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VC light question

aeromed202

aeromed202

SOH-CM-2014
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.
 
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
 
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.
 
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
 
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.
 
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
 
OBIO said:
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
Click to expand...

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?
 
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:
 
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.
 
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.
View attachment 57866View attachment 57865View attachment 57864
 
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.
 
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.

View attachment 57945View attachment 57946

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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
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
 
aeromed202 said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
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
 
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