New to virtual cockpit

[Guest]

I wanted to learn about making a virutal cockpit (not just the panel but the interior of the aircraft). I cloned by aircraft, created the two groups for exterior and interior. The model displays in FS in both Spot and VC views.But when I move the eyepoint to where the pilot would sit, in VC, I do not see any part of the aircraft. IOW I see the ground where I should see the bottom and sides of my aircraft. As I move around I can see some parts of the AC like a cutaway view and I can see the tail when I look behind me. I can see the transparent glass outside and partly from when I pass through it inside, but not when the eyepoint is completely inside.Can anyone help?Steve

[Guest PhLem]

There are two things to this. First, have you set your eyepoint in the interior group in Gmax ? Second, your viewpoint settings in the aircraft cfg may be incorrect. Make sure they correspond with the viewpoint set in Max.Regards,Udo.:-wave

[Guest]

>But when I move the eyepoint to where the pilot would sit, >in VC, I do not see any part of the aircraft. IOW I see the >ground where I should see the bottom and sides of my >aircraft.You probably need to reverse the normals for the fuselage, otherwise it will be transparent when looking from the inside! :)Here is a shot of my Socata TB20GT's interior...

[Guest]

Bill to the rescue again! I thought about adjusting the normals but I have been in so many confused situations in GMAX having to start over I did not want to touch them. I am using a "thin wall" construction like the MS examples, where the sides are a geometric plane. They do not have an inside like a tube, but are like a cylinder, so I suspected that the "inside" is not visible but the "outside" is. I tried applying a 2-sided texture but got nowhere.Now, how to reverse the normals all at once? I will read the GMAX help, but will likely be back here again with questions.I am building an ultralight based on a drawing of the Beta Bird. Today I looked up engine specs and drawings for the Rotax 447.Steve Knoblock(actually there was an ultralight called the ufo)

[Guest Fabio Miguez]

Hey Steve.Here is what you do. The cylinder must be an Editable Poly or Editable Mesh.1 - Go to Modify Tab2 - Select Element sub-object3 - Click the cylinder, and make sure all its faces are selected (if you divided your cylinder, you might have to CTRL+Click to "add" the parts not yet selected to the selection)4 - Scroll down to the Surface Properties section of the Modify Tab.5 - Click on Flip NormalsAll faces should be invisible from the outside, and visible from the inside of the cylinder.Let me know if you need more help.

[Guest]

>Bill to the rescue again! I thought about adjusting the >normals but I have been in so many confused situations in >GMAX having to start over I did not want to touch them. I am >using a "thin wall" construction like the MS examples, where >the sides are a geometric plane. They do not have an inside >like a tube, but are like a cylinder, so I suspected that >the "inside" is not visible but the "outside" is. I tried >applying a 2-sided texture but got nowhere. >>Now, how to reverse the normals all at once? I will read the >GMAX help, but will likely be back here again with >questions. Fabio answered the question, but...Be sure to *clone* your fuselage and name it something like "fuselage_interior" and then flip the normals on the clone! :)Otherwise, you'll have a transparent plane from the outside view! :(What I did was to clone the fuselage of the TB20GT, whack off the tail, weld in a new bulkhead, and weld on a firewall, *then* reversed the normals...If you flip the normals first, it makes it much more difficult to do the "welding..."