Been digging through the archives, found this possibility.

Old Mossie:



vs New Mossie:



What do you think?

Thats very impressive!!

So many old cockpits are somehow messed up or has bad graphics from the start, with often not readable instruments or bad placed pointers.

Ok, so you are not allowed anymore to make holliday, to go to work, to take care for the family and to eat, until all cockpits are on the above stage.

Beer is allowed!!

Excellent

Thanks guys, thought you would enjoy it!

Ralf, I am recuperating from rotator cuff surgery on the left arm, and doing the right arm in about 2 months, so I have a TON of available time. Unfortunately, the beer would interfere with my Hydrocodone!

So we shall see what can be done. The above represents where I was some years ago when the bickering was just too much. Since that's settled, I feel a fresh enthusiasm! Preliminary tests are promising, but it may require turning all the needles in to sprites, a tedious job, but thankfully once a needle is done it can be used for any similar gauge for any slot. Jel, might require your tool making abilities!

Believe it or not, I first made that Mossie cockpit in 2002. It was later improved by Claudio Wilches. It could certainly do with a proper sorting out!.

What a luck we have, that you are an old damaged bugger who must recover.

Unlike to me, iam a 20 Years old Adonis by now, even my Sons are older. Iam here cause i have so much energy, i even dont need sleep.

Ooooooh!

Yes please....

Jack, looks like a winner. Hopefully you are laid up for about 10 years 'cuz there are A LOT of cockpits out there.

One of the things I did to make the gauges more readable was to move them closer to the player using 3dz Studio. I did have to delete some of the non-functional elements that displayed lights and switches but you don't even notice it.

Anther thing I did was add animated lights and switches that were action coded to the flaps, engine on/off and landing gear.

Take a look at some of the 1.6 aircraft_inventory planes to see what I mean.

LOL, actually Ray, I DID notice that, but I'm really familiar with the cockpits. It did have the desired effect, though.

A lot of the cockpits in the original default aircraft - particularly in the German ones - used the switches and stuff - look at a default 109, the magneto switch moves, the landing gear light goes red when they come down, others have a single red light for that. There are a few other sprites that are available for use as well that didn't get implemented, if i recall correctly.

Anyway, I'm going to finish up this Mossie, then go through the default cockpits. I have most of the German gauges made, and many of the Brits as well.

Cheers,

CJ

Let me start by saying I know close to nothing about the sprites.

I did notice that some of the default cockpits have animations, it's just that some of them are pretty poor. For example the indicator on the P-47's that includes both the flaps and landing gear position is almost unreadable, well at least for 69 year old eyes.

Also, one of the compass sprites is pretty blurry.

The thing is, I don't know how to make improvements other than to move them closer to the player. That said, in some cases I used these sprites and I did manage to improve things by about 30%.

In other cases I just built new indicators using my knowledge of 3dz editing. I added dull white "off" panel bulbs and bright red "on" panel bulbs to the X.tpc and then mapped an element on the Z.tpc that only exhibited that small spot on the X.tpc. By making piggyback elements with on and off action codes I was able to have lights on the panel flash on and off.

My most complicated use of this was on the Beaufighter panel ( since used in a number of other planes) where there are four lights for the various positions of the flaps. It's complicated because there needs to be an off and on light for each position otherwise the graphic would disappear when a different position is selected.

In other cases I made flip switches or rotational handles to display the position of landing gear and flaps.

And all the time you weren't far from my thoughts, hoping you'd return and do something I couldn't do.

And here you are. Thank God for aging bodies, is all I have to say.

Ray, can't tell you how pleased I was to see someone doing something with the cockpits, so no worries, you did a great job in making the view much better!

Unfortunately for me, I have quite a bit of knowledge about sprites. To get them to rotate is quite tedious, but easily done. The trick is getting the sizing right, they are created as raw files with no headers, then converted and if your settings are wrong, it's time for another cocktail cause you're gonna be here awhile!

Anyway, here is test number two, using a default P109Ex.tpc/bmp combo.



My plan is to do the default cockpits first. It will be a chore to then figure out which cockpit should go where, because people seemed to have mixed and matched over the years, using files for any of the three 109s for example, as the pick shows the blue around the gauges but the modded aircraft has the gray.

But that's the fun part, right??

Question.

Have you converted from the 30 slot naming convention to the 1.6 naming convention?

If not, get hold of MogProg which, though originally used to switch slot names in the old system, can be easily edited to work for the 1.6 system. I have the edited version if you need it.

