I'm going to take a shot at putting together a Virtual Cockpit, so I'm wondering, to get the theory behind this, ....When inside the craft, what is part of the interior ?Is everything that I don't put in the interior still visible from the interior ?i.e. If I only created a dirt simple interior model that was only a panel, would that visually be the only "working" item in the interior and everything else that might move would be part of the animations of the exterior model?(PS: I do understand that any MouseRect is part of the interior model)

FSX uses two separate .mdl files: one for the exterior and the other for the interior.FS9 uses one .mdl with both exterior and interior compiled together.In both case though, the only "parts" you will see while in the VC view mode are those "parts" that are included in the interior model...Typically then, after completing the exterior model, I will simply clone/paste all of the exterior "parts" to the interior model, then begin the process of removing those "parts" that can never be seen from anywhere inside the cockpit and/or cabin.Then I start removing polygons from those "objects" that can never be seen from inside the cockpit and/or cabin, such as the bottom of wings (or the top of wings depending on the aircraft!), landing gear (you can't see the nose gear or tail gear from inside the aircraft), et cetera.After all of this, I then begin building the actual cockpit, since I typically only have a simplified "dummy cockpit" for the exterior model... :(

That makes sense. One other thing I'm struggling with is if I were to copy over an existing section of another panel.cfg and any bmp or dds files, like the one below, since all the gauge names and gauge positions are listed, why don't they just show up in the interior model of my model at those gauge positions? [VCockpit01]file=Panel_R22_Decals.bmpsize_mm=512,512pixel_size=512,512texture=$R22background_color=0,0,0gauge00=Robinson_R22!VSI, 0, 298, 141, 152gauge01=Robinson_R22!Altimeter, 0, 157, 141, 140gauge02=Robinson_R22!Airspeed, 0, 0, 151, 156gauge03=Robinson_R22!Manifold_Pressure, 142, 158, 137, 137gauge04=Robinson_R22!RPM, 143, 308, 137, 150

They will only appear if you've...created a polygon in your modelcreated a new FSX Material, and placed a 'dummy bitmap of 512x512 pixels" named $R22.bmp in the Diffuse Color slotmarked the Advanced Properties of the FSX Material "Is virtual cockpit panel texture"applied the FSX Material to your polygon.The 'dummy bitmap' is only required so the SPECIAL NAME can be "loaded" into the FSX Material's Diffuse Color slot!

I think I get it. With regular textures they are static and applied to an object and as long as that same named texture can be found by the model, the texture will show up. With a VC the gauges need placeholder positions for the STATIC portion from the texture and the panel.cfg adds the DYNAMIC parts to the same place and that is why it needs the position numbers. Is that how it works?

I think I get it. With regular textures they are static and applied to an object and as long as that same named texture can be found by the model, the texture will show up. With a VC the gauges need placeholder positions for the STATIC portion from the texture and the panel.cfg adds the DYNAMIC parts to the same place and that is why it needs the position numbers. Is that how it works?

Yes, pretty much. The $ prefix to the "dummy texture" name is a flag that tells FS to create a "virtual bitmap" in memory. It will then "draw the gauges" on that "virtual bitmap" in real time and display it on the model's "gauge polygons..." :(

ok - Then what is this texture=$r22_bg in the default R22 panel.cfg, which starts with a " $ " and has a size of 622 x 768 and in the folder has an extension of .bmp ???1) I thought all $ files are to be square (i.e. 256 x 256) ?2) I though there was no need to have the $ file named in the panel.cfg, as it was only for Gmax ?[VCockpit01]file=Panel_R22_Decals.bmpsize_mm=512,512pixel_size=512,512texture=$r22_bgbackground_color=0,0,03) so.... If I'm building a default R22 type panel, what should I use in Gmax that would be a perfect match to the already existing R22 panel.cfg ? 4) If I change the $r22_bg to $pan1 (which is a 256 x 256 which I used in Gmax) I get the first image. If I also // out the file=Panel_R22_Decals.bmp, I get the second image. Both have working gauges, but they are not placed right, in fact they are exactly like they are on the Panel_R22_Decals.bmp file. ???

You evidently have a complete "dog's breakfast" in your folders then, as there is no such file in the default ..\SimObjects\Rotorcraft\Robinson_R22\panel folder, nor any of the three ..\texture.n folders...

 Directory of P:\FSX\SimObjects\Rotorcraft\Robinson_R22\panel08/22/2007  06:09 PM			 5,371 panel.cfg08/22/2007  06:09 PM		   263,220 Panel_R22_Decals.bmp09/26/2007  05:10 PM		   627,554 Robinson_R22.cab08/22/2007  06:09 PM		   480,312 robinson_r22_background.bmp08/22/2007  06:09 PM		   480,308 robinson_r22_background_night.bmp

I know that my Robinson R22 is "virgin" since I've truthfully never bothered to even load it, much less modify it! :( In fact, after seeing the layout of the default R22 in Arno's ModelConverterX program, the problem you're having becomes quite obvious. The modeler has used what I term the "cookie cutter" method to lay out the gauges on the panel. In other words, each gauge has it's own polygon (shown in the screenshot below with a "checkerboard pattern")!

Well isn't that just my luck, trying to learn from something that doesn't match any of the tutorials. I'll just build it by regular methods then and be done. Thanks for finding this.

VC is now working....what a week.....Thanks for the help

VC is now working....what a week.....Thanks for the help

No problem.