Avro Lancaste and DeHav Mossie Gauges

[DickB]

DICKB - Thanks all offers gratefully accepted. I have been doing a clean install and reinstall of the Ross McLennan stuff. I have about 6 weeks to get myself up to speed do have a go at the Dam Buster mission which were conducted in Mid May. I needed to weed out and sort out a lot of stuff involving 2D panels which by and large I do not use as I prefer the VC mode of simulation. I have also updated the Celestial Sextant gauge to the new one. By the time you have done that you have an amazing selection of Lancasters including the Canadian built models not to mention paints. I don't know why but the Plane Design Lancaster is without a doubt one of my favourites. When I have done the Dambusters stuff I am going to have a go at the grand tour by the Australian Lancaster from the UK across to America then across the Pacific and on to Australia for to wave the flag and show it off and raise funds for war bonds in Australia in WW2 so the celestial guage is going to be handy. Still working on the views so I can bring up the astrodome, navigator views by shift key but only so much time and I have already spent the best part of 3 days on the clean up etc.

I have to admit I haven't spent much time with the McLennan package. When I saw you had to fly the mission in the 2D cockpit that rather put me off. And I wasn't really happy with the flight model he used. But no doubt he put a helluva lot of work into it.

Have to agree that the PD Lanc is still the best out there, even though it is long in the tooth. We keep trying to persuade Ed to release the native FSX version that he had on the stocks, but so far no luck

I have sent you PM.

 

[PhantomTweak]

My mistake, I apologize. I am pretty sure the default fx_vclight.fx is the red version. I always prefer to use the fx_vclight_grn.fx (green). There are many add-on light sets, like from Nick N., that have a variety of vclight colors available, all freeware. Might want to take a look in the library here, at Flightsim, Simviation, whatever your preferred site is
Pat☺

 

[Javis]

I have no idea how you get that beam effect into FSX screens and judging by the drama that Visser had with the C-47 project I would say it is a problem because of the way light is run by texture files.

FYI, basically there are two types of 'light' that can be installed in an FSX VC. The first being the ambient type of light that can light up the whole VC or just parts of it depending on the position params. It is called in the aircraft.cfg via the [lights] section and can make use of the various default or custom 'fx_vclight*.fx' files that reside in the FSX/Effects folder.

This is also the type of light that can mean 'the drama with the C-47' that you speak of. If one doesn't know about this FSX bug and is confronted with it 'on the job' a true drama indeed. This bug however only rears its ugly head if normal maps (bump maps) are used on top of the diffuse maps for VC textures. It just leaves a grey, non textured appearance on every object that has a bump map applied as soon as you turn the ambient light on. The C-47, in this case, still uses bump maps for the VC but *only* during the day.

A secondary VC light source can be accomplished via special 'night' textures. As the name suggests these bitmaps are displayed only during dusk/night/dawn situations and are blended in with the diffuse maps. Here's where f.i. the 'beam effect' that you speak of regarding the Lancaster panel comes into play. Relatively easy to do as most paint programs today offer something like a light beam or splash to be displayed on top of a texture bitmap. It will darken the original and lets you create multiple natural looking light beams from any position and direction and in every size and strenght you'd see fit.

In case of the Lancaster panel, together with the 'physical' appearance of the two lamps this will make for a striking effect during dusk/night/dawn and can be any color ( if you're inventive enough add a switch with which you can change the light from, say, white to red.. ;-)

cheers,
jan

 

[DickB]

My mistake, I apologize. I am pretty sure the default fx_vclight.fx is the red version. I always prefer to use the fx_vclight_grn.fx (green). There are many add-on light sets, like from Nick N., that have a variety of vclight colors available, all freeware. Might want to take a look in the library here, at Flightsim, Simviation, whatever your preferred site is
Pat☺

You may be right. I think I settled on the navred effect because the vclight didn't give me the result I wanted. But it was a long time ago

 

[DickB]

FYI, basically there are two types of 'light' that can be installed in an FSX VC. The first being the ambient type of light that can light up the whole VC or just parts of it depending on the position params. It is called in the aircraft.cfg via the [lights] section and can make use of the various default or custom 'fx_vclight*.fx' files that reside in the FSX/Effects folder.

This is also the type of light that can mean 'the drama with the C-47' that you speak of. If one doesn't know about this FSX bug and is confronted with it 'on the job' a true drama indeed. This bug however only rears its ugly head if normal maps (bump maps) are used on top of the diffuse maps for VC textures. It just leaves a grey, non textured appearance on every object that has a bump map applied as soon as you turn the ambient light on. The C-47, in this case, still uses bump maps for the VC but *only* during the day.

A secondary VC light source can be accomplished via special 'night' textures. As the name suggests these bitmaps are displayed only during dusk/night/dawn situations and are blended in with the diffuse maps. Here's where f.i. the 'beam effect' that you speak of regarding the Lancaster panel comes into play. Relatively easy to do as most paint programs today offer something like a light beam or splash to be displayed on top of a texture bitmap. It will darken the original and lets you create multiple natural looking light beams from any position and direction and in every size and strenght you'd see fit.

In case of the Lancaster panel, together with the 'physical' appearance of the two lamps this will make for a striking effect during dusk/night/dawn and can be any color ( if you're inventive enough add a switch with which you can change the light from, say, white to red.. ;-)

cheers,
jan

Interesting. Though would not the night textures only display when FSX thinks it's night ? I like to fly late pm through dusk into night, and only turn on the panel lighting when I feel like it, not when FSX thinks it's dark.