Panel software

[brettt777]

The way the panel is setup in the FA-18 is a bit different than most planes. May I ask what software you guys used to make it?

[virtuali]

We wrote the panel.cfg manually with a text edit, because there are so few gauges, that it was very simple to made.

What makes the F/A-18 different than most planes around is that, since there's no 2D panel for it, all gauges that are mechanical in nature, like altimeter, fuel indicators, etc, basically everything except the glass MFDs and the radio stack, are not gauges to begin with: they are fully 3d animated parts of the VC which are controlled by the main C++ code of the panel. That's why they move so smoothly and don't have any jagged or pixelation effects.

And, there's no XML code inside, it's all pure C++, which explains why it has double the fps of similar (and with less complex avionics) products.

And, there are basically no 2D bitmaps inside the main gauge, because everything is in 3D and the glass gauges are GDi++, which explains why the .DLL it's so small, because it's just code, and it's dramatically optimized to be as tight as possible. There's no separate code for the 3 MFD and the HUD, it's just one generic program that can change its behaviour depending on where it's used, so there's no duplication of code whatsoever (C++ used as it should, with all the OOP techniques, it's vastly superior to XML in this area).

[brettt777]

What makes the F/A-18 different than most planes around is that, since there's no 2D panel for it, all gauges that are mechanical in nature, like altimeter, fuel indicators, etc, basically everything except the glass MFDs and the radio stack, are not gauges to begin with: they are fully 3d animated parts of the VC which are controlled by the main C++ code of the panel. That's why they move so smoothly and don't have any jagged or pixelation effects.

And, there's no XML code inside, it's all pure C++, which explains why it has double the fps of similar (and with less complex avionics) products.

And, there are basically no 2D bitmaps inside the main gauge, because everything is in 3D and the glass gauges are GDi++, which explains why the .DLL it's so small, because it's just code, and it's dramatically optimized to be as tight as possible. There's no separate code for the 3 MFD and the HUD, it's just one generic program that can change its behaviour depending on where it's used, so there's no duplication of code whatsoever (C++ used as it should, with all the OOP techniques, it's vastly superior to XML in this area).

So does that mean that any panel that uses a .dll file and no .xml is of this same type? DID ya'll do this so nobody could take it edit it and use it somewhere else or just because it works so much smoother?
Also, Since the MFD's are the only actual "gauges", everything else is part of the 3D model including the MFD function switches? I am just curious because in the .cfg file the only thing in there is pretty much the MFD's and UFC.

[virtuali]

So does that mean that any panel that uses a .dll file and no .xml is of this same type?

Not really, there are many airplanes made without any XML code, but still using the traditional methods of 2D bitmaps for mechanical instruments. I think it's probably just us (for the F/A-18) and RealAir, that only use real 3d for everything, including instrument needles.

DID ya'll do this so nobody could take it edit it and use it somewhere else or just because it works so much smoother?

Well, you can use the MFD in another panel...but no, we don't care a bit if people use the gauges in other panel or not, even less so, considering that we did the work for Microsoft, which I think is more than happy if people would create airplanes that required Acceleration Pack to run (like the Captain Sim F/A-18D).

The real motive is only because they are so much better.

Also, Since the MFD's are the only actual "gauges", everything else is part of the 3D model including the MFD function switches? I am just curious because in the .cfg file the only thing in there is pretty much the MFD's and UFC.

Yes, it's all 3d except for MFD, HUD and the radio stack.

[brettt777]

Well that's great if you don't mind as I have been trying to figure out how to do it, but wanted to get permission first. So if I wanted to use one of the MFD's in another plane, putting it in the plane wouldn't be hard to figure out. But how would one either move the function switches with it or create new ones? I could probably figure out how to create new ones but have no idea how to map them to the MFD's. They wouldn't be much good if you couldn't control them. The part I would really like to have is the AA radar. If I did get it to function in another plane, would the tracking feature work also?