Gauge bitmaps

[Willy]

I've been playing around with some gauge bitmaps, doing a few changes, etc. Sometimes when I'm done, save as a normal bitmap and start up the sim, the bitmap doesn't show up. But sometimes it will. I haven't figured out any rhyme or reason to it yet. Is there a special format for xml gauge bitmaps that I'm unaware of?

Example, I took the CalClassic DC-6 airspeed indicator, changed the red and yellow areas to fit a C-46 and saved it. Looked great until I fired up the sim and checked it out. All I had was the gauge outer bezel and the needle. The rest was black.

On the other hand, I took the TWI wind drift indicator, gray scaled it to make it look a bit old school and it works fine.

Like I said, no rhyme or reason to it. I've got to be missing something simple here.

 

[Bjoern]

Gauge bitmaps need to be in 24bit .bmp format.

 

[Willy]

I appreciate the suggestion, but when I saved it as a 24bit .bmp, it still won't show in FS.

 

[Milton Shupe]

Are you returning the bmp to the original cab or folder?

Is the path in the gauge statement pointing to it.

Are you certain the name did not change?

 

[Willy]

Back to the folder I got it from with no name change. Just a little touching up on the .bmp file.

I've run into this with several others as well.

 

[gaucho_59]

Just one question....

Back to the folder I got it from with no name change. Just a little touching up on the .bmp file.

I've run into this with several others as well.

What program did you use to extract the original bmp from the gau. file? Are you using GAUBMP2? or just open the bmp files directly and then save them?
My experience with GAUBMP2 is that all the bmp are 256 colors... anything more hi-def... like 8bit color will not show...

G.

 

[Willy]

They came in a folder with .bmp & .xml files. They weren't .cab or .gau files

Opened them directly and saved. After the 24bit suggestion above, I ran it through DXTBmp saving as a 24bit file. No luck. I'm thinking that it's probably something simple that I'm not doing.

 

[tgibson]

Do not run through DXTBmp. Just save in your favorite paint program as 24 bit ("millions of colors"), and use that.

 

[tgibson]

Are you using Vista or later and is this FS installation inside any Program Files folder?

 

[Willy]

XP 64bit and it's location is E:\Flight Sim\Flight Simulator 9 (This comp's C drive isn't that big and the E drive is massive for FS purposes)

I just tried DXTBmp to see if that would make a difference. It didn't. I've been using usual paint programs for all my painting

For some reason, I'm thinking that it would not be surprising if XP 64bit is the problem. It was a bit of a stopgap for 64bit computers until MS could get Vista out.

BTW Tom, your DC-6 gauges for the most part work very well in the C-46.

Here's what I did with the ASI. I've got C-46 added to the name only for painting purposes so I could keep the wip and the original in the same folder without one trying to overwrite the other.

 

[gaucho_59]

I see now...

XP 64bit and it's location is E:\Flight Sim\Flight Simulator 9 (This comp's C drive isn't that big and the E drive is massive for FS purposes)

I just tried DXTBmp to see if that would make a difference. It didn't. I've been using usual paint programs for all my painting

For some reason, I'm thinking that it would not be surprising if XP 64bit is the problem. It was a bit of a stopgap for 64bit computers until MS could get Vista out.

BTW Tom, your DC-6 gauges for the most part work very well in the C-46.

Here's what I did with the ASI. I've got C-46 added to the name only for painting purposes so I could keep the wip and the original in the same folder without one trying to overwrite the other.

Your problem resides with how you extract and try to put back those bmp files...
You need to use GAUBMP2! It is very simple and fool-proof....
You open the .gau file with it... then comes a screen with menus... gau to bmp and bmp to gau...
when you double click gau to bmp... it shows all the bmp associated with the mlx file... you export them one by one to your editor (PSP or Photoshop, etc.) and open... work on them and then put them pack with the menu bmp to gau... (making sure that the finalized bmp is 256 colors... no more...
and this will put the gau. file back together with the retouched bmps... just the way it was originally....
it never fails and like I said.. it is full proof...
g.

