Lets talk Panels

[cletus_zuber]

Seeking help and advice regarding the panels in CFS3, mostly the add on planes from the various theatres. Stock planes have been mostly fixed with the "wide panel" add on posted here.
I have always flown with the panel up in CFS1 and 2, (cfs2 virtual panel with a modified throttle quadrant), I like to have gauges and find most of the CFS3 panels severely lacking.
I'm forgetting some, but he hurricanes, wildcat, corsair, p-40, some 109's, 110's and p-38's (pudgy from PTO) have good cfs1-2 style panels.

The Spitfires, p-51, p-47, 190, hellcat do not. (I will compromise on the Zeros and superimpose a couple HUD gauges over the machine guns).

The Vals, Kates, Stukas, Gladiator etc I haven't looked at much, as I'm not really a bomber or bi-plane pilot.

Moving head position back, (ctrl-enter) can help but its only temporary until you look out a side window or something. Some planes come with a helpful second view on f6 that will show the gauges, ok for normal flight but hard to do in combat. I think I saw some old threads about moving head position in the .xpd file but maybe I'm mistaken.

Questions:

Will Wide Panels work in these add-on planes? (I realize this is easy to try but I better ask before I mess up all my Spitfires)
Can a Hurricane panel for instance be swapped into a Spitfire? and what all would be involved?
Are there good panels out there already that I just haven't found, especially P-51, that could be swapped in?

I think this is why I didn't keep CFS3 very long when it first came out, because the panels were so crappy.

Thanks all in advance for help and suggestions!

 

[MajorMagee]

CFS3 doesn't have "panels" like CFS1 or CFS2. We have 3d cockpits that are matched in size and location to the external 3d model. Some cockpits are more detailed than others, but generally they have fairly good renditions of the original aircraft with working gauges and control animations. With the addition of AnKor's Shaders we have live shadows, and reflections, as well as dynamic reticles and lights.

View attachment Combat Flight Simulator 3 2020-12-24 11-56-40.mp4

Here's a description of the ViewUI file found in the AppData\Roaming\Microsoft folder where you can globally mag changes to the FOV in the cockpit.

https://sim-outhouse.org/sohforums/threads/projected-knowledge-base.40606/page-2#post-487527

FovScale - multiplier on the FovUp and FovDown specified in each vehicle's .xdp file.

If you are using AnKor's Shaders the External FOV settings are in the d3d8.ini file
; 0 - Use default (which is 60 degrees); 1...180 - override FOV for external views.
ExternalFOV=30

; Controls zoom increment/decrement steps. Valid values from 1 to 50 - 20 is the default value for WOFF.
ZoomInStep=20
ZoomOutStep=20

; Smooth zoom speed. Zoom still changes step-wise, but transition between steps is smooth. Range of values 0 to 10. Set to 0 to disable smooth zoom.
ZoomSpeed=5

Here are some links about the adjustments involved to "calibrate" the reticle sizes to your screen display.

Reticle Calibration Discussion
https://sim-outhouse.org/sohforums/threads/attention-all-skinners.91720/post-946956
https://sim-outhouse.org/sohforums/threads/attention-all-skinners.91720/post-957938

 

[hairyspin]

I think you’re meaning the 2-D panels, coded in XML, found in CFS2, 1 and FS9 and earlier. CFS3 doesn’t use them, can’t understand them. The panel or panels in a CFS3 cockpit are modelled, not coded, so you can only swap cockpits and at the risk of having external model details intruding. CFS3 really is different from all the rest in this, but we can model details down to 1mm size.

 

[MajorMagee]

The only aircraft I can think of that doesn't have working gauges is the F7F-3 with a flat panel image in a 3D cockpit..

 

[cletus_zuber]

I found what I was looking for, in the xdp's

<Station Name="Pilot" Type="pilot_station" View="0" FovUp="45" FovDown="30">

Trial and error on the numbers in bold has the desired effect.