Re-locating altimeter gauge in FS9 Trimotor?

[Guest JonP01]

Hi all,I am wondering if there is a way to relocate the altimeter gauge in the Ford Trimotor virtual cockpit please? I love this aircraft, but with the foward view I have chosen to adopt, I can't see the altimeter unless I pan to see it. I'd rather have it in view the whole time. I realise I could change the zoom and eyepoints and pan to see it, but after much experimentation, I prefer the zoom and eyepoint settings that I have now.If I was able to move the altimeter upwards on the instrument panel so that it appears directly under the turn coordinator, this would solve my problem. There is already a blank space there with no instrument. I looked into the panel.cfg file and saw that this gauge was already positioned at "0" on the "y" axis. So if I changed it to say, -60, it moved upwards but then the top parts of the gauge started to disappear. So it is not, as I thought, a case of just changing the coordinates.Any ideas? Thanks!

[Guest]

>I looked into the panel.cfg file and>saw that this gauge was already positioned at "0" on the "y">axis. So if I changed it to say, -60, it moved upwards but>then the top parts of the gauge started to disappear. So it is>not, as I thought, a case of just changing the coordinates.>>Any ideas? Thanks!You can only place gauges where there is a "gauge polygon." Since that gauge is already at the very top of the poly, trying to move it upwards will have the "disappearing" effect since there's no where to "project" the gauge...Think of the gauge polygon as if it were a movie screen. Obviously, if you move the projector, not all of the picture will be on the screen any longer... :)BillAVSIM OmbudsmanFounder and Director,Creative Recycling of Aircraft Partshttp://catholic-hymns.com/frbill/FS2002/images/fartslogo.jpg

[Guest JonP01]

Thanks Bill. I thought it might have had something to do with that. So I spent several hours tonight coming up with new zoom, eyepoint and view direction parameters so that I could see the altimeter where it normally is. One great feature about FS9 is that when you are setting up these parameters, you just have to re-load the same aircraft. Much easier than earlier versions where you had to unload the aircraft, load another aircraft, then re-load the aircraft.

[Guest]

Some of the aircrafts, such as my DC3 favourite, can be flown at ease using only the virtual cockpit (yoke almost required though). The "only" thing needed to setup, yet it takes a WHOLE LOT of time, is eyeposition and viewdirection for a number of directions (zoom is inop in vc though). Personally I have set the default forward view eyeposition (DC3) so that I'm actually seeing over the panel, forward view direction is set to pan slightly right (heading change might be "weird" to some) and down. I've replaced the horrible default virtual cockpit lightning with two much brighter ones - and the panel became readable.I've deleted all the 2D-panel entries except for the GPS.Most of the other directions has undergone the same changes; i.e. holding num-5 now zooms in on the throttle and trim controls, assign a yoke button to do this "pan command", you can still fly the plane while changing trim "the correct way" (no el. trim here :)).Some instruments has been fixed also; "re-enabled" some tooltips that dissappeared in a newly introduced bug. Added deicing boot capability to the .air-file, and "snuck in" an extra boot switch on the Sperry (no extra room on the default texture assignments). Finally replaced the sounds with the FU4 sounds, and tweaked the curves.Doing all these tweaks sure makes a old lady a lot more fun to fly.

[Guest JonP01]

Hi Karl,It looks like we have done almost the exact same thing. I spent the first three days deciding which were my favourite aircraft (Trimotor, Cub, Jenny and Schweizer). I then spent two days adjusting the view_dir and eyepoints and virtual zoom for each of them. Then like you I also cleared out the 2D panels except for the GPS.