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Category Archives: Cockpits
Double Your Framerate: Pre-Fill
That got your attention, eh? Sorry, this is not a tip on how to tune your X-Plane system; it’s a tip for aircraft authors to make sure their 3-d cockpits are running at maximum performance. Prefill is when X-Plane blocks … Continue reading
Posted in Aircraft, Cockpits, Modeling
9 Comments
Composite in the Panel Texture, Not 3-d
One thought on alpha and HDR and aircraft: If you need to create a final flat part of a panel out of multiple layers, some translucent, and you are using panel texture, it is better to composite the entire piece … Continue reading
Posted in Aircraft & Modeling, Cockpits
10 Comments
New OBJ Commands
I have updated the OBJ8 specification with the new X-Plane 10.10 commands. This blog post explains why we added some of these commands. Pixel-Space Drag Manipulator The pixel-space drag manipulator is a new axis manipulator whose drag length is measured … Continue reading
Posted in Cockpits, Development, File Formats, Modeling
11 Comments
Three Plane-Maker Tricks You Should Know
Here are three obscure Plane-Maker/X-Plane features that can save you time if you developer complex aircraft. Plane-Maker Will Copy Your Instruments You may know that in Plane-Maker, you make your own copies of X-Plane’s PNG files to customize the look … Continue reading
Let Your Eyes Adjust
This is a feature I looked at putting into X-Plane 9, but it turned out that it affects so many different parts of the sim (and has to be done all-or-nothing) that it got kicked to v10. Consider these two … Continue reading
Performance of Panel Texture vs. 3-d Cockpit
I sometimes get questions from authors considering how much to rely on a 2-d panel mapped to 3-d via the panel texture vs. a true 3-d panel. I can’t comment on what will look best, but I can comment on … Continue reading
Posted in Cockpits, Development, Modeling, Panels
Tagged cockpits, modeling, panels, performance
2 Comments
Lighting Rheostats in X-Plane 9
There were a few threads regarding lighting rheostats in X-Plane 9. Here’s a short version of the issue and why we’re not changing X-Plane 9′s behavior. X-Plane 9′s policy toward lighting rheostats is a little bit arbitrary. The sim will … Continue reading
What is the Difference between ANIM_hide and ATTR_draw_disable?
In order to understand the difference between hiding geometry and disabling drawing, you need to understand that an OBJ triangle can serve many purposes. Broadly, those purposes are: Drawing (the most basic use). Collision detection, of which we have three … Continue reading
Posted in Aircraft & Modeling, Cockpits, Development, File Formats, Modeling
Tagged animation, cockpits, file formats, modeling, performance
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I Feel Manipulated
Tom has a new video on youtube of his just finished Falco. The video shows what screen-shots cannot: that the mouse interactions on the plane are really well crafted. If you’re just discovering X-Plane (or just discovering that X-Plane’s 3-d … Continue reading
Posted in Aircraft & Modeling, Cockpits, Development, Modeling, Tools
Tagged animation, cockpits, modeling, tools
5 Comments
The 3-d Panel Is Not Always Necessary
There is no need to use the 3-d panel if you only want 3-d cockpit. That might be the most counter-intuitive statement in the entire universe. Let’s break it down and see what’s going on. Originally we had the 2-D … Continue reading