If you have converted, you probably should take a look at at the cockpits in the latest 1.6 Aircraft_Inventory folder because I made some other changes.

One that comes to mind is the off center cockpit of the 109E that you've displayed. Someone before me moved the whole cockpit to the left and then shifted the gunsight back to the right to simulate the off center gunsight on the actual plane. That was good but they didn't move the internal prop elements on the Y.3dz.

I can understand why if they weren't 3dz mavens because you need to move the center point of those elements in the "parts" section of the 3dz. or the prop wobbles. It's a trial and error thing and it can take some time to get correct.

I fixed it though so the 1.6 version is correct.

You'll also see some of the animation mods I made on a number of the default planes. Just to get the juices follwing, as it were.

I've spent a lot of time looking through it, though I find the current system quite confusing. To be honest I'm not even sure if I have the newest version. However, for what I am doing right now it's easier to use the old system. I first need to develop the original cockpits, because they are by the far the most common. But also, I need to then manipulate the appropriate vcg and cpt file locations to map out the needles and sprites. They are in the 256x256 range, they now need to be in the 512 x512 range. I could in theory simply double the hex numbers, I'm sure jel could make a tool, but I am also moving all non gauge items off the x 3dz, and I am working on having the cockpit lights only work on the x 3dz so the gauges light properly. Ya know, just easy stuff, lol! We can convert the stuff later.

I just did a quick test with a 1024x1024 bmp/tpc combo. It worked - for about 5 seconds. Which means it will display, but there is a buffer or some such taking a dive. I couldn't get a screen shot to work. But, intriguing nonetheless!

When you first switch over from the 1.2* file format to the 1.6 format it seems confusing but then you have an "ah, ha!" moment and you realize what a big improvement it is.

Especially for modding.

Basically you have to wrap your head around the fact that 1.2* is a file name based system and 1.6 is a folder name system.

BTW, the MogProg program works both ways for TPC and 3dz files. The only manual name changes you need to make are the .CPT and VCG*.dat file.

Here's an update on the first hi resolution cockpit for EAW!

I was having problems getting sprites to work, but I have them showing up now, and in the correct size. I have also made two completely new sprites, for the landing gear and the P10 compass. They look really awesome in the Cockpit Editor, as well as Photoshop, but there is an issue with the palettes. Still trying to sort that out if any of the old hands have ideas on the palettes the sprites use now that the cockpit is a bmp?

Also, you will note that the clock (which is on a compass face, I know, it will be moves) has orange needles. I can change to other colors as well, any comments on that? Nearly all WWII gauges used a paint similar to glow in the dark white, but I like the visibility. It can be mixed up, as well. The oil pressure gauges (the vertical yellow ones) look pretty cool in orange.


The landing gear indicator lights showed up a nice bright red until I raised them, now they won't come back. They should be a bright green now. Getting there!

Cheers,

CJ

Looks good. I'm presently adding the Mosquito to the Russian Air Force and this would make a great addition.



Just one man's opinion but when in doubt I lean toward playability and away from historical accuracy.

I still have some work to do in resizing the faces, adjust placement, etc. Then fill the non gauge areas. The interesting thing I found is that the vertical gauge lines for the oil pressure can be as thick as I want. They are drawn like a line, but use the bytes for sprites for placement. If I could get that to happen for all the lines it would be no question. For orange needles, it's easy enough to change in the P****VIEW.CPT file, could provide an optional version too. Overall pretty happy, took a LOOOOONG time for me to find the key combo of lines to mod to get the correct size needles.

Cheers,

CJ

It's getting there! Almost ready for more cabin detail.

Needed a change of pace today, so i thought I would try something different. I took the original cockpit tpc, created by Moggy, I think, resized it to 512x512 pixels (standard is 256 x 256), and repainted the canopy frame rails. I added some screw detail, and came up with this:



Must admit, I'm pretty happy !

Here is a closeup from the same image, notice the fine detail on the screw head, also the much better variation in color. you can see a nearby frame rail still using a piece of the original rail.



Yep, I'm liking where this is going!

Comments are welcome! I see this thread has a thousand or so views, and only a couple comments, so don't be afraid to comment, good or bad!

If you are intrigued by this whole idea of modding, it's pretty easy, there are a ton of tools, and we could use new blood - or bring back some of the old - just let me know, we'll get you up and running!

Cheers,

CJ