Hello,I am using the Friendly Panels GPS addon in conjunction with the Dreamfleet Boeing 727 addon. I have installed the Bendix KLN 90B GPS to the forward center pedestal of the 3D cockpit. However, during night the backgrond of the forward center pedestal appears black around the Bendix KLN 90B GPS. I already asked how to fix this in the Dreamfleet 727 support forums, but I sadly did not get any reply for month.My idea now is to simply create a gauge that does nothing more than to display a bitmap. I would do screenshots of the forward center pedestal and simply make a gauge of it which does nothing more than to show the bitmaps so that the area does not get black anymore during night.So my question is: how to create a gauge that does just display a bitmap? And which tool do I need for doing so?Many thanks in advance!I hope to get some help this time... :)

XML coding would be the simplest. You can just place the xml code into a text file, save as gaugename.xml into its own folder (placed inside the plane's PANEL folder) and then specify the gauge in the panel.cfg file as: foldername!gaugename, x, y, xsize, ysizeI assume that something like this will work, if background.bmp is your cockpit display. You can name the BMP file anything you like, BTW.

<Gauge Name="cockpit_display" Version="1.0"><Image Name="background.bmp"/></Gauge>

If you need a gauge element for this to work, then you could use:

<Gauge Name="cockpit_display" Version="1.0"><Image Name="background.bmp"/>  <Element>    <!-- dummy element -->      <Select>        <Value> (A:sim on ground, bool)	</Value>        </Select>   </Element></Gauge>

Unfortunately, unless emissive backlighting is already coded into the 3d model, the screen will still be unlighted at night.

True...

Well, at first I have to send a warm thank you! The method described above (I took the first one) worked perfectly. This is exactly what I was looking for :smile:Also, I can confirm that emissive backlighting luckily seems to be coded into the panel.This is where I put the GPS panel onto the forward center pedestal:And this what I got at night without any further modification:Finally, due to the method which tgibson suggested, I made 4 replicas of the forward center pedestal graphics and simply put them where they belong to, around the Friendly Panels GPS and RealityXP Weather radar. It was also a perfect opportunity to finally get rid of that altitude alert instrument graphic on top, which has no function, and replace it by a placard which shows the registry of the Condor livery which I am flying (sorry that I have to blame the Dreamfleet /Flight1 developers for it, but as usual the rest of the plane just is perfect ;) I fly it since 2007 with passion).É voilà:Finally, at night it looks like it should:Thanks a lot!

I was just going to suggest doing the graphics copy/paste to cover up the rest of the non-transparent black...Now, see if there is possibly a lightmap you can tweak to provide actual "backlighting" for your upper pedestal, like the steam gauges are lighted...The name of such a lightmap is normally the same $name as the [VCockpitnn] entry uses, without the $ and with a _L or _LM suffix. For example$vcpanel_03 lightmap might be vcpanel_03_L.bmp or vcpanel_03_LM.bmp

And usually found in the plane's texture folder, not the panel's folder (at least in FS2004).