Hello,after multiple nudges from Arne Bartels I have finally moved my behind from the old panel desgin forum at the "other" site to here :-)After reading the VC panel lighting tutorial one question still remains unanswered:Is there any way within the gauge programming to make strings (for example that represent LED numerical displays that have their own lighting source) luminous in a VC also?IMAGE_USE_BRIGHT appears to be completely and utterly non-funcitonal in VC's ???!!!Does this mean VC gauge lighting is ONLY possible within gmax?Mathias

>Is there any way within the gauge programming to make strings>(for example that represent LED numerical displays that have>their own lighting source) luminous in a VC also?>IMAGE_USE_BRIGHT >appears to be completely and utterly non-funcitonal in VC's>???!!!>>Does this mean VC gauge lighting is ONLY possible within>gmax?As the author of the VC Lighting Tutorial, allow me to offer an analogy that might help clarify things a bit for you and anyone else who may still be puzzled... ;)In any VC model, whether it was created with GMax or FSDS2, your gauges are displayed on a "projection polygon" that is specially built and that are textured with a special bitmap that has the unique $ prefix to its filename.This "$" prefix is a flag to FS to autogenerate the texture dynamically. This specially textured polygon behaves like an LCD screen. For any "lighting effects" (such as USE_IMAGE_BRIGHT) to be visible, there must be some sort of "backlighting." To accomplish this, the modeller must map another texture to the "Self-Illumination" slot in GMax, or the equivalent technique in FSDS2. The name of this texture must be exactly the same as the $texture, but without the $ prefix and instead a _L suffix added. For example:$vc_main.bmpvc_main_L.bmpProviding all of this has been done by the modeller, THEN you would simply create the xxx_L.bmp texture in Photoshop, and "paint white" (or shades of gray) wherever you want "light" to be allowed to show.Obviously, if the modeller has not made provision for _L.bmp lighting, then there is absolutely nothing the gauge programmer can do to effect properly backlighted gauges, or gauge elements in the VC... It is only possible through a collaborative effort between the modeler and the gauge programmer (unless, like myself, those to happen to be the same person!) ;)BTW, welcome to the really active forum! ;)

Thanks Bill for the clarification and the welcome! I was afraid the answer would be as it is...My GMax designer collegue seems to have vanished from planet earth, so I am somewhat stuck with my project now. I simply do not get the hang of this very un-intuitive and complex 3D design tool called GMax. I once was an AF99 man...Mathias