Archives
Categories
-
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- Daniel on WED 1.2 Beta 1 Is Here
- elpresidento on WED 1.2 Beta 1 Is Here
- Ben Supnik on WED 1.2 Beta 1 Is Here
- wotaskd on WED 1.2 Doesn’t Use TerraServer
- Nelson on WED 1.2 Beta 1 Is Here
Meta
Category Archives: Panels
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
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
Popup Panels?
X-Plane doesn’t natively and directly support popup panels, but that doesn’t mean you can’t pop them up. Generic instruments have a dataref-driven set of show-hide fields. (The “filters”.) Now what you might not have realized is: groups have filters too! … Continue reading
Custom Plugin Instruments
A quick tip to anyone using OpenGL and a plugin to make custom instruments. (The most common case of this I can imagine is customized glass displays, where it may not be practical to use 10,000 generic instruments, and the … Continue reading
Where Did All of Those Lights Come From?
Javier posted a video of his CRJ on the dev list today. I have not tried the plane, but there is no question from the video that it looks really good. What makes the video look so nice is the … Continue reading
Posted in Aircraft, Cockpits, Development, Modeling, Panels
Tagged aircraft, cockpits, modeling, panels
3 Comments
Glass vs. Glass (Translucent)
In Plane-Maker you will see that there are two “glass” lighting modes for instruments – one called “glass” and the other called “glass (translucent)”. What’s the difference? The difference is how they respond to their lighting rheostat being turned down. … Continue reading
Masks for Glass Instruments
X-Plane’s panel system does not have true “masking” based on a bitmap. You can clip an instrument to its rectangular region, but most masks are made by overlaying another layer or instrument on top of the moving parts. Examples include … Continue reading
A Modern Cessna
With X-Plane 930 beta 8, we finally integrated the latest version of Max’s Cessna 172 SP. Grab the new beta and try it – he’s added a number of new features that demonstrate some of the newer X-Plane 9 airplane … Continue reading