"Temporary Cockpits" (gauge-switching HowTo req.) - Printable Version
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+--- Thread: "Temporary Cockpits" (gauge-switching HowTo req.) (/showthread.php?tid=63989)
"Temporary Cockpits" (gauge-switching HowTo req.) - neuro_01 - 09.08.2009
Some AI planes have been converted to flyable using the "wrong" gauges because the most suitable available cockpit use a different measurement system, so we have American gauges in the ki46 and FW189, and similar problems in other planes. I usually try to keep the speed bar hidden and only use the plane's gauges, so having the "right" gauges would be great.
My idea is, while we wait for someone with enough dedication to actually model the missing cockpits, we could simply make a "temporary ki46 cockpit" throwing Japanese gauges in a P38 cockpit, a "temporary fw200 cockpit" with German gauges in a B25 cockpit, and so on. These "temporary cockpits" would be a long way from the "real" thing but they would still be one step in the right direction, and feasible with relatively little effort.
The problem is that I'm a complete noob at modding, so I don't know how to replace the gauges in a cockpit with gauges from another cockpit. If someone could post a howto, that would be great.
Probably the best howto would be to make the first "temporary cockpit", keep a log and take screenshot while working, and then publish the resulting tutorial. Could anyone do that?
- bolox - 10.08.2009
changing the gauge face is relatively easy- you just need to change the relevant tga's in of the 'donor' pit. the dificult bit is changing the needles behaviour -which as far as i can work out is controlled by java thus a big no no to discuss, there are literally a handful of people who know how to do this.
remember also if you change the donor pit's gauges they will appear if you fly the donor plane
- neuro_01 - 10.08.2009
I guess the problem with the donor gauges in the donor planes behaving differently could be fixed building cockpits for each particular plane, but instead of modeling stuff from scratch, the 'environment' from the best fitting cockpit could be used, with gauges modeled on whatever that particular country used... but as i said, it's a guess. Would that work?
So now the problem is more "how to build a cockpit", and if some of the "taboo" topics needs to be discussed, it would turn into "could someone please do that?"
I think that the "temporary cockpits" described in the first post would be a good idea, it would be nice if someone did that, or at least did it for one plane and published a tutorial (if no forbidden topics need to be discussed)
For discussing the gauges without entering into needles behavior, some modified gauge faces could be used, where lines and numbers are rearranged to match the existing needle behavior... but then we'd need a way to tell where to put those lines and numbers, like a "blackbox" software that monitors the aircraft performance. (FS~Pigeon at skiesoffire.org wrote something like that but I havent been able to test it, so far, because it uses .NET 3.5, which refuses to work under Linux+Wine)
- bolox - 12.08.2009
viewtopic.php?t=13198
is probably the nearest thing to a tutorial
what image programs have you got/are familiar with? i use photoshop 7 so anything i say will be based on my experience with that. others such as GIMP should be able to do everything but the details of 'how to' might be a bit different :wink:
as to where to put markings i'd draw them on another layer(s) above the original so the 400 km/h marking on the asi would be at 248.5 mph position on the original. then fill in the face between these layers and the original. i used
http://www.onlineconversion.com/speed_common.htm
for the conversion
make another layer at the top and add in the numbers in a font suitable for the nationality
setting guides at the centre of the gauge i find very useful
- neuro_01 - 13.08.2009
Sure, no problem for the conversions...
btw you dont need any online conversion tool, just google 'convert XX km/h to mph' (no quotes), where XX is how many kph you want to convert to mph. Works for everything, e.g. 'convert 150 lbs to kg', 'convert 100 USD to EUR', just use 'convert [how much] [what] to [what].
Anyhow, back to our gauges, I'm not an expert in any image manipulation software, I started this thread thinking (hoping) that I could simply use some config file to tell that plane "load [those] gauges. Turns out that would affect the original plane too, so now we're going into actual cockpit building...
now my next idea was to build cockpits for the planes that use the "wrong" gauges using the cockpit layout from one plane and the gauges from another one.
You suggest to use the same gauges but changing the face to make them similar to those used in the country where that plane comes from, using conversion tables to know where to put the marks, but there's still the "donor plane problem". IIUC, changing a gauge would affect all the planes that use that gauge, so we'd need to make a copy of that gauge that's only used by the particular plane that we're changing, and edit the copy leaving the original alone. I hope I'll figure out how to do that (I guess the info is out there and I would find it sooner or later, following those links)
As we have to create a new cockpit that only that plane would use, why not use the gauges from a different cockpit?
I mean, we dont know how accurate they would be but on the other hand, we dont know how accurate a bunch of P38 gauges are on a ki46 either. In other words, the question is what would work better for a Japanese plane, if a bunch of Japanese gauges or American gauges repainted to look Japanese.
Would using Japanese gauges (or German for the fw200, etc) be so difficult?
But OK, I think I have some reading to do, I'll be back with more questions
As for the software to use, point me to any tutorials that use any software, I can run most stuff and if there's something I can't run, I can always try to find out who to do it on a different program.
Thx for the answers, and of course, if anyone feels inspired to make one (or more) of these 'temporary cockpits', please do!