Adding gauges to the VC

[Kaworu]

Well, I think the subject speaks for itself. I've been searching for a way of doing this, but there doesn't seem to be an answer to weather it can be done. I'm not trying to add 3-d gauges, just add a radar gauge to a empty area on the panel. I have successfully replaced gauges, like placing the radar in place of the gns530, but I don';t know how to figure out where to place it, or what section of the panel.cfg file to edit.

Thanks

[Ferrari308guy]

Putting new gauges into the VC is not possible unless you have the source files for the model. Gauges can only be placed where there are 'holes' in the panel for them, and the 'holes' are made when the model is made.

You can put whatever you want wherever you want in a 2D panel, but VCs are a totally different world. If you want a radar gauge, I would suggest adding it as a pop-up, like the GPS is.

Anybody can correct me if I'm wrong. But I'm pretty sure that's the way it works.

[brettt777]

I have played with this a bit. From what I have seen there two ways that a VC panel is set up. If you look at your panel.cfg under the VC entries, You will see either one "Vcockpit" entry with a bunch of gauges in it, or several "Vcockpit" entries with only one or two gauges in it. If it's the first type then it's fairly easy to figure out where to put the gauge. The numbers after the gauge are left/right/, up/down, size like always, and the position numbers cover pretty much the entire panel so you can put the thing just about where ever you want it. The second type makes it harder to put things where you want them. Each "Vcockpit" entry is like a mini panel unto itself and is positioned somewhere in the VC. Unfortunately I have yet to figure out how that positioning works. Some of those entries have a position shown but again I am not sure how that works. Anyway, the gauges are then positioned in this mini panel in the normal way, except that if you want to position a gauge in the upper left hand corner of the window and put 0, 0 as the position, it may not show up. It's like these little windows have a normal size of say 512 and 512, but not all of that is visible. From what I have figured out, there is only a smaller "sub" window that is actualy visible. Sometimes if your gauge is not exactly centered in this window, parts of it will show up on another window somewhere else on the panel. Quite confusing and very frustrating, at least for me. There is a way to corelate all of these positions to a texture bitmap and I have done it before somewhat successfully but sometimes it is hard to figure out which bitmap is the right one.
Well, I hope I haven't confused you too much.

[Gypsy_Baron]

Putting new gauges into the VC is not possible unless you have the source files for the model. Gauges can only be placed where there are 'holes' in the panel for them, and the 'holes' are made when the model is made.
-SNIP-

Anybody can correct me if I'm wrong. But I'm pretty sure that's the way it works.

This is only partially true. It really depends on how the VC is modeled
to begin with, as the post following yours states.

In the case where the VC isn't an open pallete, there is often a gauge
that you can 'do without'...a clock or somesuch.

Just use the same coordinates for that gauge and see how it 'fits', then
adjust them and the dimensions until you achieve a workable solution.

I've done this on several FSX models.

A tool such as FSPanelStudio is very helpful when it comes to
gauge addition/replacement operations.

  Paul

[Kaworu]

Well, thanks guys. Pretty much confirmed everything I had thought. I've been editing 2d panels for years now, but I only fly in the VC. Just my personal preference.  :)