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Guest Pieter

Hate or love - those virtual cockpits

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Guest Pieter

HiIt's been a while...I've been a dedicated Flight Unlimited fan for ages, right back to FU1 when I've made my first international internet friend when we raved about the small square of real scenery and true to life aerobatics... :-jumpy However, I must confess that I've spent lately more time with FSugg9 than good for my health. Like the signature said I that read somewhere: "There is a thin line between a hobby and sanity".Now after that ellaborate introduction, back to the aim of this post. FS has spoiled me tremendously with its virtual cockpits. The feel of being in an aircraft cannot be better an experience simulated that way. I know, I know, many people rather hate that than love it. This is actually the last remaining dark force between FS and FU3. If only we could get that done in FU, I'll wipe FS from the hard disk, again...Pieter

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Me too -- I use the FS sims (2002 and 2004/9) as well as FU III. However, I've seen precious few flyable virtual cockpits. Pretty? Yes -- flyable? -- no. The thing is, I can't fly I plane properly unless I can read the primary instruments. OK, I'll admit that some FS VCs are readable but I've pretty much given up on using most of them. The majority of them present an opportunity to visit the cockpit and pan around. I like that. But then, it takes an horrendous amount of processing to display a good VC. The ones that look good bring my frame rates to a crawl and the ones that look mediocre are much less satisfying than a well-made 2-D panel, complete with good bitmap pan-around views.When we all have 4 GHz processors virtual cockpits may become the standard. Still, a pilot tends to stay seated during a landing and look straight ahead and we will always need a good "2-D panel view", even though the 3-D panel may provide that view.Hans Petter

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I love VC's and it's one of the main advantages FS has over FU.It largely depends on the particular aircraft model, but I only fly aircraft that have a readable VC. Some tweaking is usually required as well: 0.75x zoom and then I use ctrl+enter to move closer to the panel until the gagues are readable. Here are two shots from the Aerosoft DA20 Katana and the RealAir SF-260. Both have very readable VC gagues. I cropped the images so they are 100% size allthough the jpeg compression reduces quality somewhat.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/73995.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/73996.jpg


Asus Prime X370 Pro / Ryzen 7 3800X / 32 GB DDR4 3600 MHz / Gainward Ghost RTX 3060 Ti
MSFS / XP

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Guest Allan_D

Guys.I also like a nice VC, My favourite plane so far in Cof is the DC-3 ttc Super Otter by "Eugene Heyart" in this library "socomplt.zip"It's very flyable from the VC, it does bump my frame target a wee bit.http://forums.avsim.com/user_files/74027.jpgA shot of our beloved Seattle area.http://forums.avsim.com/user_files/74028.jpgHave Fun :-vuurAllan and PuppyBush Flying Unlimitedhttp://avsim.com/hangar/air/bfu/logo70.gif

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Guest R_Driscoll

Those are absolutely superb shots, Allan and JimmiG! I like the night water shine and the detailed hills in JimmiG's first shot. Well done!RObD.

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Guest effyouthree

Folks,As much as I'd love to do a real good F4 view, it's hard enough building the aircraft! We no longer have the benefit of workteams - these days, FU3 aircraft creators have to do it all themselves ;)I tried a proper F4 cockpit in the Dash-8 but the renderer went weird and placed the dash top in front of the panel etc :-( I think the problem has to do with perspective - if you switch it off it's OK. Problem is, your external views look weird without perspective. The 'simple' way out is to make the virtual cockpit oversize (~ 2x) which may help the perspective.Then, all we have to do is make instruments work! Controls - fine, instruments - no! I know LGS were looking at it but I don't think they got very far.Meanwhile, I just try to make the F2/F3 views as good as possible ;):-waveRegards,**************Jonathan Point**************"I'd rather be down here wishing I was up there than up there wishing I was down here"

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Guest R_Driscoll

I'd love F4 views to work properly, but they don't so that's that. Still, as you said Jon, looking out the front left window on a steep left turn is pretty close. And the birds (the butcher and seagull) seem to give this effect too.

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Guest Allan_D

Rob.Those are absolutely superb shots, Allan and JimmyG!Thanks Rob.Another thing I've been able to do in Cof is teach my Puppy to fly, It's lot,s of fun to fly together with that little fuzz ball :-lolSometimes he gets a little to close and I scold himhttp://forums.avsim.com/user_files/74334.jpgThis is Puppy being goodhttp://forums.avsim.com/user_files/74335.jpgJonathon.Meanwhile I just try to make the F2/F3 views as good as possibleYou do a very good job with that and I thank you for all your FU3 adds, I use most of them and enjoy themHave Fun :-vuurAllan and PuppyBush Flying Unlimitedhttp://avsim.com/hangar/air/bfu/logo70.gif

