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Extracting gauges from a virtual cockpit

F

Frank

Messages
58
Hi folks, experts, enthusiasts ...

I built a helicopter cockpit dummy. Basically a box with a display that is masked with a thin board, containing the bezels, screws, hammer-finish etc.

The gauges are extracted from several a/c to match. In this case, they look like the ones one can see in a EC-135. Some of them are from the payware Nemeth-EC, others are default FSX.

I also bought the Cerasim Black Hawk, who has different looking gauges.

To place them gauges, to exactly match with the box' display I use FSPS.

Yet, FSPS 'sees' no gauges in the respective Blackhawk panel folder.
But they must be here, otherwise they would not show up in the VC.

Any idea, how to extract e.g. an HSI.xml plus the respective HSIbackground.bmp without trialing and erroring through all the folder's gauges? Or what to do, to enable FSPS seeing them?

Any hint is highly appreciated,

Frank
 

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Frank, not all gauges in a virtual cockpit are accessible. If they are 3d objects, then only the gauge logic exists as XML script, and that is embedded in the compiled .mdl file. The textures used are mapped from one or more bitmap (.dds) texture files.
 
If the gauges are written in C++ or C# instead of XML then they're not accessible at all afaik.
 
Hi Bill, hi Tom. Thanks for your inputs.
Many of the default gauges in FSX still are C++. It is no problem for FSPS (or even by hand-editing the panel.cfg) to create a custom panel.
Of course, this cannot be done with 3d objects. Yet, the XML gauges I mean look pretty 2d.

Regards,
Frank
 
My bad, I was thinking of whether the code was accessible. You could try loading the VC model into MCX and looking for gauge mesh on the panel: that would tell you if any are 3D modelled.
 
Hi Tom. Sorry if I sound a bit dumb. I quit developing for FS seven years ago and am trying to find my way back ;-). Erm, what is MCX.

Regards,
Frank
 
ModelConverterX: reads .mdl files and all sorts of other 3d model files. It's used a lot to convert models from one sim to another and Arno the head honcho here is its author. Quite useful!
 
If the gauges are 3d modeled and you have permission to crack the mdl with MCX, then take a look at the "show model def" function of MCX. If the mdl is a later fsx model, you can see what custom animation codes have been used for any 3d gauges.
 
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