Hi all,

 

I prefer to fly my aircraft with the 3D Cockpit and the Track IR head tracker. In many of my aircraft I have to zoom in the 3D Cockpit to a certain degree, in order to get a good readability of the cockpit displays. Unfortunately the zoom of the exterior scenery is tied to the zoom of the 3D Panel. This means that whenever I have zoomed in the 3D Panel to the necessary degree, the scenery outside is zoomed in too much.

 

I am looking for a parameter in one of the various configuration files of FSX, which determines the ratio between the zoom of the 3D Panel elements and the zoom of the scenery. I suppose that FSX aircraft/panel designers will probably use a certain parameter or setting which allows them to determine the default zoom of the 3D Panel when the aircraft is loaded, and that this parameter then determines the fixed ratio between cockpit zoom and scenery zoom. If I knew where I can find this setting, I could modify my aircraft at my discretion.

 

Or is there possibly one overall parameter in FSX which determines the zoom ratio between 3D cockpit elements and scenery for all aircraft? This would also help.

 

Does anybody have an idea how I can solve my problem?

 

Thanks in advance for any reply I might get!

 

Rainer

There is only one zoom value, and it is used for all VC views, including the outside window. This should typically not be changed once determined by the monitor proportions.

 

What you can do in the VC is instead use the eyepoint= line in the plane's aircraft.cfg file to move yourself closer to the panel. The zoom stays the same, but the gauges get bigger. This is the same thing as using Ctrl Enter/Backspace (?) to move your head closer/further to panel, but this sets the default head position.

 

Hope this helps,

I have my virtual cockpit zoom set to 1.5. I prefer the higher zoom with the outside world as well, as it makes the mountains more majestic and the runways the same size as I remember seeing out the window of a real aircraft.

 

If I can't see an instrument well enough, I lean forward. With that high a zoom level, I do have to look around the cockpit to see everything, but I expect to do that anyway, and TrackIR makes it trivial.

 

With some aircraft, a zoom of 1.5 is too much, but 1.0 isn't enough. You can use the control key with + and - to adjust the zoom continuously, and 1.25 works well for me on those cases.

 

Hook

Larry and Tom,

 

thanks for the workarounds you offered me. I had already tried them before I wrote this post, and of course the eyepoint adjustment or leaning forward with Track IR help to overcome an unsufficient relation between panel zoom and scenery zoom.

 

I just wonder how the fixed relation between the two zooms is determined from the aircraft design or panel design point of view. When somebody designs a 3D Panel, there must must be a point where he has to determine with which default zoom this panel shall appear when the aircraft is loaded. And he will have to determine it by setting either a certain parameter (whereever it is?) or by scaling his panel or by doing whatever (I dont't know). And this is what I was looking for.

 

Maybe a panel designer could give the answer.

 

Anyway, thanks your for your responses!

 

Rainer

 

Unless a "custom camera" for the VC has been defined in the aircraft.cfg file, the default VC Camera is defined in the Cameras.cfg file located in your "Users" folder. Mine for example is located here in Win7:

 

C:\Users\Bill\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\Cameras.CFG

 

In that file, the second definition is for the default VC Camera:

[CameraDefinition.002]

Title = Virtual Cockpit

Guid = {C95EAB58-9E4A-4E2A-A34C-D8D9D948F078}

Description = This is the description of the virtual cockpit view.

Origin = Virtual Cockpit

MomentumEffect = Yes

SnapPbhAdjust = Swivel

SnapPbhReturn = False

PanPbhAdjust = Swivel

PanPbhReturn = False

Track = None

ShowAxis = YES

AllowZoom = TRUE

InitialZoom = 0.7

SmoothZoomTime = 2.0

ZoomPanScalar = 1.0

ShowWeather = Yes

XyzAdjust = TRUE

ShowLensFlare=FALSE

Category = Cockpit

PitchPanRate=30

HeadingPanRate=75

PanAcceleratorTime=0

HotKeySelect=1

When I played with the zoom values in the camera sections of CFG files or FLT files, this always resulted in a common change of the panel zoom and the scenery zoom. I did not manage to achieve a change of the panel zoom only, with an unchanged view on the scenery.

 

Maybe I will have to stick to the workaround via the eyepoint adjustment for getting the 3D Panel "zoomed" for better readability. This is ok as a compromise, even though it is not a 100% solution because it creates an eye position which is too much forward relative to the seat.

 

Thanks for your help!

 

Rainer

It's unfortunate but zoom does affect both the outside 3d view as well as the 3d virtual cockpit view equally. While developing an aircraft project, I try hard to achieve a good balance between the default zoom and the eyepoint (camera) position within the virtual cockpit environment.

 

I also take the time to create custom camera views of important sections of the cockpit environment such as closeups of the throttle quadrant, overhead panels, center console, et cetera.

 

It doesn't help a bit that there's a definite limit to how far "back" one can shift the eyepoint as well. Too far back and the eyepoint may wind up "inside" the seat's headrest, which of course disables the ability to mouse click on switches, knobs, and so forth!

Thanks for that explanation!

 

Now I have at least the confirmation that I will not find the kind of parameter which I was looking for in any of the FSX config files, and I can stop waisting my time searching for it.

 

Rainer