S330 and S360 in my shop...developing new paint kits for them, doing some tweaks to the MDL files a bit here and there...and once I have these planes revamped, you will start receiving packages to share via your site.

OBIO

[srgalahad]

Well OBIO.. since you asked...

58038
PAD's Falcon 700....
the colour is OK, but it's a tad bright in there :}

[OBIO]

Roger that on the 700. Will download it and tweak it this weekend. Will also check all the PAD aircraft I have installed and make a list of those that need some tweaks. I find that all of the PAD planes are too shiny for my taste...too much specular shine. So I adjust them down to a more livable level. And tweak the material for the windows...a darker shade of gray, less transparency, lots of specular shine.

I will contact Bob from PAD and outline the tweaks I propose to make to the PAD MDL files (VC panel tweak were needed, reduced specular shine, tweaked glass) and see how he feels about having the PAD library "messed with" in this way. I don't want to seem to be dishonoring the legacy that Jean-Pierre left for us to enjoy...not in any way.

OBIO