Is there any way to turn on the instrument panel lights or cockpit lights so that they show up in the virtual cockpit? I can do this for the 2D panel just fine, but when I switch to the virtual cockpit the lights are not on and it is too dark to see the instruments when flying at night.Bill Huntsman

I realize that my previous post did not mention the aircraft. I'm talking about the latest MAAM DC-3.

Hi Bill,Actually there is very nice cockpit/gauges lighting in the VC. However we used a bit more then is actually 'allowed' . If you can't see VC cockpit lighting try switching off the cabin lighting by hitting the 'O' key, et voila you should have a nicely lit cockpit now. It will also help to set 'Hardware-Rendered Lights' to 8 in the Options/Settings/Display/Hardware menu.Btw, VC lighting works also nicely during the day. Always make sure it is on, no pax in the cabin anyway... :( cheers,Jan

Hi Bill!As Jan has mentioned the 'effects department' of the R4D/DC-3/C-47 model uses more ressources then the simulator actually allows in order to produce all the nice effects, although not all of these effects are seen as lights in the sim. If you have installed the landing light reflection effect 'DC3_night_light1.fx' (my only modest contribution to the project so far), this effect will unfortunalety 'steal the power' from some of the other light effects. It is easy to see this in the 'Spot plane' view at night: with the landing lights ON, hitting the 'O' key will turn the cockpit light OFF when you turn the cabin light ON (or vice versa), but if you turn the landing lights OFF, you can have both cockpit AND cabin light at the same time. Sorry, but that's the way it works right now. So you will have to make your own personal choice about the effects YOU want to see on (or in) your plane.Best regards

Thanks, Kim (and Jan). Yes, that may be the problem because I do have the landing light reflections installed. It is a very nice effect, but I do a lot of flying in the virtual cockpit because of Track-IR. I may have to decide to remove that effect.Bill

I removed the two lines in the aircraft.cfg file that referred to the landing light reflections. I also set Hardware rendered lights to 8 as Jan suggested. Still no VC lights. Pressing "o" doesn't make them come on either. Any further suggestions? Thanks.

I just discovered that the OY-BPB has virtual cockpit lights, but the other models (R4D, DC3 passenger & cargo) do not. I do have the sextant installed for the R4D, but not for the others. Otherwise, I can't think of how they would be different.Bill

Hi,I'm not sure what's happening here? In each aircraft's CFG file the lighting effects section should look like this;{LIGHTS} In square brackets//Types: 1=beacon, 2=strobe, 3=navigation, 4=cockpit, 5=landinglight.0=3, -11.05, -44.80, 2.55, fx_r4d_navred, // left wingtiplight.1=3, -11.05, 44.80, 2.55, fx_r4d_navgre, // right wingtiplight.2=3, -46.90, 0.13, 3.97, fx_r4d_navwhi, // tail lightlight.3=1, -27.10, 0.00, -0.40, fx_r4d_beacon, // dorsal beacon light.4=1, -40.58, 0.10, 15.35, fx_r4d_beacon, // vert-stab beaconlight.5=5, -1.50, -16.35, -0.20, fx_r4d_landing,light.6=5, -1.55, 16.35, -0.20, fx_r4d_landing, light.7=4, 9.50, 0.00, 3.90, fx_r4d_vclight,light.8=4, 6.80, 0.00, 3.90, fx_r4d_vclight,light.9=2, -2.0, 0.00, 3.10, fx_r4d_cabin_7,light.10=2, -8.5, 0.00, 3.10, fx_r4d_cabin_7,light.11=2, -14.5, 0.00, 3.10, fx_r4d_cabin_7,light.12=2, -20.5, 0.00, 3.10, fx_r4d_cabin_7,light.13=2, -25.5, -1.00, 3.10, fx_r4d_cabin_7,And it's the same for each variant of the R4D/DC-3, except for MAAM-SIM OY-BPB which has these lines included in it's CFG;light.14=5, 9.70, -19.10, -1.20, DC3_night_light1 ,light.15=5, 9.70, 19.10, -1.20, DC3_night_light1 ,Which is where the landing light tweak comes from. It's perfectly okay to use this, and work's fine, but as explained above, there's a limit to the number of lights displayed by a model simultaneously. You'll have to switch the Cabin Lights off to use the Landing Light reflections.You should also have these in your FS9 Effects Folder;fx_R4D_vclight.fxAnd,DC3_night_light1.fx If you've installed the MAAM-SIM OY-BPB add-on.If you have all these elements you should have VC Lights/Cabin Lights available in all your ships. I would suggest if you still don't see lights, that you BACK-UP what you need and re-install your MAAM packages. It's the simplest solution and really isn't half the hassle some would have you believe. Failing this I'm at a loss?Best,Sir John :-sword

If this is a general discussion, might I ask why the individual VC instruments don't light up as they do in the 2D cockpit? I rarely use the VC but the more I use it the more I like it, other then the lighting at night. I have,like a cabin overhead light would look, when I press O. Is this all I'm supposed to have? ThanksEd W

Hi,The MAAM packages DON'T have the night-lighting bitmaps overlaying the gauges in the VC like some other products, so NO the gauges will not light-up like those in the 2D panel which are influenced in this portion of the panel CFG;{Color} Day=255,255,255Night=178,169,148Luminous=252,251,155Admittedly, this is a bit of a downer but perhaps we will see this in the future after other more significant modelling problems have been sorted. I refer to the GMAX Imperial/Metric conversion limitations which currently prevent Jan from updating his aircraft physical VC models easily. I think this has been discussed elsewhere on the forum.You have however probably hit the nail on the head when you refer to GAUGE lighting. As this is probably what the original poster is refering to. If this is the case, then this is how it will stand until Jan can be dragged away from modelling countless DC-3 variants! And that's coming from a DCA pilot too!BestSir John :-sword

I had backups of aircraft.cfg and panel.cfg files, so I went back to those and added things (automix, driftmeter, wind direction gauge) back one at a time except for the landing light reflections. Now the VC lights work. Thank you to all who helped with suggestions.

>Admittedly, this is a bit of a downer but perhaps we will see>this in the future after other more significant modelling>problems have been sorted.Bear in mind that the real DC-3 in original spec did not have backlit gauges! Typically, small red bulbs shone down on the key instruments. So in fact a 'wash' of colour is more realistic. It's possible to tone this down by playing with light settings.Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/newlogo.jpg

Hi,Thanks, Mark. I had a feeling afterwards that this might have been the case with the gauge illumination. So I'm more than happy with that then now it's confirmed. As for my personal R4D light settings, well you can imagine, I had those sorted on day one!Cheers,Sir John :-sword