Miltons A-26_Night Lighting

falcon409

falcon409

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I posted this over in the FSX Forums but so far 86 views and no responses, so I'll try here. . . . . . .I am doing some night flights to finish a hoplist on our "little used" MP Flight Server and it seems that there are no interior lights for the VC. The line in the cfg file that denotes "Cockpit" is commented out and the one for "Cabin Lighting" is used for landing lights. Has anyone added VC lighting to the A-26 and if so can you share your expertise please? Thanks!
 
Sorry don't have time for a longer reply, in FS9 there is some amazing gauge backlighting for the A-26 done by SOH member RealOldSalt. Rich did some extra clever coding in the gauge xml files and you can take a look at this rather brilliant work in the .xml gauge files with any text editor. It is possible to actually turn-up or dim the gauge lights. Like I said, Brilliant!

There're a couple of knobs to the left side of the panel, both VC and 2D panels I think. Those combine with a couple of panel light (or nav light) switches to get lights on in the panel at night. I don't recall right now if there's a separate VC light, or possibly I added one.

I'm running FS9 and it sounds like you're in FSX so there may be differences there too. Holding mouse cursor over switches and gauges in the panel may show some "tool tips" that will help sort out which switches are doing what.

Hope that helps.
 
I've got what I think is a "straight from the box" A-26 installation in my GW3 install. There is a cabin light switch on the row of red covered switches and seperate panel and instrument light switches below the mag switch. To get the panel/inst lights to come on I have to turn on the landing light. The cabin light seems to be the standard white vc flood light while the panel lights are the red gauge backlight type. Since I seldom fly at night I had never noticed the link between the landing light and panel lights before. Have you tried that?

In FS9 in vc view assuming dark outside and no lights on in the plane, when I switch on the landing lights the panel lights come on at low level. When I turn on the inst light switch the instrument lights get brighter. If that won't work in FSX it must be a porting issue.

edit: I was just mucking about a little and the 2D and vc seem to have different behavior regarding light controls. The above pertains to the vc. In cockpit view the panel and instrument lights work independent of the landing lights and the cabin light seems inop.
 
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Ed,

The original FS9 and FSX port over versions worked the same on both sims.

The gauge back lighting is provided by vc01_L.bmp and it requires a black alpha.

The black alpha says "come on with any nav light bus light", i.e. any light other than landing lights.

The Panel switch is for startup/shutdown checklist/map reading and should be turned off once you are started (same for cabin lights).

The Instrument or Nav light or beacon switch should activate the vc gauge back lighting.

The Instr switch ROS uses to supplement gauge back lighting provided by vc01_L.bmp where intensity can be changed by rotating the rotary switch above it (controlled by gauge Comp Repeat.xml). I suspect this gauge may not work in the native version but should not be the main issue.

Native FSX panel back lighting works differently than FS9 and I am not certain Bomber_12th converted it.

The Cabin light switch is just a lighting effect in cfg light section again like the Panel switch light.

I hope this helps.
 
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