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Guest effyouthree

Thanks Allan,'Enjoyment' is why I do them! As soon as I worked out just how much we could do with FU3, I haven't stopped. Nowadays, I get as much from upgrading as I do from flying. The best part about upgrades is the first time you see them (working properly!). The first time I started out at Ranger with the new trees, I just couldn't believe the transformation (hence why I posted those early shots straight away). Ever since then, I just couldn't wait to share it with you all. Of course, the FBO was part of the surprise so I had to finish them too!I'm happy as long as you're all happy ;)Regards,**************Jonathan Point**************"I'd rather be down here wishing I was up there than up there wishing I was down here"

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Guest effyouthree

Allan,I forgot - I hope Puppy enjoys all those new trees too ;)Regards,**************Jonathan Point**************"I'd rather be down here wishing I was up there than up there wishing I was down here"

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Guest Pieter

Thanks GuysHmm, I hope I'm correct in my reference to "guys", seems to me our "better halves" in this part of the forums are long gone... ;-)Well, Allan jumped right ahead of me and posted some images of what I wanted to show. Interesting altogether for me to discover that most of us FU3 fans also ended up using FS somewhat more than just a glance!! :-lolIn summary thus, FU3 is starting to show its age, but nonetheless not less beautiful and still presents a meaningful hour or two flight simulation. Sigh, the working gauges in FS versus the "dead" FU3 cockpit (the VC that is) is still a shame; else FU3 would still be after a few years ahead of many others. Even the "great" X-Plane falls quite a bit short. However, simulator junky once thenapparently also one forever - I just buy'n fly 'em all.Regards and thanks for a much enlightening discussion on the topic I started! It is great as always to linger around in this forum.Pieter

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Guest juvat2

Here's a shot from a mustang cockpit-JAS. Looking Glass was "virtually" there before having to close it's doors. The mustang gauges are functional(not all), throttle, rudder pedals, flight control stick follow your joystick inputs. The canopy opens/closes. Can't pan 360 deg but can get a good view over your shoulders.Zoom also available in cockpit using "Z" and "X".JimB.

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Guest effyouthree

Jim,I really should have a look into JAS to see if there's anything usable - it's cheap enough ;) I got my 3-sided tree idea from 'V-Rally' (no, I didn't copy the files but I did look at them).Ya never know...:-waveRegards,**************Jonathan Point**************"I'd rather be down here wishing I was up there than up there wishing I was down here"

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Guest juvat2

Hi Jon,I had an idea some time ago when there was posts about improving the clouds. When I ported some clouds to 3ds, there's was a certain model I thought that if its textures were of a tree, and the model resized, I bet that tree would have looked nice and detailed. I just got all your latest files downloaded and am looking forward to getting them installed. Your multi-trees will look great boardering roads. Will look really realistic at night having a car driving along there with its lights on I think.Useable things from JAS. I imagine using the Jas model bin2e tool I'd uploaded, any of the models should fit right in to Flight3. There are lots of UK specific models in the mesh.crf. There are others that might look ok in the Swiss region. Textures are tga and quite detailed. But then the "copyright police" may come around.I had converted the left wing of the me109 to 3ds to play around with improving the mesh. Then after fooling around with it for a while, I reminded myself that I wasn't a modeler and things like that is best done with folks with the smarts for it. So that wing project I abandoned. Had converted the P47 cockpit to 3ds sometime ago(can't find it now). I was looking to see the feasibility of adding axles to any of the inop gauges. Had no idea what I was doing there either, so quit with it. Same with under carrirage to see if the wheel could be "axled".Then there's the thing about contrails, smoke and fire. Those Attack Squadron LG gurus got that looking pretty good. I've always wondered if Flight3's engine was cabable of rendering it. I reason it surely should be able to, given the incredible cloud and weather effects it draws. Imagine a chimney stack in flight3 with smoke coming out of it!Then theres its geofiles seemingly similar to Flight3/2 geo file name. File extensions are .geo however. Has a text file in the geo folder with just this in it. UTM zone 31 I suppose. "zone: "31"northing: "5217452.269511"easting: "-183303.246452"A potential outer terrain for Europe residents?Lots of things seem similar to Flight3 to me. Other things are more structured like Thief. It's a resource for Flight3 that's been missed/ignored. A fun,beautiful flight sim(to me) without an Avsim community to fix, unlock, improve it for it's own sake.A shot of Jas tree and shrub textures.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/74461.jpgJimB

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Guest effyouthree

Jim,What I'd love to do is look through their resfiles (if they use them) or binfiles from the aircraft. Then we can see the subpart names and try to do something with them. I wouldn't be too shocked to see the smoke working, as the resource file in FU3 already has 'axles' for it. Dunno how it's modelled but we can sure find out. To do it properly, I should just buy JAS as I've seen it very cheap - just not in the last 6 months!Maybe you could email some stuff?PS thanx for mentioning those tools so long ago. Without 'bintoe.exe', we wouldn't have any new trees, FBOs or houses (houses?). Oh, BTW - I just ported the Seattle houses (with night lighting) to Sanfran AND restored night lights to house 4 & 5 as well! Looks muuuuuch better ;):-waveRegards,**************Jonathan Point**************"I'd rather be down here wishing I was up there than up there wishing I was down here"

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