Hello,

is there an instruction somewhere which descripes the integration of needles, warning lights, MFD displays etc. and which parts of the code are used for that?

I'm still working on the russian cockpits and the results are getting slowly better, but I have no idea how to adjust instruments or even make some new gauges or displays working. I need some hints which seperate parts of the code are used for integrating instruments. If I know this, I can compare the things made in the other helos and maybe could do the work by myself. Still found many parts which seem to be related to the instruments but its hard to search in the whole code to find which part is according to which other.

The other problem I have at the moment is that my laptop partly crashes if I'm using more memory intense programs. This suddenly happend two weeks ago for the first time and since then its getting more worse. I tried to come further with the cockpits, but think I have to fix this before, because there is no real effective working possible at the moment. Even my virtual machine, that I use for my web surfing is partly crashing. I hope I must not do a complete new install, maybe its only a faulty memory dimm, cause I have really no desire to setup the whole system again .

There is a page about the scenes in the wiki that might partially help...

http://eechcentral.SimHQ.com/index.php?title=3D_Scenes_internals

And this page explains in general about the LW objects, although I think it might need updated...

http://eechcentral.SimHQ.com/index.php?title=3D_models


I do intend to try and document what I know about how to add instruments, but I want to try and fix the MI-28 first then document it, as I might refactor a few things in how it works to make it easier to understand.

For a start, if you look in 3dmodels.h, you see things like OBJECT_3D_SUBINDEX(COCKPIT_VIEW_MFD_LHS_1). The COCKPIT_VIEW_MFD_LHS_1 part of that name needs to match the Label of an object in the scene. This is how the code finds the object that it should be animating.

The _instr.c files contain the workings for the instruments, for example hi_instr.c. The other part to it is _vckpt.c. This is the code responsible for creating the cockpit. There are usually calls to methods in the _instr.c file, from _vckpt.c file.


What program are you using for looking at the code? I'm using an old Dell Studio 1737, with a Core2Duo 2.5Ghz and 8GB ram. I've never had a problem with it crashing. I use it for Lightwave, and also things like Lightroom and Photoshop.

Hello messyhead,

the pages at the wiki I have also found, but they didn't really help me. The other things you descriped are much more usefull, thank you for that.

I have made a renewed version of the MI-28 cockpit. Nothing dramatic has changed, I have only made some better looking instruments and fixed some other few things, but the gauges and lights etc. are still at the same place, so your work for the working needles, bars etc. will still be compatibel. I will upload it soon. I will also upload the new version of my KA-50 cockpit then.

My laptop had never problems before, but since two weeks I have massive trouble with more CPU or RAM intense programs. Have already changed the cool paste for the CPU and cleaned the fan etc., cause I thought it could be a heat problem. It's an old Thinkpad SL410 which I had upgraded during my retraining to an IT technican back those days, to be able to make my project for the examination. I was told to do an windows deployment unattended installation and they had no real hardware I could use for it - but this would be a long story .

So I decided to upgrade the laptop with a powerful CPU and as much Ram as possible (8Gb) to run at least one server and three clients at VMware to be able to work at my examination. This is the reason why this laptop has an Intel X9100 CPU in which is normally a bit exaggerated. First I had decided to use an Core 2 Quad which had the same socket and had been far better for my needs, but there was no matching BIOS available at this time.

I had changed the fan and made some extra vent holes to prevent over heating. Never had any troubles the last seven years, but now it makes really much problems. Maybe its even a software problem, I don't know. I must do a closer research but at the moment I had not much desire for it and hoped that I will at least be able to finish my work for the cockpits first.

P.S: I use Open Watcom 1.9 for looking and compiling the code. Is there any other more user friendly ( for code noobs ) freeware compiler available?

I used Eclipse. It's a full IDE, so it lets you navigate through the code by holding CTRL and clicking on a function name, and it takes you to the function or variable etc. It's easier to figure out how things work that way.


https://www.eclipse.org/cdt/

Thank's for the link!

Just installed it and now will take a look. I hope I get better on with it as with WatCom, but it's hard to understand the coding if you are no programmer.

I think C is not the best language to start with as a noob . Hope I can at least make some adjustments to the instruments, that's really all I want to be able to do.

Actually, C is good to learn to start with coding. Python is also a good one to learn programming. I learnt Java first, then Python, and I wish I'd done it the other way round.

If you look on udemy.com, there's some good C courses on there that don't cost too much. Although there's probably a lot of free ones on YouTube as well.

The most difficult thing in C is pointers and arrays. All of the rest are easy to learn by a mid-school pupil.
Of course, the size of standard library is big, and to remember what's the difference between "puts" and "fputs" will take time.