>1. The 8-bit texture (vcpanel_L) is applied in gmax as self >illumination map with the ($vcpanel) texture obviously >works, or did twice though the illuminated spots were >backwards (but not upside down) to the panel gauges. lol I must have misremembered this, as it turn out you need only flip the mask vertically (i.e., upside down).>Does the orientation of the 8 bit vcpanel_L in the panel.cfg >have to match the upside down and backwards self >illumination map, or should its orientation be correct with >the visual panel background? There is no way to affect the orientation in the panel.cfg, so the question is essentially meaningless... :)>2. Is there an alpha associated in any way with this >vcpanel_L? or is it simply an 8 bit texture? There is no need for an alpha channel, unless you want to try moving the electrical buss for gauge illumination from the landing lights buss to the navigation lights buss. I've never managed to get that working properly... :(Obviously, the cannot be an alpha channel for the $dummy texture, since it doesn't really exist anyway until FS2k2 generates it at run time... :)There are two critical things to remember when working with VC bitmaps:1) they MUST be square.2) they MUST be powers of 2 (256,256; 512,512; 1024,1024, etc.)I once lost three days chasing down why a particular panel would NOT illuminate, only to discover that my _L bitmap was 256,255 pixels... :)I agree, it should be so darn complicated!

Arghh... Maybe I am just too stupid, but it seems totally illogical to me either ways: panel illumination tied to nav or landing lights??? Sorry MS, but ahhh...Just my

>Arghh... Maybe I am just too stupid, but it seems totally >illogical to me either ways: panel >illumination tied to nav or landing lights??? >Sorry MS, but ahhh... God forbid they should have tied the VC panel/gauge lights to the (gasp!) panel/instrument lights switch!!! :)

I think a reason for this may stem back to the bad ol' days when FS was so resource hungry that any optimisation was welcome.The NAV light bus works on the premise that there is no requirement to have your NAV lights lit until evening civil twilight (in theory).Some boffin obviously decided that this would the time that natural light would be insufficient to illuminate the panel hence the link.I think they call this backward compatibility though it can be interpreted a number of waysIt would be nice to see them look at these optimisations again given that processors are a lot more powerful.It would make some logic of the design process.

>Bill, >>Thank you for the quick response. If I can get this working >soon, it will be included in my Friday release of the Aero >Commander 520. Otherwise, I will hold it off for the next >model next month. :-) >>http://www.flightsimonline.com/ac520/ Milton,I sure wish that you'd put your Commander 520 on a server that can handle the load! I've been trying since - well forever! - to get the this link to give it a whirl... :(

Bill, I did, AVSIM, FSV, Flightsim, and FSNordic.The Download is not on my server. That was an error of AVSIM's announcement. :-)Milton

Bill,Another thing since you obviously have the Aero Commander 520 downloaded by now.... After 20 change/compile/test cycles and 15 hours of work, I could never get the backlighting to work.I am happy to report however that I've never seen a 1952 AC520 with backlit gauges. So, it still feels authentic. :-)Milton