FSX/FSX-SE Aircraft and Panel Design Forum - How To

Hi folks,I am not an aircraft designer but I have a question regarding the MDL file. What do I need to open the MDL file in 3DS Max? Is there any kind of decompiler that changes the MDL from binary to 3DS Max readablle format? Or is there any kind of plugin which I can install into3DS Max?The reason is, I want to remove those terribly unrealistic "strobes" which you can find on e.g. Posky's 767s and to replace the with an entryin the CFG file.Hope you can help me since those "strobes" relly bother me. :( Mike :(

Hi. I am trying to work out why some toggled switches are off by default when an aircraft is loaded and some are on. Probably obvious, but I am not very advanced in this, so apologies in advance. I assume (?) that the the switch xml just defines what appears in the panel, rather than its state? (As an example, this three-way battery switch is always on by default. Why is that, and how would you change it to default 'nul' position', or 'off'? Where is the definition for the state of the switch at startup? Many thanks for any help! Martin <Gauge Name="Battery Switch" Version="1.0"> <Element> <Visible>(L:SHOW_LIGHTS_EP, bool)</Visible…

Gents, Been going through some of my aircraft and have noted that missng effect files are being referenced in the aircraft containers. The question is what effect does it have on the aircraft (if any). Please advise and thanks! Mark

I thought I would find this in the AircraftContainerSDKFS2004.doc easily enough.. but I've searched in vain. Could someone kindly remind/tell me which parameters control the steering on the ground? I have an aircraft which, once it starts turning after an input from the joystick (or keyboard), keeps on turning under its own momentum some seconds after the joystick has been centralised ('skating on ice' effect). It makes it quite hard to steer in a straight line, especially at speed after landing. Thanks!

Hi guys; I was wondering if it is possible to remove the section around the GPS500 that contains the buttons. I have the buttons all keyed on my keyboard,and would like just the map to show. Is this possible ??? Thanks Skip D

I was looking at an aircraft.cfg file and noticed that there are duplicated parameter names (point.5) in the contact_points section. I read through the "FS2004 Aircraft Container SDK" and didn't find a comment which explictly allows for the duplication. What is the expected behvior of the ini parser when a duplicated parameter is incountered. Are duplicates simply ignored? //GEAR 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 point.0=1, 8.00, 0.00, -4.55, 2600.0, 0, 0.7, 33.0, 0.22, 2.5, 1.50, 7.0, 9.0, 0, 160, 180 point.1=1, -1.80, -4.65, -4.60, 1900.0, 1, 0.9, 0.0, 0.40, 2.5, 0.85, 9.0, 8.0, 2, 160, 180 point.…

Hi guys Not absolutely sure, it is the right forum, but I'll try here. Does anyone know if it is possible to change the display color of fixes on GPS windows (both default and 3rd party ones that behave similarly)? Light pink for en route intersections is OK, but dark blue for terminal intersections is hardly visible (seems however it may depend on graphic card, NVidia driver and/or monitor settings). What is your experience about that? I know there's no option inside the sim for that. However, may be there is a workaround I didn't find. Hervé

Hello! I was so glad that I finally was able to include 3 INS gauges and MSU gauges from the Simufly CIVA INS into my Captain Sim L1011... but it is very hard to get the update flag and nav mode selector gauges to the right size when I mess around with the panel.cfg. I am unable to upload screenshots here... but they are very very very small, they appear as a working 2D panel, but very small. I tried it with different size_mm= values. But I think this changes only the invisible part around the panel (the picture with the switch on it). Or in other terms, the window of the 2D panel. But how can I resize the panel itself? I was able to resize it in the sim with the …

FSX orig XML code I seems you can't get any airport info. from the WaypointAirportICAO list with FlightPlanIsDirectTo active. It works OK on initial DirTo entry but if you save the flight then recall it all the WaypointAirportICAO info. is missing and can't be accessed. Removing the DirTo in the saved flight returns access to the information. Paul

Some more minor changes and a new section on using SimConnect as a gauge - thanks to WarpD and Doug Dowson for the help. NEW: Some corrections and updates to the new section on using SimConnect as a gauge.

I'm trying to do some training for my instrument rating. I own a Maule M7 and have a GTN 650 installed. I am using Prepard3DV3 and I have also installed the Flight1 GTN 650, the problem is that the default Maule does not have a glideslope indicator in it. Is there a way of replacing the VOR head that runs off Nav2 with a glideslope indicator? Or a indicator that isn't in the panel would be okay as well. Thanks

Some more minor changes and a new section on using SimConnect as a gauge - thanks to WarpD and Doug Dowson for the help.

