I was a beta tested and bought MSFS the day it came out. Besides some fun VFR flying, I quickly dropped MSFS and went back to P3D as only really fly airliners. PMDG, QW787, et etc. With the release of the PMDG, I reinstalled MSFS and am now trying to learn (relearn) the sim. One of the mind boggling issues when I initially used MSFS was the lack of camera controls -- OR, the complete difficulty of doing so. Chaseplane in P3D is so good and easy to use. 

Are there any 3rd party programs for MSFS now? I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to get wing views set up with shortcut keys. I have watched videos on youtube and you have to edit some of the files??? Is this still the case? 

Luckily the PMDG already has bindings for cockpit shortcut views. 

Also, is there a way to change the spot view (P3D terminology?) to move around the aircraft using the top hat switch? really annoying that you can only get a fixed view while holding down the top hat switch. 

13 minutes ago, avi8tir said:

I was a beta tested and bought MSFS the day it came out. Besides some fun VFR flying, I quickly dropped MSFS and went back to P3D as only really fly airliners. PMDG, QW787, et etc. With the release of the PMDG, I reinstalled MSFS and am now trying to learn (relearn) the sim. One of the mind boggling issues when I initially used MSFS was the lack of camera controls -- OR, the complete difficulty of doing so. Chaseplane in P3D is so good and easy to use. 

Are there any 3rd party programs for MSFS now? I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to get wing views set up with shortcut keys. I have watched videos on youtube and you have to edit some of the files??? Is this still the case? 

Luckily the PMDG already has bindings for cockpit shortcut views. 

Also, is there a way to change the spot view (P3D terminology?) to move around the aircraft using the top hat switch? really annoying that you can only get a fixed view while holding down the top hat switch. 

I'm actually really bad with the shortcut key setup - I don't really use those because I use Track IR.

Yes you can definitely pan around the plane in external similar to FSX.  You'll want to bind a button for the Control of : COCKPIT/EXTERNAL VIEW MODE.  Once you've done that just search for something like EXTERNAL VIEW LOOK LEFT and so on for the HAT switch directions.

As far as fancy angles and stuff - I highly recommend Drone Cameras.  You can setup those on the same peripherals you use to fly.  Insert key swaps into (and out of) Drone mode and while in drone mode you can toggle between flying the thing and using the camera controls by pressing C.  Typically I pause my sim when in drone but you don't have to.  Slew also works you might have to bind it - I used Y like in FSX/P3D.

 

I can also recommend drone view. Especially in VR nothing beats sitting on the wing at FL370 and throwing things in the engines 🙂

The way I do it,when in the sim,go to camera drop down menu,select one of the wing views from there,then click on far left tab on camera menu to go back to Virtual Cockpit. From there then you can cycle using the insert key on your keyboard,once your back to a wing view,you can cycle between all of them using the A and shift A keys.

1 hour ago, avi8tir said:

Also, is there a way to change the spot view (P3D terminology?) to move around the aircraft using the top hat switch? really annoying that you can only get a fixed view while holding down the top hat switch. 

Use an XBox controller for completely smooth, on-the-fly, non-jerky, POV transitions. It does exactly what you want, and it's preprogrammed to work seamlessly with MSFS.

Just download custom camera profiles for any add one you like from here https://flightsim.to/c/user-content/custom-views

Then you can access these views via Alt+{1-0} 

Works like a charm 

i just need shortcuts (Like ALT+0-9 for custom camera´s) for the wing/cabin views . for instance just 0-9 and then use FSUIPC to map those to a button.

 

Michael Moe

Honestly, i just take the computer keyboard on my lap (i fly in VR) and use

[Insert] to toggle between VC view and cabin view (for the wing views)

From there you press [A] to go to next wing view or [SHIFT][A] to go to previous wing view. PMDG have set up many great wing views already.

Want to return to the VC again press [Insert]

Want to use the drone camera? from the VC press [Insert] again to go to cabin view and then press [End] button to go to drone camera

In drone camera mode i use buttons [A] and [D] to move left/right, and [W] to move forward/backward, [F] and [R] to move up and down and [4] and [6] (from numpad) to turn your head left/right etc....... it takes some training but i don't need any external control any more now to use this.

 

 

 

Edited May 11, 20224 yr by avhpilot