How to Change Default Cockpit Camera Views

[MadDog]

1.  Go into Options > General > Camera (NOT the in-flight Camera Menu) and make absolutely sure that Height, Horizontal Position, and Zoom are set to 50!  These are the global values and if they're not set to default (50), all of your future custom views will not save correctly.  This is probably a bug because it's counter intuitive to apply global changes all over again when trying to save a view; but it is what it is.

2. In Options > Controls, search for the command "VFR Pilot View Save" and assign a key binding.  By default, this command is unassigned... I assigned it to Ctrl + Alt + V.

3. Make a note of your controller assignments for  "Reset Cockpit View".  Default is Left Ctrl + Spacebar and/or "F" (I also have it assigned to the trigger on my joystick).

4. Load the aircraft of your choice and use the translation, look, and zoom controls to position the camera exactly where you want it.  When you have what you want for a default view, press the "VFR Pilot View Save" binding assigned in step 2 (Ctrl + Alt + V in my case).  Now, every time you press the "Reset Cockpit View" button(s), it will go back to this view and will NOT alternate to other intermediate views with subsequent presses... yay!

5.  Now that you have a default view defined, custom cameras may also be saved the same way using the associated key bindings... default is Left Ctrl + Left Alt + 0 to 9.  These views are recalled using the corresponding "Load Custom Camera #" commands... default is Left Alt + 0 to 9 

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to set individualized default and custom views for each aircraft you own.

7. To save yourself a lot of pain... never, ever, EVER change the global settings in Options > General > Camera again... forget those settings even exist... they are evil !!!

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Some third-party aircraft that don't have a default VFR pilot view pre-defined will crash when executing the "VFR Pilot View Save" command.  For these aircraft, a custom view must be created and the CAMERAS.CFG file must be edited to convert the custom camera into a default view.

The CAMERAS.CFG is a standard text file and the edits are very simple; but the biggest challenge is finding the correct path.

For the MS Store version on MSFS, the path is:

--drive--\Users\--username--\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\SimObjects\Airplanes\--target aircraft--\CAMERAS.CFG

Here's the step-by-step:

1. Load up your desired aircraft, position the camera where you want it, and save it to a custom camera (default is Left Ctrl + Left Alt + 0 to 9).  Any will do, but for this example, I'll save my desired view to Custom Camera #1 (Left Ctrl + Left Alt + 1).

2. Exit the sim and navigate to the CAMERAS.CFG for the desired aircraft (see the path above).

3. Open CAMERAS.CFG with Notepad or your favorite text editor.  Depending on the circumstances, there may be several camera definitions, or there may only be one.  The definition you want to edit has a Title that corresponds to the camera you defined in Step 1.  In my case, I saved to Custom Camera #1, so I want to edit the definition with Title="1".

4. Edit the following 4 lines in the definition (substituting "1" for your custom camera # as necessary).  Don't worry about the definition's sequence number ([CAMERADEFINITION.#]) or Guid... they're fine as they are and shouldn't be changed.

[CAMERADEFINITION.0]
Title="1" "Pilot"                                                                              <Change to "Pilot"
Guid="{B7C50B63-1029-49E0-A831-0EF6257F1D77}"
UITitle="1" "TT:GAME.PANEL_CAMERA_PILOT_VFR"              <Change to "TT:GAME.PANEL_CAMERA_PILOT_VFR" 
Description=""
Origin="Virtual Cockpit"
Track="None"
TargetCategory="None"
ClipMode="Normal"
SnapPbhAdjust="None"
PanPbhAdjust="None"
XyzAdjust=0
ShowAxis="NO"
AllowZoom=1
InitialZoom=0.35
SmoothZoomTime=5
BoundingBoxRadius=0.1
ShowWeather=0
CycleHidden=0
CycleHideRadius=0
ShowPanel=0
MomentumEffect=0
ShowLensFlare=0
PanPbhReturn=0
SnapPbhReturn=1
InstancedBased=0
NoSortTitle=0
NodesToHide=""
Transition=0
Category="Cockpit"
SubCategory="Custom" "PilotCustom"                                            <Change to "PilotCustom"
SubCategoryItem="None" "DefaultPilot"                                          <Change to "DefaultPilot"
InitialXyz= 0.05, 0.1, -0.8
InitialPbh= -4.719444, 0.005864, 0.00041

5.  Save the file and go enjoy your new default view.  Note that the Custom Camera you used to temporarily save your default view in step 1 is now available again to save a different custom view.