Understanding Aligning Instrument Panels w/ cockpit models

[Iceman]

This tutorial has been moved over to the YS Flight Sim Wiki as of Monday September 16, 2013

http://ysflightsim.wikia.com/wiki/Icema ... pit_models

So if any of you has seen, Umaibow seems to have stepped ahead of us and managed to figure out how to align instruments with cockpit srfs, creating a flawless cockpit with instrument controls. Of course, I need to learn how to do this, and on this thread I'll be recording how I break it down and what I did to understand what.

Important points will look like this.

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So, to start off, I've decided what I want to do is breakdown that Stock C-130, and figure out what numbers go where. I've taken a look in the C-130 Dat, and here's what I got so far:

Code: Select all

INSTPANL aircraft/c130.ist
ISPNLHUD TRUE
ISPNLPOS -0.5m 0.72m 10.4m

So, of course, INSTPANL determines the directory/filename of the insturment panel. And, judging by the variable name, ISPNLHUD determines if the DAT file uses both a HUD and an Instrument panel. The variable I really want to mess with is ISPNLPOS. What determines where the instrument panel is placed? What is it's offset from zero?

To figure it out, I'm going to breakdown the IST file, construct a small cockpit using circles and such in the exact places where the IST designated there are objects drawn, and load it in game to see where the instrument panel is, relative to the cockpit file.

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Alright, IST open. Here's what I got:

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REM Instrument Panel Definitoin for Concorde
REM Circular indicators,
REM   ???????? x y radius
REM Rectangular indicators
REM   ???????? x1 y1 x2 y2
REM   (x1<x2, y1<y2)

PNLRANGE -1.00 -1.0 1.00 -0.0

ATTITUDE  0.0  -0.0  0.05
HEADING_  0.0  -0.12 0.05
ALTITUDE  0.12  0.0  0.05
VERTICAL  0.12 -0.12 0.05
AIRSPEED -0.12  0.0  0.05
TRNCOORD -0.12 -0.12 0.05
THROTTLE -0.12 -0.24 0.05
ILS_____  0.24  0.0  0.05
VOR_____  0.24 -0.12 0.05
ADF_____  0.24 -0.24 0.05

GEAR____  0.24 0.06 0.28 0.10
BRAKE___  0.30 0.06 0.34 0.10

FUEL____  -0.25 -0.05 -0.22 0.05
GLOADING  -0.21 -0.05 -0.18 0.05

FLAP____   0.30 -0.17 0.33 -0.07

REM SPOILER_ 0.50 -0.67 0.62 -0.37

SPEEDVFE 0kt
SPEEDVNO 350kt
SPEEDVNE 380kt
SPEEDRNG 400kt
SPEEDMCH FALSE
SPEEDARC 350deg

Don't even want to figure out what the REMs mean. I'm just interested in the middle variables. For instance, this one:

ADF_____ 0.24 -0.24 0.05

This is a line for a round instrument. I vaguely remember seeing that PNLEDIT Perl script shows a visual form of the IST files. I'm going to load it up.



Upon messing around with the ADF instrument, I realized that 0.24 -0.24 were the X and Y positions, and 0.05 was the diameter in meters of the instrument. So every positioning of round instrument panels are written as so:

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NAMEOFINST XPOSFROMCNT YPOSFROMCNT RADIUS

Alright. I broke down the other ones as well.

Rectangular coding is written as so:

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LEFTPOS BOTTOMPOS RIGHTPOS TOPPOS

Where each position is the position in x (for left and right) and y (for top and bottom) from zero.

what I'm going to do is reconstruct a cockpit based upon the values I found in this file.

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[waspe414]

Don't even want to figure out what the REMs mean.

Just for the record, in any .lst, .dat, or .ist (probably extends to .srf and .dnm, but I haven't tested those), a line starting with REM will be skipped over by the program. It is used for comments (or remarks, hence the name).

[Iceman]

I know, but the REMS often contain important info as to how the dat is put together.