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FS2004 Gray rectangle on wings

S

sfrenchie

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There is a Piper Cub in the seaport learning kit http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showpost.php?p=125067&postcount=4. The author mentions an issue with a gray rectangle on the wing and tail and indeed I am getting it.

I opened the model in MCX and noticed the rectangle corresponds to a missing texture "$pan1" with a dollar sign.
I created a test texture, named it "$pan1" and still MCX seems to not care about it, nor does FS.

I then converted the model to 3DS but Gmax announced "invalid format".

What's going on? Does that dollar sign have a special meaning to the FS world?

Thanks,
 
The $ prefix symbol is a special flag that tells FS to create a dynamic texture in memory. This is reserved exclusively for use in a virtual cockpit as a place to "display a gauge."

What many don't understand though is that it is entirely possible to display a "gauge" on the exterior part of a model. If you take a close look at the Ford Tri-Motor for example, you'll see fuel quantity "gauges" displayed on the engine nacelles...

I've used this technique myself to display a "wing light gauge" on the fuselage of my CJ1 and CII models.

The problem is occurring because the Cub is being used as an AI aircraft, there is of course no panel.cfg file, and the $pan1 is only created via the [VCockpit00] section of that file!

Hm, I read the note you're referring to during a ZipDive:
The Piper Cub has gray patches on its wings and tail covering the registration numbers;
Click to expand...
Well, they don't actually "cover the registration numbers" at all!

This tells me that these polygon "patches" are n_ named polygons, and were used to dynamically display the "N-numbers" as listed in the aircraft.cfg file's parameter. It sounds as though Bill & Lynn chose a different route to display the registration number in their Cub, since you state MCX reports the texture name as $pan1, which is definitely not the case with the default n_ poly name method!
 
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Thank you Bill for you precise explanations.

were used to dynamically display the "N-numbers" as listed in the aircraft.cfg file's parameter
Click to expand...

I am unaware of that entry and can't find one in the file you refer to. What should it look like?
 
Oh ok, well there is one in the file and yet it doesn't show on the aircraft even if I am the pilot.
 
sfrenchie said:
Oh ok, well there is one in the file and yet it doesn't show on the aircraft even if I am the pilot.
Click to expand...

As I said, it would appear that Bill and Lynn developed their own method which now doesn't work since AI a/c don't have a ..\panel folder, and even if they do, panel/gauges are never loaded in an AI a/c... ;)
 
Lesson learned: never assume anything.

I just checked the folder and indeed there are no panels. I had assumed there would be one. I just downloaded the original files so I'll see if they include panel...they sure will.
 
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