Changing VC Cockpit View Crashes 2D Panels

[DickB 6]

Let's see if anyone can make any sense of this. I have a (payware) aircraft that I needed to change the VC view on (looking more downward). I read around the various forums and found several suggestions, which I tried, but the only one which seemed to work the way I wanted was to change the InitialPbh entry in the VC camera definition.This particular aircraft does not have its own VC camera definition. Instead it picks up the FSX default from the camera.cfg file, as do many other aircraft, including some (all ?) of the FSX defaults. Changing that definition in situ worked, but affected all aircraft using it. I tried copying it to the aircraft's own aircraft.cfg file and changing it there, but it wouldn't work while there was still a copy in camera.cfg. So, to cut a long story short, I ended up commenting out the VC camera definition in camera.cfg and adding it to those aircraft I regularly fly (thankfully not too many).And this works fine – except now if I fly an aircraft, end a flight and then attempt to fly the aircraft again, when I attempt to view any of the 2D panels, FSX crashes. I have to reboot to clear this. I did some investigation, and it seems to be the modified InitialPbh line that is causing this to happen. Does anyone have any idea why ? And how I might fix it ?Thanks

[n4gix 4,947]

This particular aircraft does not have its own VC camera definition. Instead it picks up the FSX default from the camera.cfg file, as do many other aircraft, including some (all ?) of the FSX defaults. Changing that definition in situ worked, but affected all aircraft using it. I tried copying it to the aircraft's own aircraft.cfg file and changing it there, but it wouldn't work while there was still a copy in camera.cfg. So, to cut a long story short, I ended up commenting out the VC camera definition in camera.cfg and adding it to those aircraft I regularly fly (thankfully not too many).

You were almost "there" with your first approach. Simply copy/pasting the default from the camera.cfg file into the aircraft.cfg file won't work. You must also change the GUID for that camera to a unique number... :)GUID numbers are base-sixteen, so the possible numbers are 0 to F...Changing at least one number in each group of a GUID should be sufficient to make it "unique," but to be absolutely certain you shoulr use a random GUID generator. I use this one myself:http://www.guidgenerator.com/

[DickB 6]

Thanks Fr B ! I did actually try changing the GUID, but I only changed one digit (I did realise it was hex). Maybe that wasn't enough. When I tried that FSX crashed when I tried to load the aircraft.I'll generate a new GUID with the generator and give that a try.

[DickB 6]

I'm afraid that didn't work. I changed the GUID in the VC camera definition in the model aircraft.cfg to one generated by the GUID tool. The original FSX VC camera definition is still commented out of camera.cfg. It didn't crash, but the aircraft came up with the 2D panel instead of the VC and does not even offer me an option for a VC Cockpit view in the View menu. Could the GUID for the FSX default VC camera be hardcoded into the model ?

[n4gix 4,947]

Restore the default entry in the camera.cfg file.Try something like the following, which I've created for the CJ1+

[CameraDefinition.001]Title = "Left Seat"Guid = {195EAB58-9E4A-1E2A-A34C-A8D9D948F078}Origin = Virtual CockpitMomentumEffect = YesSnapPbhAdjust = SwivelSnapPbhReturn = FalsePanPbhAdjust = SwivelPanPbhReturn = FalseTrack = NoneShowAxis = YESAllowZoom = TRUEInitialZoom = 0.85SmoothZoomTime = 3.0ZoomPanScalar = 1.0ShowWeather = YesXyzAdjust = TRUEShowLensFlare=FALSECategory = CockpitPitchPanRate=30HeadingPanRate=60InitialXyz=-0.63, 0.04, -0.1InitialPbh=5, 0, 0

[DickB 6]

I followed your suggestion, and I now have an additional cockpit view which works with the 2D panels, but it is only accessible via the View menu. The aircraft still loads with the default view as defined in camera.cfg. What I was trying to achieve was to modify the VC view that is called up by default when the a/c is loaded and also directly by the "Look Forward (VC Cockpit)" command from any other view. But it seems that view is hard coded as the default defined in the camera.cfg. Changing that definition in situ works, but of course it affects many other aircraft. Placing a customised version of it in aircraft.cfg also works, but causes the problem with the 2D panels as described above. Not sure why.I will probably go with this workaround in order to get the 2D panels. But my outstanding question is – is there any way (1) to cause the aircraft to be loaded with the new VC view as a default and (2) to go directly to the new VC view (and facing forward) when in flight ?

[DickB 6]

Just to close off this topic - I did some further controlled testing using the default Cessna as my subject. I found the following:The default VC view (i.e. the one which comes up if you specify VC as the default view in FSX.CFG) is the one defined with GUID C95EAB58-9E4A-4E2A-A34C-D8D9D948F078. This can be in camera.cfg or it can be removed from camera.cfg, customised, and copied to individual aircraft.cfg files. It doesn't seem to matter that different camera definitions with the same GUID appear in multiple aircraft.cfg files, presumably because only one aircraft is loaded at any one time.However, as above, I have also found that some customisation of the default VC camera definition can cause 2D panels on the aircraft to crash. The specific change that I found cause this problem was adding an InitialPbh statement to the camera definition, but other changes may have similar effect. It doesn't make any difference whether the change is made to the original camera definition in camera.cfg or in a version copied to an individual aircraft.cfg. With the change in place, everything works fine for the first invocation of FSX after boot. Aircraft can be loaded and reloaded, flights can be started and ended, and all panels display OK. However, if FSX is ended and then restarted, thereafter an attempt to switch to a 2D panel or view on the subject aircraft will display a black window and then crash FSX. The only way to fix this situation seems to be to reboot the system.I don't expect anyone to have a fix for this problem (though that would be nice !) I include the above in case anyone goes down the same road and sees similar problems. Since it doesn't seem to matter where the VC camera definition is changed, I have reverted to my original strategy (i.e. removing the default VC definition from camera.cfg and add it to the aircraft that I fly) and making sure I reboot before starting FSX. This at least means that my aircraft start up with the VC view that I want, and I can use the Switch to Forward View (VC) command to switch to that view from any other.EDIT: I reread this post and realise I didn't mention that the approach suggested by Fr B (add another VC camera definition to the aircraft.cfg) gave the same result (I incorrectly stated this worked OK in an earlier post).