Who here knows how to edit panel Bmps?

[Guest PaulL01]

Its been a while since I've done any panel work and of course things change, so how do you edit/paint panel Bmps and then keep the transparency of the windows/Black? is it indexed in the panel.cfg or is it set with an alpha channel?If Alpha are used are there any tools beside the SDK tools that will save alpha channels with the larger Bmps?Thanks!Paul

[Guest]

What I've done in the past is remove the upper portion of panels by just painting it black, you know, the part near the ceiling. It worked. Anything black will become transparent in the cockpit view.I doubt alpha channels were involved.

[Guest PaulL01]

Thanks Ihor!I'll give it a go.Thanks for the quick response. :-wavePaul

[Guest]

anything black shows transparent?? Then how do you get black color on the panel???You need to paint anything you wish to be transparent color 0,0,0. Black, say 8,8,8 will simply show up as black.

[Guest PaulL01]

Hi Micheal,RGB values of 0,0,0, represent absolute Black, values higher than this like 1,1,1, are considered grey but I wouldn't argue with you that anyone would have a hard time disdinguishing values of 16,16,16 as different from black unless they have somthing to compare toIf a certain program such as FS2k2 has code that reads in effect: window01 if RGB value 0,0,0,=transparent. then values any higher than 0,0,0, as stored in the Bmp will be rendered opaq, the RGB values made transparent could be anything such as 0,255,0 absolute green etc.and then there are Alpha channels where the transparency information is stored in the Bmp it self.I hope this makes sense to you.Paul