hi there,i am not new to thse gauge lark, but a new problem has arisen for me i am not experienced enough to solve and not sure if it's even possible! i have made gauges with lighting - but that only works in the 2D panel, in the vc lighting is done using a light texture - however, what happens if the vc of an aircraft has no lighting texture? common variables such as 'bright=yes' and 'luminous=yes' do not work in the vc leaving the gauges dark and unreadable; or this at least is perhaps just me.is there a workaround or specific tag or any way to make the gauges light and bright in the vc?cheers.

No, not unless you have the source code for the model. The _L.bmp material must be added TO the model, which cannot be done without the source code.

so the only way to light a gauge in the vc is with an _l.bmp?bum!

Actually, the only way to light a *panel* in the VC is to set it's self illumination in the model before it's compiled. That's what provides the light. The gauges on any panel are lit by the lighting for the panel that they're located on.The _l merely maps out where that self illumination should be brighter or darker, it maps the intensity and color of the light.You can try adding an _l bmp of your own to the textures folder and see if it gets picked up... sometimes a model will have self illum set but no _l provided because it may have been left out but it's a longshot at best.Good luck,Scott / Vorlin

LOL! "Long shot?" Absolutely... the modeler has to quite deliberately create at least a bitmap named filename_L.bmp and drop it in the "Self-Illumination" slot in the Material Editor.Having taken the time to do that, it's not likely he'd forget to actually use it... ;)