gauge position on the polygon in VC

[eddm1]

Hi,
in P3dv5 I try to place a XML gauge on a VC gauge polygon (texture specified by $xy), however it doesn't work, so my question is the position of the gauge that Reads like the coordinates x,y,w,h does it refer to the position on the specific polygon, or is it the position on the overall panel?

I cannot center the gauge on the polygon, no matter what coordinates I am using.

What panel design software do you use? Panelstudio seems very old, are there some other tools to place gauges in a panel?

Thanks for your help.

EDDM

 

[DragonflightDesign]

You can't. The gauges are baked in to the VC and it's impossible to change them without the source code to the VC and a copy of 3D Studio or Blender.

 

[Anthony31]

Hi,
in P3dv5 I try to place a XML gauge on a VC gauge polygon (texture specified by $xy), however it doesn't work, so my question is the position of the gauge that Reads like the coordinates x,y,w,h does it refer to the position on the specific polygon, or is it the position on the overall panel?

I cannot center the gauge on the polygon, no matter what coordinates I am using.

What panel design software do you use? Panelstudio seems very old, are there some other tools to place gauges in a panel?

Thanks for your help.

EDDM

It refers to the mapping of the $xy texture.

In other words, if you have a vc texture that is nominally 1024x1024 pixels you would then map the polygon to either part or all of that texture. This way you can have multiple gauges uses the same vc texture. Or you could have just one gauge using the whole (or part of) the texture.

In the panel.cfg if you specify the VCockpit pixel_size as 1024x1024 then if the coordinates are 0,0,1024,1024 the gauge will cover the whole of the texture. But, you may not see the whole of the gauge if the whole of the texture isn't mapped to a polygon in the VC.

For another example, if only the top half of the vc texture is mapped to a polygon and you specify that the gauge appears at 0,0,1024,512 then you will not see the gauge because the bottom half of the texture isn't mapped to any polygons.

I'd recommend making a checkerboard pattern gauge (with numbering) and then in the panel.cfg set the coordinates so it covers the whole $vc texture area. You can then see how the texture is mapped to the gauges in the polygon.

 

[DragonflightDesign]

Thanks for the correction.

 

[eddm1]

Hi, thank you.

In attachement you see an overall VC texture of which I have separated one texture and given it a unique name, however how can I map it, to set a single specific gauge there? So far I failed with that (its the round texture).

 

[Anthony31]

Is this in Model Converter X? As far as I know you cannot remap textures in MCX. What format are you loading this in? What are you exporting as? It is most likely that you will need to load the model in a 3D modeling program to make changes to the texture mapping.

 

[tgibson]

I tend to take a brute force approach to this, much as the post above. But I use a handy gauge that has a rectangular or square background image and specify it to cover the entire area (0,0,1024,1024). Then find out what part of that gauge is occupying that bit you are interested in. Then I work out where that is on the VC polygon by looking at the pixel location on the gauge bitmap and scaling up.

 

[eddm1]

Is this in Model Converter X? As far as I know you cannot remap textures in MCX. What format are you loading this in? What are you exporting as? It is most likely that you will need to load the model in a 3D modeling program to make changes to the texture mapping.

Yes, I extracted this vc texture from the VC model, then I exported it as wavefront object and loaded in blender. There I separated the round gauge and renamed the material in $rwr. Then I merged it as p3dv4.4 mdl in mcx again with the other VC texture, to have this texture separately. No I am stuck to get the gauge in the right position and scale there...

 

[Essex]

Then I merged it as p3dv4.4 mdl in mcx again with the other VC texture, to have this texture separately. No I am stuck to get the gauge in the right position and scale there...

Perhaps it is possible to use the platform wizard in MCX to deduce the required coordinates of the required $vc material.
Then merge in a new $vc material pre-edited with these coordinates.

I never did try this, but it should work I think.
Also, as it's now a separate part, potentially you could add a mouse rectangle.

 

[Anthony31]

Yes, I extracted this vc texture from the VC model, then I exported it as wavefront object and loaded in blender. There I separated the round gauge and renamed the material in $rwr. Then I merged it as p3dv4.4 mdl in mcx again with the other VC texture, to have this texture separately. No I am stuck to get the gauge in the right position and scale there...

If you have the part in Blender then simply in edit mode go to UV - Unwrap and it will remap the texture to take up the whole texture. Ensure the texture is lined up straight though as Blender likes to rotate round things and I think you may need to flip it vertically as well. That's just the way FSX/P3D works if I recall correctly, you need to vertically flip the mapping for vc textures. It's the same as DDS textures, they need to be flipped vertically. At that point 0,0,1024,1024 should work to cover the whole gauge.

See attached screenshot for example. The screen of the GPS is a VC texture and mapped to cover the whole texture space.

 

[eddm1]

I never did try this, but it should work I think.
Also, as it's now a separate part, potentially you could add a mouse rectangle.

Hello, yould you please explain, how to get these coordinates out of the vc material in MCX?

 

[Essex]

Hello, yould you please explain, how to get these coordinates out of the vc material in MCX?

Hi, best to practice first with a single rectangular part in MCX.
In MCX, Attached object editor, Auto platform;
Filter normal upwards = 0.001
select desired material;
run
Export as MDL
Import this new MDL into MCX.
Make sure "Display attached objects" is on,
In Attached object editor, remove unwanted platforms,
Export as a .X file
open this .X file with notepad and scroll or search for the platform section, hopefully these coordinates are what you need.

For a circle, I think it would be best to have a square VC texture using the min and max x.y,z ?