Simviation Forums

some of the planes I have added on when i load them to fly it i'm inside the cockpit but instead of seeing the secnery it's black. and then i click on the cockpit and i could move it around as though it was a picture pasted on. and when i move it enough i can see the secnery were i'm suppose to be. and i can also go to chase view and everything is normal. whats wrong.

Hi DeltaJ. This is a common problem & easily fixed. Check out my CFS Panel Clinic. http://www.simviation.com/lair/CFSpc.htm

Hey i tried but nothing happened very confused

You say "some" of your aircraft have this problem. If all addon aircraft are not affected you will most probably need to edit the main panel BMP.

Give me an example of one with the problem & tell me exactly where to download it so I can see for myself.

The Navy F/A-18 from this site.
The Doolittle Raid campagin the bombers are blacked out.
The ID4 attacker.
I tried editing the bitmap. i didn't do anything.

P.S. thanks for helping me

OK. I checked out the Doolittle campaign as that was the easiest to find. The B-25B main panel BMP is fine so does not need editing. Please try this first. It's the part outlined in red in my tute.

Note: If you have this problem with panels of all imported aircraft please try this first. Find COMBATFS.CFG in the CFS main folder. Open COMBATFS.CFG in Notepad & scroll down until you see the PANEL_MASKING_OFF= entry under [PREFS]
It should look like this: PANEL_MASKING_OFF=0
If the entry is any different change it to PANEL_MASKING_OFF=0 Exit Notepad saving changes.
Check it out in Free Flight to see if that fixed it. This simple tweak could well solve the problem.

Please tell me if that fixed it.

Dude!
Don't stress.
Re read the tutorials...something always goes wrong...i know the feeling...

A.

OK. I checked out the Doolittle campaign as that was the easiest to find. The B-25B main panel BMP is fine so does not need editing. Please try this first. It's the part outlined in red in my tute.

Note: If you have this problem with panels of all imported aircraft please try this first. Find COMBATFS.CFG in the CFS main folder. Open COMBATFS.CFG in Notepad & scroll down until you see the PANEL_MASKING_OFF= entry under [PREFS]
It should look like this: PANEL_MASKING_OFF=0
If the entry is any different change it to PANEL_MASKING_OFF=0 Exit Notepad saving changes.
Check it out in Free Flight to see if that fixed it. This simple tweak could well solve the problem.

Please tell me if that fixed it.

I did switch it to =0 and it was still black

OK DeltaJ, I read your question again carefully. I don't think yours is a case of Black Windows. I also tried the ID4 Attacker. These are typical FS98-style 2D panels where you drag the height of the outside view window to where you want it like this example from my tute.


To make the B-25B window the correct size change the Panel.cfg [Default View] SIZE_Y= value to 3000 like this.
[Default View]
X=0
Y=0
SIZE_X=8191
SIZE_Y=3000

To make it 3D so it's no longer adjustable add the render_3d_window=1 line to Panel.cfg. This will probably affect any clickable gauges used on the panel.

In some cases it might be better to alias Panel.cfg to a default aircraft or find a more suitable CFS-style panel.

I'm going to try and alias it to a different panel.
And i did shrink it the problem is that the are bars on the window so all i get is a squished panel and a black stripe. The problem with the fa18 and the ID4 is that they have have special high tech panels and i can't alias those.

I added the render_3d_window=1 line to the ID4 Panel.cfg like this.

[Window01]

file=id402.bmp
size_mm=1204
windowsize_ratio=1
render_3d_window=1
position=0
visible=1
ident=10

Here's the result.


If you tell me which F/A-18 you're talking about I'll check it out. I need the file name & the page number its posted on.

PS. It's more usual to add this line to [Window00]. This would remove the "Black Bands" in side views but the clickable gauge functions wouldn't work. I suspect that changing the order of the windows round would fix this problem but it gets a tad complicated unless you're used to messing around with panels. This is still basically an FS98 panel.

http://www.simviation.com/files/1military//fa18-146.zip
here a link to the fa-18

Thanks for the link. I would have preferred a link to the page rather than the file so I could find out roughly when this file was posted. It's not always the case but most of the earlier CFS1 aircraft were simply FS98 designs reconfigured to work in CFS1. Some didn't even include a DP file.

You haven't told me if any of my suggestions have worked for you so far. I don't know how long you've had CFS1 or if you have any other M$ sims. It occurs to me that you might be running it in Windows mode. Try hitting Alt + Enter next time you run CFS1 & see if that makes any difference.

OK. I checked out the F/A-18. Again, it has a typical FS98 panel. You can convert it to 3D & lose the "Black Bands" by adding the render_3d_window=1 line to Panel.cfg.

[Window00]
file=miljet1.bmp
size_mm=1000
window_size_ratio=1.0
render_3d_window=1
position=7
visible=1
ident=0

The clickable gauge functions will no longer work. This is covered in the Black Bands section of my CFS Panel Clinic.

All right it worked for both of them.
Thanks.
And it's okay that the gauges don't work i don't use it any way no time for goofing with the mouse during combat.