You'd have thought after years of creating gauges I'd know the answer to this one, but some seven-eight hours of frustration later... I have a really simple standalone gauge that has seven sequential bitmaps in it, illustrating a selector switch. The gauge does nothing except rotate the switch as it's for a new section in sd2gau on using SimConnect as a gauge. Only. it. just. will. not. show. up. on. screen. Would someone be willing to make me feel really stupid and take a look at the code please? :smile:

I'm sure Bill will tell me that there's a far better way of doing this but... :smile: If you copy and paste the html code below and save it as <filename>.html it will create a webpage with the SimConnect exceptions set up as hyperlinks to the error explanation. I got fed-up with continually trying to find the information in both the FSX and P3D SDK documentation, so I turned it into a webpage. No nasty Javascript or CSS, just simple, pure HTML 4.0. <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>SimConnect Exceptions</TITLE> </HEAD> <tr><td><A NAME = "top"><h3&gt…

I'm hoping someone can point out the obvious for me - apart from the fact that I've unashamedly stolen some of Doug Dowson's code ideas! The problem is that the code never steps into the Dispatch callback. From debugging I know that the code is stepping into the PANEL_SERVICE_PRE_UPDATE but that's it - it just steps right out again. #include "simconnect.h" #include "SimConnectProcs.cpp" char simconnect_data_gauge_name[] = GAUGE_NAME; extern PELEMENT_HEADER simconnect_data_list; GAUGE_CALLBACK simconnect_data_update; GAUGE_HEADER_FS900(gaugehdr_simconnect_data,GAUGE_W, simconnect_data_gauge_name, &simconnect_data_list, 0, simconnect_data_update, 0,0); …

Does anyone know how to "fix" the TrafficRadarXML.dll module provided by Arne? It's available from Avsim, called 'trafficradarxml201.zip'. The download also has gauge examples and source code. I'm running Fs9. I've managed to integrate it into Ken Mitchell's A320 panel MFD and it works and looks great 'til the dreaded "TICK18 time rollover" when it locks up. I've found the following info: Up with a fresh newsPosted Image there is a small story: recently i was sitting on the apron after another Arne's TCAS gauge test flight. 1 hour "in-flight" has passed long away and suddenly i've decided to resize main panel. and voila! the TCAS gauge was working again!:Hug:So,…

Sorry, I couldn't delete the message so I deleted the original text. Essentially, I was having problems finding the air file for Mike Cronin's Aeronca 15AC. Turns out that Windows 7 had it marked as hidden. Only when I attempted to rename another air file to Aeronca15AC.air and ended up with Aeronca15AC (2).air did I realize the original was hidden. Thanks, Ernie

I've trawled the Simconnect forum but it seems rather... dead in there. Plus, a lot of topics aren't attracting any answers or suggestions which is why I've come back 'home' :smile: The FSX SDK has proved very useful for understanding reading data from FSX in Simconnect, but appears to be lacking in explaining how to send data to FSX or SimObjects within FSX. I can get the currently loaded flight (thanks Gerry) but now I'd like to pass that information back to my aircraft so that it can act on it and retrieve additional panel data from the FLT file. Can anyone help with an example of passing data back to a SimObject? Managed code would be superb but unmanaged code wou…

Folks I just bought this new plane and gave it a workout yesterday. While not a high end technical plane it is easy on frames and I like it. However, I have noticed that the virtual cockpit bitmap is very dark in my opinion. I am wondering if anyone else has this plane and noticed how dark the cockpit is? Is there a simple solution to lightening up the background bitmap? I have ENB series shaders set to my liking. I have monitor settings which are adjusted to suit my flying. All my other planes have no issue with darkened panel. Bryan

As a result of my last posted question ('Getting the FLT file being loaded'), for the first time I've started looking at SimConnect and immediately run into a roadblock. The SDK says: Creating a Gauge using XML and C++ (...) Copy the CabinComfort cabinet file to the Flight Simulator X\Gauges folder. Copy the panel file to the Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\Airplanes\Lear45\panel folder. (...) Now, knowing me I'm probably blind, but I can find neither the .cab file, nor the LearJet panel.cfg. Where did I miss them?

Is it possible? The obvious answer is to check the 'Last_Accessed' attribute on the flt file but as the operating system can defer stamping that information to the file for up to an hour, it's not really a lot of use. Finding which flt file has just been saved is relatively easy as the 'Last_Modified' attribute is stamped within two seconds. As the flt file is really just an ini file, I'd like to use it to store additional panel information associated with that flight.

I have a freeware plane that has an interior cockpit light that comes on when you select key L as do all the other lights, interior and exterior. My question is there any way to make the main interior light turn off with the other lights on?

If, for example, I wanted to use the Baron 58's HSI in the Maule, how would I go about that? Thanks, Al

Hello. http://except.pw/Yak40src.zip http://except.pw/kln_fsx.zip

I am using a number of AI GA aircraft in UT2. One is the HTAI Cessna series, another is the Finnish GA AI series, The issue that I'm having with the Finnish aircraft is that the default view of the aircraft occupies most of the screen. This occurs both with the FSX View Aircraft mode and SuperTraffic Board. I've tried using the "-" key to change the zoom, but does't reduce it enough. I've also tried the "fix" version of the AI file, but that does nothing. I didn't see a camera section the aircraft.cfg file, so I'm wondering is if there is a way to fix the Finnish AI aircraft to get them to display like the HTAI and other AI aircraft. Thanks, Ernie …