It's a litte too bright, so I'm going to tone it down just a little.Using a circular gradiant fill to create the spherical effect is more art than science, haha.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/152176.jpg

This looks much better :-rotorhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/152177.jpg

Looks awesome, Patrick. Curious, what's your plan for the shadow on the spherical part of the gauge? I mean, how do you make the shadow stay in one place while the attitude indicator moves around? Is that where the "alpha shadow thing" comes into play? Reason I'm asking is that I'm trying to add a similar shadow to the outer edges of the rotating card on that DG I posted in the other thread. I have a nice shadow there in the original .psd, but I had to "disable layer style" to make the gauge bitmaps because it looked a little funny when the shadow rotated around with the gauge face as the aircraft heading changed :) .Looks really great! I'm jealous...Jim

Jim,>Looks awesome, Patrick. Curious, what's your plan for the>shadow on the spherical part of the gauge? I mean, how do you>make the shadow stay in one place while the attitude indicator>moves around?Well for this one, I have no plan or need to do that. This instrument is in a helicopter, and the gyro has limited movement. The shadow is really just to give it a sperical feel, and not so much for dynamic highlighting.Interestingly, I can create fully 3D instruments in the VC, and then get dynamic lighting on them. Just a lot of effort, can then night lighting is hard.>Reason I'm asking is that I'm trying to add a>similar shadow to the outer edges of the rotating card on that>DG I posted in the other thread. I have a nice shadow there>in the original .psd, but I had to "disable layer style" to>make the gauge bitmaps because it looked a little funny when>the shadow rotated around with the gauge face as the aircraft>heading changed :) .Well, I would try two things. One idea would be to have the shadow part just be a separate mask layer. I could do this in my instrument, and have it move in pitch, but not bank, for example. But, I'm not sure if this can be done, i haven't done it yet.Second idea would be to look at how they do the XML compass gauge in the panel SDK.>Looks really great! I'm jealous...As am I of your gauge. I have yet to do that, and want to try that soon in my C gauges.Thanks

I like this one even better:http://lh5.google.com/benchmark.avionics/R...ge.attitude.jpgPatrickBenchmark Avionicshttp://picasaweb.google.com/benchmark.avionics

Sorry I dissapeared over the weekend, Patrick. Thanks for the suggestions. I think I got the alpha highlight/alpha shadow thing figured out. I added reflections & shadows to nearly all the gauges I've built for the panel I'm currently working on. Man, what a difference!I was going to simply post some screens, but some of the shading is pretty subtle and I noticed when viewing these crops against a stark white background, the shading all but dissapeared. I did up a quickie web page with a black background and decided to link to that instead.http://www.cat-tamer.com/attach/gauge_alpha_highlight.htmlThe shot on the left is the "before" picture, smaller because I was running 1280 x 960 at the time I took the screenshot. The "highlight" and "shadow" on the DG were part of the background image and the rotating degree dial was completely transparent (#000000) except for the markings. Left a bit to be desired as the shadow didn't appear on the markings themselves.On the right I made the dial opaque which really cleaned up the edges of the markings. I added an alpha shadow which now appears over top of the markings, heading bug, etc. Everything now goes from bright near the bottom of the gauge, to shadowed as it rotates upward toward the top of the gauge. I also played with the highlight a bit and made the outer bezel a bit wider which I think looks a bit more realistic. I added some shading on the panel .bmp, and the screws. Still not totally pleased with the screws, think I may try some "photoreal" screw heads next time I get a chance.I like it a lot, and am now really pleased with the result :) .Thanks,Jim

Looks really really good.I can help you with the screws. Email me, and I'll send you a .pdf that will blow you away, and should hel you make a photoreal screw easily.Glad you have that all figured out, now I know who to ask when I try this later today and tomorrow. :-rotorI just now finally solved a problem I was having again with the textures getting compiled with a border that wasn't designed into them, and redid the whole gauge a bit larger with some new skills I just learned.You can check out my gauges so far here: http://picasaweb.google.com/benchmark.avionicsYou are doing yours in XML right? I am wondering if I can do the same in C, so I guess I'll have to give it a go.Patrick