Page 1 of 1

Virtual Cockpit Canopy Rain

PostPosted: Wed Mar 19, 2014 8:24 pm
by paly
Quite by accident I discovered the Spartan Executive FSX port-over featured cockpit canopy rain.
Now, I did a thorough search a couple of months back and it was stated it cannot work in FSX (apart from a few payware models) so I gave up in despair

Well I'm here to tell you that information isn't quite correct

For whatever reason, during the port-over of most FS9 aircraft, the textures have been converted for bump-map or whatever, and in the process some windscreen panels have been replaced.
True of at least 1 version of the Spartan I found online. The one I eventually downloaded wasn't tampered with.
The model.mdl calls for 'animate_VCRainMoving' on particular textures assigned to the model to be present, and of course, they're not, they're nice shiny DDS files.

I am aiming at this, because I have just tried out a Carenado Mooney 2004 model, and guess what - Cockpit Rain Effect !

Go ahead, try out some others, if like me, Rain is important to you. I'm gonna try some of my other favourite planes right now!
I'm hoping I can merge the best bits of both aircraft, so I get pretty descent graphics if it's an FSX plane.
Most likely it's just a question of using the FS9 aircraft.mdl and it's window/glass textures

Enjoy !! :P

Re: Virtual Cockpit Canopy Rain

PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 6:45 am
by Bass
Looking forward to see more about your experiments with other planes, and maybe a little blast on a neat little instalations :dance:

Re: Virtual Cockpit Canopy Rain

PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 9:27 am
by paly
At last !! I have it working in the D18S Twin Beech (Miltons) Hoorah!

This is just too perfect. What I have been searching for for so long.

I want, now, to be able to edit these textures, so that when flying in heavy showers you'll generally have a hard time seeing the runway

Re: Virtual Cockpit Canopy Rain

PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 10:34 am
by Bass
Hehe....
Looking forward for not seeing anything forwards me :clap:

Re: Virtual Cockpit Canopy Rain

PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 11:26 am
by Fozzer
Bass wrote:Hehe....
Looking forward for not seeing anything forwards me :clap:


That's the time I wish that my Motorcycle Goggles had windscreen wipers on them!

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Motor ... l&tbm=shop

Paul....Biking Blind!.... :shock: ....!

.... :lol: ... :lol: ...!

Re: Virtual Cockpit Canopy Rain

PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 11:35 am
by Bass

Re: Virtual Cockpit Canopy Rain

PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 11:51 am
by Fozzer


.... :lol: ....!

I can remember them being advertised in some of my old 1950 Motorcycle catalogues and magazines, Kurt!...

Similar to "water injectors" for our Bike's Carburettors!.... :shock: ....!

Paul...Motorcycling in 1950 was magic!.... :mrgreen: ...!

Re: Virtual Cockpit Canopy Rain

PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 12:30 pm
by PhantomTweak
Ummm....I may be wrong, buuut...

You can add the VC windshield rain effect to any aircraft, far as I know...

Just add "windshield_rain_effect_available = 1" (no quotes, of course!) to the [Effects] portion of your aircraft.cfg file and off you go! Worked great on every bird I've stuck it into so far.

So to speak... :lol: :lol:

No filter between brain and fingers, as it were... :eusa-whistle: :confusion-shrug:

Great day and fine flying to all!
Pat☺

Re: Virtual Cockpit Canopy Rain

PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 2:18 pm
by paly
Well exactly. That would appear to be the case. But if you trawl the forums around the web, they all say no, it can't be done in FSX

unless...(because they don't like it?) you use FS9 aircraft, un-tick DX10 and add that line, if it's not there, to your aircraft.cfg

So they weren't wrong, they just weren't being very helpful :roll:

Re: Virtual Cockpit Canopy Rain

PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 3:54 pm
by striker
You can add the VC windshield rain effect to any aircraft, far as I know...

Just add "windshield_rain_effect_available = 1" (no quotes, of course!) to the [Effects] portion of your aircraft.cfg file and off you go! Worked great on every bird I've stuck it into so far.



New to me. Thanks for that info. I'll experiment!

But if you trawl the forums around the web, they all say no, it can't be done in FSX



That's forums for ya!! :lol:
So many love to tell you what you can't do. Thanks Paly for putty this little beauty up. A definite keeper 8-)

Re: Virtual Cockpit Canopy Rain

PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 11:57 pm
by Speed of flight
So, the line can be added, and if you have the particular text line in the .cfg and the associated effect, it will work, just not in DX10?

is this what I understand?

anxious for clarification...

Re: Virtual Cockpit Canopy Rain

PostPosted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 12:28 am
by PhantomTweak
I believe you to be correct, but as I've said many times, I've been wrong before....OFTEN!

Pat☺

Re: Virtual Cockpit Canopy Rain

PostPosted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 7:14 am
by paly
Well the way I understand it is...

FSX left the rain effects out because of a performance hit. Back in 2006 PC's just couldn't handle it
Let's be honest we some of us still struggle to run it

The first thing you needed to do if using FS9 aircraft was put back in the original VCRainStopped and VCRainMoving .bmp's from FS9 into your FSX\Textures folder
Otherwise you couldn't see out of the windows when it rained - so most people already have the fix that would otherwise display Rain on the canopy.
It's just that stock FSX (and newer planes) weren't modelled with the effect

It's in the model.mdl, (a windscreen texture with 'animate_VCRainMoving') that the problem lies.
So a lot of FSX planes do not have a model.mdl with a rain effect and hence no line in the [effects] section of the aircraft.cfg.

What is still important is that the plane you are using has a model.mdl that has the feature..
Most FS9 planes do, so if you port-over a FS9 plane (by simply fixing the gauges that don't work) and leave the original textures as bitmaps, and un-tick DX10, the Rain will work.

A good example is Milton's Twin Beech D18S. During testing it seems only the Cargo Float and Amphibian versions have it, the wheeled version (D18SVC2 and D18VC4) do not.
What's worse is that FSX planes can do this ! - so the Carenado range for example, should be giving us the option.
If the FS9 version gives me rain, the FSX version should too. I really would like to see that happen.

Talking of Milton's D18S, since he recently updated the Spartan panel, I'm sure he wouldn't mind adding the effect to Wheeled version now, if asked nicely.

Re: Virtual Cockpit Canopy Rain

PostPosted: Sat Mar 22, 2014 4:32 pm
by paly
Actually, my bad, the Wheeled D18S does have rain

http://www.gjsmith.net/Milton_Shupe/d18s/downloads.htm

where it says, Download:HERE is a b18srain.zip