 

[Willy]

It's not a .gau file. It's a bitmap with an accompanying .xml file.

 

[Tom Clayton]

Try opening the file in Imagetool. If there's anything odd in the formatting, it'll show there.

 

[gaucho_59]

Puzzling... because

It's not a .gau file. It's a bitmap with an accompanying .xml file.

In order for the xml and bmps to work together they are compounded into a gau file... Amongst the components of a gau file...
The xml part is the gauge animation and static display instructions...(code) and the bmps are the stuff you see ... static bezels, faces, moving needles, etc... as far as I have experienced... that is what ALL gau files encompass...and a cab... is a collection of gau. files...etc.

In other words... this bitmaps with accompanying xml code... must appear somewhere as a file... wherever you got them...
You haven't explained WHERE you got the bmps and how... so it's not easy to see what is going on...
At any rate... I think that it might be worth your while to get that little GAUBMP2 mini program... and explore its possibilities... it also helps you to
set up a little gau. workshop... where you "dismantle" a gau file and re-work its images...

Cheers,
G.

 

[nigel richards]

Example, I took the CalClassic DC-6 airspeed indicator, changed the red and yellow areas to fit a C-46 and saved it. Looked great until I fired up the sim and checked it out. All I had was the gauge outer bezel and the needle. The rest was black.

Willy; Providing you have followed and checked the excellent HU above, please check the following;

1.Depending upon which paint program you are using, check in your MODE/IMAGE settings:

This should be;
RGB Colour
8 Bits/Channel

2.Check the colour values of areas of 'black' e.g. on masks MUST be ;

R:1
G:1
B.1

Anything else may affect or blacken your image - exactly what you're experiencing.

3.Double check your IMAGE SIZE is exactly as the original gauge. E.g. 300 x 300 pixels - check the original gauge.bmp size to make doubly sure.

Hope this helps

 

[Willy]

The gauges came with California Classics DC-6 panel. They reside in a regular folder inside the main gauges folder as just .xml and .bmp files. No special programs required to access.

Ok, found that GAUBMP2 program. According to the readme, it's an old program by Chuck Dome. Downloaded it and tried to start it up and it errored out. But there's usually more than one way to skin a cat.


Nigel in the bitmap that I attached above, the area outside the gauge face is 0,0,0. The gauge face itself is 0,0,10 according to Pixia

Edit: Just opened it in PSP 6 and that says 0,0,0 & 26,26,26 Anyway the face is not pure black.

 

[Willy]

Try opening the file in Imagetool. If there's anything odd in the formatting, it'll show there.

ImageTool doesn't like XP 64Bit. It errored out on install saying it won't run on this comp.

 

[Willy]

Success!

Ok, I feel like a bit of a dunce but when I downloaded the GAUBMP2 program, it came in a package with some other programs. One of them I had years ago, CfgEdit which is like a fore runner of FS Panel Studio, but has issues with .xml gauges. I thought about installing that, but I've had FSPS installed for several years now but all I've used it for is to swap out gauges and reconfigure gauge locations on panels. But I dimly remembered that there was a create a gauge function with FSPS that I'd never messed with. So, I pulled the C-46 into the hanger

and commenced to monkeying with the gauge options. I found an edit gauge function there and went to playing with that. Then I got the bright idea of putting my bitmap back into the gauge folder that I've been messing with and let it overwrite the DC-6 one that was already there. Opened the gauge editor back up and there was my bitmap. It put me into PSP to edit, but all I did was save it there. Saved the gauge in FSPS and went to see what I had.

One custom C-46 ASI indicator

Beats the heck out of me what FSPS is doing when saving the gauge, but it works and I'll be using this more often. (Look out! He's got a little knowledge and is utterly dangerous)

 

[Willy]

And here's a few pics of the process I used..

 

[tgibson]

It appears to me that your paint program may be saving the file with some unexpected attributes that FS doesn't like. At least you've found a workaround, which is great.